“Start with actual statements. Every balance, interest rate, minimum payment, and overdue bill. Find a qualified debt counselor. Talk to a lawyer about your options if you need to.”
Mom made a disapproving sound. “She doesn’t need strangers knowing her business.”
“She needs someone who knows how to help.”
“You work with numbers.”
“I work with software hospitals use. That doesn’t make me a debt expert.”
It was a familiar family trick, promoting my competence only when it could be used against me. When I had moved away, the job was something I did on a computer. When money was needed, I became an all-purpose financial institution.
Paige asked if I could at least look at the statements with her. I said yes, tomorrow morning, if she wanted. Mom’s shoulders eased, and I understood she heard a crack in the wall.
“Looking,” I said, “doesn’t mean paying.”
After dinner, Dad carried their bags into the guest room. Paige took the couch. I gave her a quilt and asked whether she wanted tea. She shook her head, then caught my sleeve.
“I didn’t know Mom would lead with selling.”
“Did you know that was the plan?”
She held the quilt tighter. “Yes.”
I went to bed without answering. The city lights made pale bars across my ceiling. I could hear my parents talking through the wall, not the words, only the cadence of disappointment. I was thirty-one years old and lying in a home I paid for, frightened that my mother was angry in the next room.
The absurdity did not make the feeling go away.
At seven, I found Paige at the kitchen island with her laptop open. She had lined up statements in uneven piles. Mom was still asleep. Dad had gone downstairs for coffee after discovering my machine made only one cup at a time.
“I don’t know where to start,” Paige said.
I pulled up a blank spreadsheet. “With what you know for sure.”
Some statements were months old. One account had been transferred, and Paige had counted both the old balance and the collection notice. Another loan had fees she had not included. We did not produce a magical lower number. Once we separated estimates from current balances, she still owed nearly $87,000.
The boutique inventory was in a rented storage unit. She had continued paying for it because admitting the stock would not sell meant admitting the business was over. Some items were seasonal. Some had been returned damaged. She had priced everything as though one excellent month could rescue the next six.
“I had orders,” she said, showing me photographs of shipping bags stacked in her apartment. “It wasn’t all pretend.”
“I know.”
She looked surprised.
“It can have been real and still be over.”
Her eyes filled. For a moment, I saw my sister rather than the bill my family had delivered. She had worked hard too, but effort did not guarantee a business would survive. The difference was that she had been taught someone would catch her if it didn’t.
I asked about rent. She was two months behind. About the SUV, whose payment and insurance swallowed most of what she earned doing temporary office work. About the storage unit, where another payment was due next week.
“Can you sell some stock?”
“For practically nothing.”
“Is keeping it costing less?”
She rubbed her face. Mom entered before she answered, took one look at the spreadsheet, and sat beside her.
“Now you see what we’re dealing with.”
