Chương 13
Luis accepted his back pay without thanking Maya. Rosa thanked everyone except George during the morning meeting.
The management buyout remained the only viable proposal.
George began approaching rival companies for a higher offer, but several withdrew after reviewing the tax arrears and client disputes. One offered to purchase only the equipment and customer list, which would eliminate nearly every job.
George preferred that offer because it paid him more personally.
Maya learned of it from Calvin.
“He will liquidate to avoid selling to employees,” she told Mark.
They were walking through a grocery store, their first ordinary errand in days. Mark stood beside a display of canned tomatoes, comparing prices with unnecessary intensity.
“That sounds like him,” he said.
“Fourteen jobs disappear.”
“What can you do?”
“I can increase the management offer.”
“With what?”
“My guarantee.”
Mark placed a can back on the shelf.
“No.”
“I did not say personal cash.”
“You said your guarantee.”
“The bank may release part of it if I support the transition and the buyer assumes operations.”
“May.”
“I have a meeting tomorrow.”
He pushed the cart forward, then stopped beside pasta.
“You are still finding ways to pay for his choices.”
“I am trying to protect employees and limit my own exposure.”
“By staying attached to the company.”
“For a defined period.”
“Defined by whom?”
“The agreement.”
Mark laughed under his breath.
“What?”
“You say agreement like paper has never lied to you.”
Maya looked at the shoppers moving around them. A little girl begged her father for cereal shaped like marshmallows. An employee restocked soup.
“I will have independent counsel,” Maya said.
“You already have independent counsel.”
“And I will listen.”
“Unless someone needs insulin.”
“That is unfair.”
“Yes.”
He placed a box of pasta in the cart.
Maya followed him.
“I need you to understand that walking away entirely does not erase the guarantee.”
“I understand.”
“It could cost more and destroy the company.”
“I understand.”
“Then what are we arguing about?”
“Whether you are doing this because it is the best financial choice or because your father taught you that every collapsing thing is your test.”
Maya stopped.
Mark turned back.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Neither do I.”
They stood between shelves of pasta and canned sauce while strangers maneuvered carts around them.
Finally Mark said, “Then make the decision somewhere that is not inside his voice.”
“How?”
“Sleep. Eat. Ask Nia. Ask Samuel. Ask people who do not need you to be guilty.”
Maya looked at the cart.
“We forgot bread.”
“I know.”
“You passed it.”
“I was distracted by our argument.”
They went back for bread.
Nia negotiated a proposal in which Maya would not contribute new cash or extend her personal guarantee. Instead, the bank would cap her existing exposure if she cooperated with asset recovery and agreed to provide ninety days of unpaid financial-transition support, limited to ten hours a week.
Maya objected to unpaid work.
Nia smiled. “Good. You are learning.”
The buyer added a modest consulting fee.
Under the revised deal, Rosa, Luis, and Devon would receive minority ownership financed through future profits. The investment group would hold control for five years. George would receive less than under the liquidation offer but enough to satisfy part of his personal debt. Four positions would still be eliminated.
No proposal saved everyone.
That fact kept Maya awake.
One of the four positions belonged to a receptionist named Callie who had worked for the company since Maya was in high school. Callie was sixty-one and cared for a husband with Parkinson’s disease.
Maya asked Calvin whether another position could be found.
“Not without cutting production staff,” he said.
“What about part-time?”
“The buyer may consider three months of transition.”
“After that?”
“After that, she needs another job.”
Maya hated him for saying it plainly.
She hated herself more for briefly wishing he would disguise the answer.
George had until Friday to choose between the management sale and the equipment liquidation before the bank initiated enforcement.
On Thursday evening, Clara came to Mark’s apartment again.
This time she carried a cardboard box.
Maya let her in.
Clara placed the box on the kitchen table. Inside were printed messages, wedding invoices, and a velvet case containing her pearl earrings.
“What is this?”
“Everything Mom sent me about payments.”
Maya lifted one invoice. Helen had written, Don’t worry about Maya. Once payroll is in front of her she always gives in.
Another message said, Your sister likes being needed. Let her have this.
Maya sat down.
Clara remained standing.
“I told myself it was family money,” she said. “Dad’s company, your savings, Mom’s house. It all felt like one large place things came from.”
“It was not.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Clara looked toward Mark, who was making coffee at the counter.
“I sold the earrings,” she said.
“They are in the box.”
“Those are the wedding pair. I sold the diamond ones Mom gave me at the rehearsal dinner.”
Maya remembered them. Helen had described the diamonds as an heirloom. They had been purchased six weeks earlier.
“How much?”
“Twenty-one thousand after fees.”
“What did you do with it?”
“Transferred it to Nia’s trust account.”
Maya looked at Mark. He gave a small nod; Nia had told him earlier but apparently asked him not to interfere.
“Why?”
Clara’s mouth trembled.
“Eli says repayment is not the same as remorse.”
“He’s right.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
Clara flinched.
Maya pressed her hands against the table.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “No. I’m not sorry. I’m tired.”
“I know.”
Maya looked at her.
Clara gave a broken laugh. “That one I deserve.”
She sat across from Maya.
“I thought you enjoyed being the responsible one,” Clara said. “You always arrived with solutions. You made lists. You remembered birthdays. When Mom forgot things, you acted like it didn’t matter.”
“It mattered.”
“You never said.”
May you like
“What would have happened if I did?”
Clara picked at the edge of a label on the box.
