Now there might be money.
The boys began arguing that the buyouts had undervalued their interests.
They said Robert had known more than they did about the terminal sale.
They suggested the releases had been rushed.
Mark claimed he had trusted his father to treat everyone fairly if circumstances changed.
Each new argument contradicted the last.
If Robert had been an incompetent failure, why had they trusted his future promises?
If the company had been worthless when they left, why were they suddenly claiming their surrendered shares had been undervalued?
If they believed the releases were unfair, why had neither challenged them until after Robert died?
I asked those questions calmly.
Their answers grew louder.
Mine did not.
Finally Lucas pushed his chair back.
“So what? You’re just going to keep everything?”
There it was.
Not Dad.
Not grief.
Everything.
I looked at both of them.
“The company owes millions of dollars,” I said.
“There is no everything yet.
Creditors get paid.
Employees are owed money.
Taxes have to be settled.
Lawyers have to finish what your father started.
You two seem to be the only people already dividing what might remain.”
Mark went quiet.
I continued.
“Your father did not leave me a treasure chest.
He left me records.
Records proving that the debt was more complicated than you told me.
Records proving you were paid when you chose to leave.
And records proving he was trying to finish a sale that might keep his estate from collapsing.”
Neither son met my eyes.
Then I told them what I had decided.
I would not interfere with the releases.
I would not pressure the estate attorney to invent a new share for either of them.
I would not pretend their agreements meant something different because the company might now have value.
And I would not use Robert’s death to punish them beyond what they had already chosen for themselves.
If they wanted family photographs, personal letters, childhood keepsakes, or things that belonged to their relationship with their father, I would preserve those for them.
But business ownership was not a childhood keepsake.
They had sold it.
Mark stared at the table.
Lucas stood at the window with his arms folded.
After a long time, Mark asked the question I had been waiting for.
“Did Dad hate us?”
My anger shifted then.
Not disappeared.
Shifted.
I thought of Robert writing, They left first.
I thought of the careful ledgers, the protected documents, the Ford hidden under its dusty tarp.
“No,” I said.
“If he hated you, he wouldn’t have paid you what you demanded when the company was already under pressure.
He was hurt.
There’s a difference.”
Lucas rubbed both hands over his face.
