Chapter 5 - Simon looked at the share agreement in my hands and then at me.
“No.”
One word.
Quiet.
Certain.
I wanted to believe it.
“That took you a long time to say.”
“Because I was trying to decide whether answering only your question would be another form of hiding something.”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
“Simon.”
He nodded.
“I know.”
I folded my arms.
“Then don’t hide anything.”
He pulled out the chair across from me.
“I did not know you owned shares.”
“But?”
“But six weeks ago, when I found your mother’s first letter, I suspected my grandmother had left your family something.”
“What?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Money?”
“Possibly.”
“Shares?”
“I considered it.”
There it was.
The truth rarely arrived cleanly.
It came mixed with exactly enough disappointment to hurt.
“So when you married me, you knew I might have some financial connection to your company.”
“Yes.”
Dad started to speak.
“Abby—”
I raised my hand.
“Please.”
He stopped.
I looked at Simon.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I convinced myself uncertainty made disclosure unnecessary.”
“That sounds like lawyer language.”
“It sounds worse when spoken aloud.”
“Good.”
“I also believed that if I told you, you might think I was using your father’s debt to gain access to whatever your mother had left.”
I stared at him.
“And hiding it was supposed to prevent that?”
“No.”
“Then what was it supposed to do?”
He looked tired.
“Let me solve everything before you had to carry it.”
The answer made me angrier than an excuse would have.
“You don’t get to decide what I can carry.”
“I know that now.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because every decision I made to protect you from uncertainty created more uncertainty.”
Silence filled the bank room.
Then Dad spoke softly.
“I did the same thing.”
I looked at him.
He stared at the table.
“Not the same circumstances,” he continued, “but the same mistake.”
His voice was unsteady.
“I hid money problems because I thought I could repair them before you knew.
I decided what you should know.
I decided what you could handle.”
Simon didn’t interrupt.
Dad looked at me.
“And your mother kept that account secret from me because she was worried about my pride.”
A sad smile touched his face.
“She was probably right.”
Nobody laughed.
But somehow the honesty made the room feel less heavy.
Rebecca tapped the share agreement.
“Before this becomes a family therapy session inside a bank vault, perhaps we should establish what this actually means.”
Daniel nodded.
“That would be useful.”
Over the next two hours, we learned that my mother’s forty-two thousand dollars in shares had become much more complicated.
And much more valuable.
Because Wexler Maritime remained privately held, the exact value required an independent appraisal.
But the voting rights were clear.
My mother’s shares represented just under six percent of the company.
That didn’t sound like much.
Until Daniel explained the board structure.
Simon controlled forty-eight percent.
Two cousins and several small family trusts controlled another forty-six.
The remaining six belonged to me.
Without them, no faction had guaranteed majority control.
With them, one side could.
I sat back.
“So everyone is going to want something from me.”
Daniel smiled grimly.
“Almost certainly.”
“I hate this already.”
Simon leaned forward.
“You don’t owe me your vote.”
“You need it.”
“That does not mean I’m entitled to it.”
“What happens if I vote against you?”
“Then I live with the outcome.”
“Even if you lose the company?”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
I believed him.
That mattered.
We left the bank separately.
I needed space.
For the next three days, I stayed at our family home.
Not because I was ending the marriage.
Because I needed to know what I thought when Simon wasn’t standing nearby being infuriatingly reasonable.
Tommy found me Sunday morning making cinnamon rolls.
“You’re mad at him?”
Children had terrifying instincts.
“I’m thinking.”
“That means yes.”
I smiled.
“Sometimes adults can care about someone and still need time to understand something.”
Tommy sprinkled flour on the counter.
“Did he lie?”
“Not exactly.”
“That sounds worse.”
I laughed.
“When did you become eighty?”
He shrugged.
“Mrs.
Russo says I have an old soul.”
Rose wandered into the kitchen wearing mismatched socks.
“Simon has better cereal.”
“Traitor.”
“He has the chocolate kind.”
I pulled her into a hug.
Whatever happened with Simon, I would never make the children responsible for it.
That afternoon, Dad asked me to sit with him on the porch.
He had shaved.
That shouldn’t have been significant.
But after three years of watching him slowly surrender pieces of himself, it was.
“I went to a meeting yesterday,” he said.
“What meeting?”
“Gamblers Anonymous.”
I looked at him.
He kept his eyes on the street.
“I should have gone a long time ago.”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“I called the counselor Simon’s financial office recommended.”
I stiffened.
“He recommended someone?”
“Daniel did.”
“When?”
“The morning after the wedding.”
I hadn’t known.
Dad finally looked at me.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me because I attended one meeting.”
“Good.”
“I’m not asking you to trust me yet either.”
Something inside me softened.
“That’s good too.”
“I just wanted you to know I’m going.”
We sat quietly.
Then Dad said, “The house isn’t yours to save anymore.”
I turned.
“What?”
“You married him because of me.”
“I married him because Tommy and Rose needed stability.”
“And because I put you in that position.”
He swallowed.
“I’m selling the refrigeration business.”
“That’s your livelihood.”
“It’s also where I borrowed against invoices, missed payments, and kept pretending I could fix everything.”
“What will you do?”
“Work for someone else.”
My father, who had owned his own business for twenty-two years, said it without self-pity.
“Start smaller,” he continued.
“Earn a paycheck.
Come home.
Go to meetings.
Be their father.”
I felt tears sting my eyes.
Not because everything was repaired.
Because for the first time, he wasn’t promising to repair everything.
He was promising to show up.
On Monday, Simon called.
“I’d like to send you something.”
“What?”
“The board proposal.”
“Why?”
“Because your shares matter.”
I expected pressure.
Instead, he emailed me two files.
His plan.
And the opposing plan.
Both complete.
No commentary.
No highlighted sections.
No message telling me which one to choose.
I read them after the children went to bed.
Simon’s plan would keep the waterfront facilities operating, invest in automation gradually, and preserve most existing jobs while expanding logistics services.
The competing plan would sell two waterfront properties, outsource significant operations, and generate a larger short-term return for shareholders.
Neither plan was evil.
That surprised me.
One prioritized continuity and long-term operations.
The other prioritized liquidity and efficiency.
For the first time, I understood that Simon’s enemies were not necessarily villains.
They simply wanted something different.
I spent Tuesday speaking with employees.
Not executives.
Workers.
A dispatcher named Carla had been with Wexler Maritime for nineteen years.
A mechanic named Luis had sent two daughters to college while working there.
A younger manager named Priya told me the company desperately needed modernization.
“Simon knows that,” she said.
“But sometimes he moves too carefully because he’s afraid change means abandoning people.”
That sounded like him.
Contracts.
Control.
Protection.
I began to understand his weakness.
Simon did not struggle to care.
He struggled to trust people with the consequences of caring.
Wednesday night, I returned to the Society Hill house.
Mrs.
Alvarez opened the door.
She looked at my suitcase.
“Good.”
“That’s all?”
“You want parade?”
“No.”
“Then good.”
Simon was in the kitchen.
He stood when I entered.
“You came back.”
“For tonight.”
“Okay.”
He did not approach me.
I appreciated that too.
“I read both plans.”
He nodded.
“And?”
“I have questions.”
“I expected that.”
We talked for three hours.
Not about marriage.
About shipping.
Workers.
Debt.
Real estate.
Shareholder obligations.
Modernization.
He never once asked how I intended to vote.
Near midnight, I closed the last folder.
“Why didn’t you send me only your proposal?”
“Because that would make your vote less informed.”
“You need my vote.”
“Yes.”
“And you still sent me the argument against you.”
“Yes.”
I studied him.
“You’re very inconvenient.”
“So I’ve been told.”
I looked down at my wedding ring.
“Simon.”
“Yes?”
“If we hadn’t found those shares, would you still have wanted to stay married for the twelve months?”
His expression changed.
“Yes.”
“Because of the board requirement.”
“At first.”
My heart beat harder.
“And now?”
He stood by the kitchen island, suddenly looking less comfortable than he had during discussions involving millions of dollars.
“Now I like having you here.”
“That’s romantic.”
“I’m not finished.”
“Sorry.”
“I like hearing you argue with Rebecca.”
“Everyone likes that.”
“I like that Rose leaves crayons in places where crayons should never be.”
“She does that.”
“I like Tommy asking questions I don’t know how to answer.”
He paused.
“I like coming home and wondering whether you’ll be in the kitchen complaining about my coffee.”
“Your coffee is terrible.”
“It is expensive.”
“That doesn’t make it good.”
He smiled.
Then the smile disappeared.
“And I like you.”
The simplicity of it caught me off guard.
“No contract language?”
“I’m trying something new.”
I stepped closer.
“I like you too.”
He exhaled.
“But.”
His eyes narrowed.
“There’s a but.”
“There is.”
“I knew it.”
I tried not to smile.
“I can forgive someone for making the wrong choice.
I can’t build a life with someone who keeps deciding what truths I’m allowed to know.”
“I understand.”
“If there is something difficult, I want the difficult thing.”
“Even when I think I can fix it first?”
“Especially then.”
He nodded slowly.
“Agreed.”
“No adding it to a contract.”
“That was exactly what I was thinking.”
“I know.”
That time we both laughed.
The board meeting happened Friday.
I wore my mother’s small gold earrings from the safe-deposit box.
Simon wore the navy suit Rebecca insisted made him look less like he was attending a funeral.
Around the long conference table sat twelve people whose last names had appeared in family documents for decades.
May you like
Some welcomed me.
Some evaluated me.
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