Page 66 of Accidentally Mine
I’d met him only a handful of times, years before.My father was a construction man, through and through, and knew little about business.He’d partnered with Steve a few years in because he had no idea how to handle the marketing and financials and the actual business end of his company.So my father had dealt with the clients and the work, and Steve had become his behind-the-scenes man.
“Yes.”He let out an exasperated sigh.“Finally.”
I felt like he wanted me to apologize as he motioned me toward my father’s office.So I did.“I’m sorry.I’ve been very busy with everything, being that it was so unexpected,” I said as I followed him through the door.
I had to hold on to the doorjamb as the seat my father had occupied behind his paper-covered desk came into view.The old computer he’d never seemed to be able to figure out.The picture of my mother and me from the Christmas when I was five, and the one from my high school graduation.His World’s Best Dad mug, which I’d gotten him in elementary school, was still on the desk, the inner lip dotted dark with coffee stains.
Steve went right in and sat in my dad’s chair.I didn’t know why that made me sad, but it did.
“Sit down,” he said to me, when he realized I was still lingering in the doorway.
I tried not to stumble as I walked to the chair and sat, overwhelmed by memories of my childhood.
He laced his hands in front of him.“Now.I’m so sorry about your father, Rebecca.He was a great man.I’m sure I speak for many when I say I feel like I’ve lost not only a good business associate, but a good friend as well.”
Tears burned the backs of my eyes.“Thank you.”
“Now.Let’s get down to business,” he said, going through a stack of files on the desk.“As you can tell, your father didn’t have the best record-keeping system on earth.”
I bristled at the dig.“Which was why he hired you, right?”
He shook his head.“I handled the big-picture financials, but your father had an administrative assistant to handle the day-to-day accounting.Rather inept, I think.”
He was talking about Claire, an older woman who’d retired a few months ago.She’d been very sweet.Maybe not tech-savvy, but she seemed to run his business pretty well, and my father had always said nice things about her.
“I know about Claire.And I know what she did.I used to work here over the summers when I was in high school and college.Everything seemed to be in order.”
His lips stretched, but I could see the sarcasm inside the smile.“Well, do you think this is in order now?”
I looked around at the stacks of papers all over the place.Picked one up.It was an invoice from four years ago, and underneath it, an invoice for one from last month.Underneath that, a bill for the office’s electricity.Past due.
Holy crap.I scanned the rest of the place.Stood up and looked around.There were at least twenty piles scattered all over the cramped office, littering every available surface.All appeared to be stacked with no rhyme or reason.
“No.”I picked up a sheet of paper with an uncashed check from two years ago stapled on it.“Oh, my god.”
“Yes.It’s catastrophic in my eyes.”
I picked up another uncashed check.“I don’t understand.What happened?”
“Like I said, his admin for the past few years was a nice woman, but not very capable.And your father was a nice man.I urged him to let her go.But he refused.And now we’re in this debacle, which frankly, I’m not sure how to pull us out of.”
A sick feeling settled in my stomach.It would take months, maybe a year to sort all this out.That was time I didn’t have.But this was my dad’s baby.Besides me, this business was the only thing that mattered to him on this earth.I couldn’t just leave it.Maybe I could hire someone to scan the files and have them sent to me electronically so I could go over them from Chicago.
“Well, we need to get a handle on it before we decide whether to sell,” I said, taking a stack of the papers and attempting to sort through it.
“Honey,” Steve said gently, getting up and joining me, leaning close to me to take a look at the papers too.“You’ve had a shock.And you said you’re in a rush.Are you sure you should be doing this?”
“The business is still half mine,” I said, looking up at him.“Who else is going to do it?”
He shrugged and sat back down in my dad’s chair, like he owned the place.“Me.I own the other half, right?This is my bread and butter.”
“But…and I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but where were you while this was happening?”
“Like I said.I handled big-picture financials.From away.I was never into the day-to-day.That was your father’s business.”
“Oh.Right,” I said, gathering some of the papers together.It still didn’t sound right to me that he would allow things to get this bad and not address it until after my father’s death.“You know, I still think I ought to take some of this home and go through it myself.Just to get a handle on it.”
He threw up his hands.“You may only make it worse.And it’s crunch time.We have our lenders and creditors breathing down our back.I don’t think either of us is interested in running this business as your father has.So either we sell, or we liquidate.But I need to know what you want to do.Pretty much, yesterday.”
