Chapter 6 - The Records We Could No Longer Ignore
Patricia's conference room was smaller than I expected for a meeting that might change how I remembered my mother. My father arrived ten minutes early carrying a cardboard box, which he placed beside his chair without opening. He looked at me, then at Patricia, as though he were still hoping one of us would suggest postponing the conversation.
“Before we begin,” Patricia said, “I want to be clear about the purpose of this meeting. We're establishing what the records show, not deciding anyone's guilt. If we discover evidence of misconduct, we'll document it and recommend the appropriate next steps.”
My father nodded. His hands remained on the box.
Patricia laid out the original invoice for the eighty-six-thousand-dollar payment, the bank records obtained through Rowan House's authorized review, and the copies Denise had found in the archive. The signature beneath the invoice resembled my mother's, but the date raised a question. According to her medical records and the notes my father had kept, she had been hospitalized that week and had not visited the office.
“Could she have signed it beforehand?” Patricia asked.
“She could have,” my father replied. “Your mother signed documents in batches sometimes. I don't remember this one.”
“Then why did you approve the payment?”
He stared at the page. “I believed it was legitimate.”
“Based on what?”
“The logistics company had worked with us before.”
Patricia opened another file. The company had received a smaller payment months earlier for genuine work, but the eighty-six-thousand-dollar invoice covered services that had never appeared on any event schedule. The registered address belonged to a property my father had owned, and the company had dissolved shortly after receiving the money.
My father's face drained of color.
“I didn't know that,” he said.
Patricia explained that the records showed the payment had been divided among three accounts. One belonged to the logistics company. Another had received money from several businesses associated with Rowan House. The third was linked to an account Madeline had used during the final months of her design business. That connection did not establish that she had known where the money originated, but it meant she would need to provide records and answer questions.
I looked at my father. “Did Mom know about these transfers?”
“I don't know.”
“You were the one who approved the payment.”
“I told you, I thought it was legitimate.”
“And when did you discover the company was dissolved?”
He rubbed his palms against his trousers. “After your mother died, I found some discrepancies. I intended to investigate them.”
“Why didn't you?”
He finally opened the cardboard box. Inside were folders, envelopes, and handwritten notes, all arranged with the untidy care of someone who had gathered papers in a hurry and then avoided looking at them again.
“Because I was afraid,” he said.
The admission settled over the table. For once, he didn't follow it with an explanation about the company's survival or the pressure he had been under. He simply sat there, looking at the documents that had waited for him to find the courage to examine them.
Patricia asked him to explain the note he'd written on the back of one envelope. It contained my mother's name, the words private advance, and a date from several weeks before the disputed payment.
My father swallowed. “Your mother was asking questions about some of our accounts. She thought someone had used the company to move money without properly recording the work. She wanted me to stop approving payments until we understood what was happening.”
“Did you stop?” I asked.
“For a while.”
“And then?”
He looked at the box. “Then she became sicker, and I was trying to keep the business running. I thought I could fix the records afterward.”
“Did you tell her about the eighty-six thousand dollars?”
“No.”
The answer hurt more than the amount. My mother had spent her final months worrying about a company she loved, while my father had allowed her to believe she could still trust the records he was responsible for maintaining.
Patricia asked whether he had ever transferred company money into his personal accounts. He said he had received reimbursements for legitimate expenses but could not account for every payment without reviewing the files. She instructed him to provide the remaining statements and advised Rowan House to have an independent professional determine whether any funds needed to be recovered.
I expected to feel vindicated. Instead, I felt tired in a way sleep wouldn't fix.
After Patricia adjourned the meeting, my father asked me to stay. I agreed, provided the door remained open and Patricia was free to return if needed.
“I didn't mean for any of this to happen,” he said.
“I believe you may not have intended the whole thing. But you made choices, Dad. You kept approving payments without understanding them, then let me believe I had to marry Adrian to save the company.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what? The truth?”
He looked down.
I had spent years believing my father's weakness was that he expected too much from me. Now I understood that part of the damage came from his expectation that I would absorb the consequences of his decisions without asking how they had been made.
“I need you to step away from approving payments until the audit is complete,” I said. “The board can decide your role after it has the findings. I'm not asking for you to be punished before we know what happened, but I won't let you control the records.”
His jaw tightened. “You're my daughter.”
“Yes. That's why this hurts. It doesn't make the company's money yours to explain away.”
He eventually agreed to cooperate, though he did not apologize. I left the meeting knowing that our relationship had changed in a way neither of us could reverse with a single conversation.
When I returned home, Adrian was in the kitchen, reading the newspaper beside a cup of coffee. He put it down when he saw me.
“How did it go?”
“The payment wasn't supported by legitimate work records. Dad approved it, but he says he didn't know the company was being used that way. The money reached an account Madeline used, though we still don't know what she understood.”
“And your mother?”
“We don't know whether she signed the invoice before she was hospitalized. We don't know whether she discovered the full arrangement.” I set my bag down. “But Dad knew she had concerns, and he didn't tell her everything.”
Adrian listened without interrupting. When I finished, he asked whether I wanted advice or simply company. The question was small, but it showed me that he was beginning to understand the difference between helping me and directing me.
“Company,” I said.
He moved his coffee aside and made room for me at the island. We sat without talking for several minutes, the quiet no longer requiring either of us to pretend everything was fine.
Then I remembered the old agreement my mother had kept in the archive. If she had suspected that money was being moved through Rowan House, there might be more in those records than a disputed invoice.
“I want to go through her correspondence again,” I said. “Not because I think it will prove something dramatic. Because I want to know what she actually knew.”
Adrian nodded. “I'll help if you want me to.”
“I do. But the records stay with Patricia, and we don't decide what they mean before she reviews them.”
May you like
“Agreed.”
For the first time, our cooperation felt like something we were building together rather than something he had arranged for me. The next morning, we would return to the archive, where my mother's final business letters might finally separate the truth she had discovered from the fears my family had carried ever since.
