Chapter 11 - The Investor Who Wanted to See the Walls
The first business day of January, Patrick Hale called my attorney. He represented a small investment group that had considered lending to the Juniper Room. He'd received Dad's correction and wanted to see whether Lauren's presentation had misrepresented other assets.
Mara arranged a meeting at her office with Patrick's attorney present. Ethan came with me. We weren't borrowers, investors, or owners of the Juniper Room; we were the people whose house had appeared in a pitch without permission. Mara made that clear before anyone opened a folder.
Patrick was in his fifties, with a careful voice and the exhausted posture of a man who'd discovered a promising project was made of cardboard. He slid the brochure across the table.
"We considered providing one hundred and sixty thousand dollars to complete the building," he said. "We didn't fund it. We requested proof that the temporary hosting arrangement was legitimate. Your father has now confirmed it wasn't."
"Did anyone visit our house?" I asked.
"No. The pictures were presented as approved by the owners."
"They're from the real-estate listing. We hadn't even moved in."
Patrick nodded. "We asked for a signed agreement. What came back was a typed letter and assurances from Diane. We didn't advance funds because those weren't enough."
I could have hated him for contemplating an investment in Lauren's business. Instead I felt grateful for the single question that had stopped him from lending against an imaginary promise.
"Were customers shown the same brochure?" Ethan asked.
Patrick's lawyer said they didn't know. Mara gave them copies of the customer-facing screenshot Monica had saved. The wording was similar but not identical. It was clear Lauren had reused a story about family property for several audiences. It was not yet clear who had approved every version.
"I didn't come to ask you for money," Patrick said. "I wanted you to know your home was being discussed as a commercial resource, and we are correcting our files."
"Please send confirmation," I said.
"You will have it today."
He kept his word. The confirmation arrived before lunch. It would not undo the website or the event contracts, but it eliminated another place where people might assume we had made an offer we never made.
Afterward, Ethan and I walked around the block because I didn't want to go straight home. It was cold enough that my breath clouded the scarf around my face.
"I thought once Mom showed up with a photographer, that would be the worst of it," I said.
"I thought so too."
"Now I keep wondering what else somebody has promised on our behalf."
"We'll answer the people who ask. We don't have to solve every imagined disaster before we eat lunch."
We bought sandwiches and sat in the car. I could see the top of our courthouse through the bare trees. My family had always treated a direct question as an insult. Patrick's group had asked for a signature, and a hundred and sixty thousand dollars had stayed in its own account. That was such an ordinary, powerful kind of refusal.
Before we left the parking area, Patrick's attorney emailed Mara the original pitch correspondence. A margin note on one page read Verify homeowner consent before any commitment. I kept looking at those six words. Nobody in our family had ever considered consent a required step if a favor sounded generous enough. Yet an investor we'd never met had written down the question and waited for an answer. I showed Ethan the note. "We should put that over our front door," I said. He shook his head. "People will think we're eccentric." "They already think that," I answered. We laughed, and the laughter carried me through the next phone call. I sent the note to Mara for the file, then put my phone away long enough to finish my sandwich. The house was still ours; that was a fact we could return to.
Monica called that afternoon. Rachel's ceremony was now booked at a small chapel. The reception would be at a restaurant with room for forty people. They'd cut the guest list, and some relatives were angry.
"Rachel says she'd rather have forty people who know where to show up than ninety who have to wait for Lauren to tell them where the building is," Monica said.
"That sounds like a good decision for Rachel."
"It's not the wedding she imagined. But she keeps saying her dad would've liked the restaurant's big windows. I think she's beginning to believe herself."
I told Monica I was glad. I didn't tell her she had to forgive my sister. I wasn't sure I ever could.
The executor's office for Grandma June's estate returned my inquiry in the evening. I'd asked for the distribution statement because Lauren claimed she'd been told June had left her nothing. The attorney, Ellen Parker, said both of us were beneficiaries and that Lauren could request her own records. With proper authorization, she could explain what had been distributed to me; she couldn't hand over my sister's private account history just because I was curious.
"I understand," I said. "Can you tell me whether the will named her?"
"Yes. It did. The document is available through the probate record, and your sister received formal notice when the estate closed."
I was surprised. Lauren had been twenty-nine then. She wasn't a confused child when June died. Had she forgotten, lied, or simply never read the papers? I didn't know. For once, I let an unanswered question stay unanswered until I could ask the right person.
That night, Lily came into our bedroom carrying a drawing of the new house. She'd added an enormous yellow sun above the roof and a blue figure standing by the front door.
"Who's that?" I asked.
"Me. I'm checking if people knock."
"What happens if they don't?"
"I get you or Daddy. Because I'm five."
Ethan laughed so hard he had to put the drawing down. Lily laughed too, delighted that the adults finally understood the obvious.
May you like
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. Lauren had sent an image of a bank statement with one transaction circled: PAYMENT TO MERCER CUSTOM WOODWORK — $21,600.
Her message read: Mom told me this was Dad helping my business. The payment came from Bright Table's old account. I didn't know the pantry was paying him.
