“You do?”
“Ethan told me.”
I ran my fingers along the wooden cabinet.
Vanessa hesitated.
“I was wondering something.”
“What?”
“When we move out…”
She stopped.
“Yes?”
“Would you teach me?”
I looked at her.
“To sew?”
She nodded.
“My grandmother used to make clothes.”
There was no performance in her face.
No strategy.
Just a question.
“We’ll see,” I said.
She nodded.
“That’s fair.”
On the twelfth day, something else happened.
Ethan came home before dinner carrying a file box.
He put it on the kitchen table.
“What’s that?”
“Company records.”
“Why are they here?”
“I found something.”
His tone made me sit down.
He opened the box.
Inside were invoices, contracts, and bank records.
“I’ve been going through everything.”
“As you should.”
He pulled out a folder.
“This is from the first year.”
I recognized my handwriting on the tab.
STARTUP FUNDING.
“What about it?”
“You remember when you transferred the original two hundred and eighty thousand?”
“Of course.”
“You said Dad had always wanted me to start my own company.”
“Yes.”
Ethan looked uneasy.
“Where did the money actually come from?”
I frowned.
“My retirement account.”
“All of it?”
“Most of it.”
“That’s what I thought.”
He slid a document across the table.
It was old.
A photocopy.
At the top was Daniel’s name.
I stopped breathing for a moment.
“Where did you get this?”
“In the original incorporation file.”
I picked it up.
It was a letter.
Not legal.
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