Chapter 5 Eighty-Six Thousand Dollars
POV MARA QUINN
The lien notice sat between them like a third person with terrible manners.
Eighty-six thousand four hundred dollars.
Mara had seen the number before. Seeing it beside the bank balance made it worse.
"Forty-two thousand operating cash," she said.
Cole looked over the statement.
"Can't drain it."
"Agreed."
"Your grant estimate?"
"If we finish the workforce application, maybe sixty thousand. Reimbursement, not advance."
"So we need bridge money."
Mara removed her glasses.
"I can put in twenty."
Cole looked at her.
"No."
"Excuse me?"
"Not because you can't. Because Deke already used your money to keep this place standing."
"He didn't use it. I bought equity."
"Same cash."
Mara leaned back.
"Do not get protective with my finances. You forfeited that position in 2007."
Cole absorbed it.
"Fair."
"I hate when you say that."
"What should I say?"
"Nothing."
He nodded.
Infuriatingly mature.
They went through options.
Bank loan required collateral.
County grant required environmental clearance first.
Sale of the rear lot would satisfy the lien but kill the training program.
At noon, Tank brought in an old lockbox found under Deke's office desk.
Inside were thirty years of receipts, photographs, and handwritten ledgers.
Mara sorted while Cole called the bank.
At the bottom lay an envelope with her name on it.
MARA QUINN.
Deke's handwriting.
She opened it.
Inside was a single sheet.
If you're reading this, I failed to finish what I started. Don't let the boys turn the garage into a shrine. Make it useful. Rook owes you truth. I owe you more than paper can fix.
Mara read the last line twice.
Cole ended the call.
"What?"
She handed him the note.
He read it.
His mouth tightened.
"What did he mean?"
"I don't know."
Cole looked toward the closed office door.
"Deke kept things."
"Everybody keeps things."
"Not like him."
Mara folded the note.
"What did he keep from you?"
Cole did not answer immediately.
"Letters," he said.
"What letters?"
"When I first left, I wrote you three times."
Mara stared at him.
"No, you didn't."
"I did."
"I never got them."
He looked at the note in her hand.
"I know that now."
POV COLE MERCER
The first letter had been written in a motel in Memphis.
Cole remembered the pen because it leaked blue ink across his thumb.
He had written three pages to Mara.
No excuse.
No request.
Mostly confession and the cowardly hope that she might answer.
He gave the envelope to Deke when the club president drove through two days later.
Deke said he would make sure she got it.
The second letter went the same way.
The third came back six weeks later unopened, with Deke's handwriting across the front.
SHE'S DONE. LEAVE HER ALONE.
Cole had believed him because believing was easier than calling Mara and hearing it from her.
That was the truth he had lived with.
Now Mara sat across from him saying she never received any of them.
"Why didn't you mail them yourself?" she asked.
Cole looked down.
"Because I was ashamed."
"Why didn't you call?"
"Because I was afraid you'd answer."
Mara's laugh was quiet and furious.
"So Deke lied and you helped him by being a coward."
"Yes."
"Do not make his lie your absolution."
"I won't."
She stood.
"I need air."
Cole let her go.
Through the window, he watched her cross the rear lot toward the river path.
He did not follow.
Ten minutes later, Rowan came into the office.
"Mom okay?"
"No."
"What happened?"
Cole held up Deke's note.
"Something your grandfather should have said while he was alive."
Rowan read it.
Her face hardened.
"Deke wasn't my grandfather."
Cole heard the correction.
"Right."
"He acted like one sometimes."
"Sounds like him."
Rowan returned the note.
"What are you going to do?"
Cole looked at the grant paperwork.
"Finish the application. Find the money. Answer whatever your mother asks."
"That's not what I meant."
He met her eyes.
"I know."
Rowan waited.
Cole chose the answer that did not ask her to comfort him.
"I'm going to stop letting shame decide what I do next."
Outside, Mara stood by the river with her coat pulled tight around her.
Cole wanted to go to her.
He stayed in the office and worked.
For the first time in his life, staying back felt harder than leaving.
POV MARA QUINN
Mara read Cole's first copied letter that night.
He had not written beautifully.
He had written plainly.
I did it. You did not make me. I am sorry.
The sentence was dated nineteen years too late and written nineteen years too early.
Mara folded the copy.
She was not ready to read the second.