What Goes Around

WHAT GOES AROUND

“We don’t have time for this!”

I looked at my husband. We were standing in our shared office at work. “When will we have time for this, then?” I asked, gritting my teeth.

I was trying to be calm. I really, really was. But it wasn’t easy. How would you react if someone told you that they had bankrupted the family business, and were moving themselves—not me and not the kids, just him—to the other side of the country?

“Bianca, I have a very tight schedule. I have timestamps I have to meet. I don’t have time to have you dissect my choices.”

“Reg,” I said, “this involves me as much as it does you. I deserve an explanation.”

Reg sighed heavily and looked at his watch. “Fine. You have ten minutes. What do you want to know?”

“Why.”

“Why what?” he said, acting as if I was the one being obtuse.  

“First, why do you think you can destroy the family business? It’s my business as well as yours. We are fifty-fifty partners, and you need my signature to move forward with any type of sale.

He shrugged. “We have debt.”

My heart started pounding. “The business does not have any debt,” I said, calmly.

“Well, I took out some loans to cover expenses, and the bank is demanding repayment. I can’t pay. So we have to sell the business. Either that or you lose it.”

There were so many things wrong with this. But before I lost my bananas, I needed to get all of the details. “Who are you selling the business to?”

“I’m not selling it to anyone. You are. You are the one responsible for the debt now. You won’t be able to pay it off without a new partner, or a total liquidation.” My stomach dropped. It was worse—much worse—than I thought.

“How much?”

He looked up at the ceiling “One point seven five million.”

My mouth went dry. “What?” I squeaked. “Did you say one million, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars? Almost two million dollars?”

“Yup.” 

“What happened to the money, Reg? The money you borrowed? Where’d it go?”

He shrugged his shoulders, looking for all the world as an innocent. “Crypto. It was a sure thing. I invested it in crypto.” Another shrug. “It did well, so I invested more, then the whole bubble burst. I lost it all.”

I couldn’t believe the audacity. No shame. No remorse. “What am I supposed to do now?” I asked.

Another shrug. I swear, if he didn’t stop shrugging at me, I was going to break his scapula with a baseball bat so he couldn’t shrug. “I don’t really care. Borrow some of your own money. Hit up your parents.” He looked directly at me. “It’s not my problem anymore.”

“Why are you moving across the country?”

He looked at me as if I was stupid. “Because I will never be completely free if I stay here. I need a fresh start.”

“What about the kids?” We had two daughters, Pen who was sixteen, and Sara who was eighteen, and supposedly heading off to university in the fall. “What about the girls’ education funds?”

“Gone. I forged your signature on them. You’ll have to pay the penalty at tax time.” Another frigging shrug.

“Is there someone else?”

He looked at the ceiling and paused. That was all I needed to know that the icing on my cake of woe was another woman.  

“It doesn’t matter. Regardless if there is another woman, you and I are finished. We’ve been over for years. You’re the only one who believed that this marriage had a chance.” He looked at his watch. “Time’s up.”

And with that, he walked out of the office, leaving his entire life behind him, and my life in shambles.

So, I got to work. I went home and called our business lawyer. Taking money out of the company without my consent was, technically criminal. But, my lawyer pointed out, he had no assets, so there was nothing to sue for. Maybe jail time, but I was probably not going to get my money back.

But, I didn’t believe that he had nothing. I believed that he had just stripped the money out of the company and banked it. He very well might have invested in crypto, but I doubted that he lost everything, like he said. He wasn’t that stupid.

So, I hired two more professionals—a private detective to investigate Reg, and a forensic accountant, to follow the money.  

And as another example of the exemplar human being he was, Reg had left telling the girls to me. So I did.  

That evening, after school, and before dinner, I called them down to the kitchen. We sat around the table as I told them what their father had done. I was quite surprised—they were not as upset as I thought they would be. 

“How are you, Mom?” Pen asked.

I looked at my girls. All their lives I’ve tried not to lie to them. I decided to keep with that credo. “I’m really, really pissed with your dad. I know I shouldn’t bad-talk him to you, but you need to know the truth.” So I told them—the money, the probable sale, the other woman, the moving across the country. Everything.

“And, he emptied your education funds—both of them.”

They looked stunned. “The jerk! When?” asked Sara.

I took a deep breath. “Just before he told me everything, so this afternoon. We were both the account holders, and there were no controls on who could withdraw the money. I’m sorry.”

Sara put her hands on her hips. “You have nothing to be sorry for!” she said, steaming. “He’s the one who betrayed us all.”

I told them about trying to track him and our assets down. “The forensic accountant is our best bet to track the money. Hopefully, the private investigator will be able to find out what he’s doing.”

Pen just shook her head. “What kind of father does this?” She turned on her heels and walked back to her room.

Sara looked at me, more seriously than someone her age should have to. “Mom, are we going to be okay?”

I smiled at her. “Probably. I own the house outright. Your dad has no claim on it, and it’s paid off. Plus, I still have the business. So, I’m sure we’ll be okay.”  

I really wasn’t sure I was going to be okay. I was almost two million dollars in debt, and the bank wanted the money back.

“I don’t have to go to school in September. I can defer. I can work, then reapply. It’s no big deal.”

It was definitely a big deal. “Sara! You are registered, your classes are set. You’re set to go to start school in two weeks. Your room and meal plan are paid for the first semester. We’re fine. You’re not deferring!” Because she had the scholarships, I would not have to pay as much. Her tuition and books were covered. We could do it. I was sure. If not, then student loans. What’s another thirty thousand more in debt when looking at the mountain I owed?

The next morning, the bank called to inform me that Reg had tried to take a second mortgage out on the house yesterday. He’d signed the papers and forged my signature. But, the loan officer said that I needed to be present in the office. Apparently, he left and then brought another woman in claiming to be me. The bank manager knows me, so she told the loan officer not to okay the mortgage. They left before she could confront Reg and the mystery woman.

What a psychopath. He had no remorse. No guilt. It was all about him.  

I called his mom to see if she knew what Reg was up to. She would probably blame me. Everything was always my fault. But, he’d bailed on is daughters, and she loved those girls with all her heart. So, I wasn’t sure how she’d take the news.  

To my surprise she was as mad as I had ever heard her. “He told me he needed one hundred thousand dollars for the business—just a short-term bridge loan because you needed new trucks. He said you suggested that he ask me for the money.”

We owned a logistics company. We didn’t have trucks. We have computers, and employees and three warehouses for specialized inventory. No trucks.

“Did you give it to him?”

There was a pause. “Yes. Last week. He said you would pay me back in ninety days.”

Of course—I would pay her back. Not him. He’d been planning this for a while. “Pearl, I knew nothing about the loan. He borrowed money from the bank and left me with almost two million dollars in debt, and the bank asking questions. He tried to take a second mortgage out on the house.” My turn to pause. “And, he drained the girls’ education funds. Sara starts school in two weeks.”

“I did not raise that boy to steal,” she whispered.

That was true, but she also hadn’t told him no very often, either. She acted as if the sun shone out of his butt every time he bent over. Consequently, he had always assumed that the rest of the universe rotated around him, and that he deserved it all. 

I sat at the kitchen table late into the night. The girls had been particularly quiet at dinner and had gone to their rooms early. I sat with my laptop, checking on our accounts. But I knew, even before I opened a single one—all our money was gone. Savings, chequing, petty cash for the business—all had a zero balance.

Around two in the morning, Pen came down carrying her own laptop. “I found it,” she said.

I was confused. “Found what?” I asked.

“The money.”  

“The money?”

“Yeah, every cent, and more. Dad hid it in an account in The Bahamas.”

“How did you—”

“Don’t ask,” she said.  

I had to ask. “Is this legal?”

“Don’t ask,” she said again. “There’s just over two and a half million dollars in his account.”

Two point five million dollars?!?! Where’d he get the extra three-quarters of a million? He’d taken me and the kids for about one point seven five, his mom for one hundred thousand.  

Knowing Reg, there were probably other people who were going to show up sooner or later telling me that he owed them money, and because he wasn’t around, the debt was now mine.

Pen looked at me, serious. “Do you want the money back?”

“This can’t be legal, Pen.” I looked at her. She said nothing. “What if you get caught?”

“I won’t get caught.”

I looked at her. 

“I’m really good. I know what I’m doing. I do work for companies on their computer systems to test their security.”

“You do what?” This was just a day of surprises for me.

“I’m part of a group of high schoolers and university students who work for small companies, testing their security. We break into their computers and tell them where their weaknesses are. No one knows us, they just hire our company.”

“And you get paid for this?”

“Yeah. Quite well.” 

I nodded. Maybe I could hit up Pen for a loan, I said to myself, half kidding.

“So, Mom, do you want me to take back the money?”

I did. I really, really did. But, morally, what was I teaching her?

“He stole from us, so, technically, the money is ours,” a voice said behind me.

I turned to see Sara standing at the bottom of the stairs.

“But, doesn’t that make us just as bad as him?” I asked my daughters.

“You’re kidding, right?” said Sara. “He cleaned us out. And he didn’t give a crap. All he thought about was himself. If we don’t take the money, then we’re going to lose the business.” She looked at me. “So, what’s it going to be? Are you going to be a moral but broke mother of two, or are your going to take back what was stolen, with interest?”

Pen piped up. “If someone stole your car, and you found it, would you just let them have it? Or would you get it back?”

She had a point.

“Plus, if Dad is at all smart—and I’m not saying that’s the case—he’s going to move the money soon so that we can’t track it and get it back.” She looked at me. “I’m surprised that he’s left it in an unnumbered account this long. If he’d moved it to a numbered account it would have taken me a lot longer to find it.”

I thought about it. But morally …

“Look,” said Sara, “He shouldn’t get to live large on our money because he thinks he deserves it.” She looked at Pen. “Just take it and put it in an account that he won’t be able to find. Even if he figures out what happened, he won’t be able to get it back. So do it.” She looked at me, then back at her sister. “We can ‘gift’ the money to Mom.”

Who were these children? I was a little afraid that they were becoming younger versions of Reg.

“Done,” said Pen.

I looked at her. “What did you do?”

“Transferred all the money into an off-shore account that can’t be accessed unless you have the routing number and the account number. It should be safe—no names, just numbers.”

I was afraid to ask. Sara saw it on my face. “All of it is now gone from Dad’s account. We are now solvent.”

“But, it’s stealing,” I protested.

“Is it though?” asked Sara. “Aren’t we just recovering assets? Our assets?”

“It can’t be legal,” I said, not really wanting to hear the answer.  

“More legal than bankrupting your family because you can,” said Pen.

The next morning my phone exploded. Reg, of course. I answered.

“What have you done with my money!” he screamed, not bothering to say hello.

“Pardon?” I said. But I had heard him.

“What have you done with my money!”

“What money?” I asked.

“The money I stole—” Silence, rearranging his words. “My money. My accounts were drained last night.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I said. 

“All my money is gone! You stole my money?”

“The money you stole from me and your daughters? That money?”

“You better give that back, or you’re going to be sorry!” And he slammed the phone down before I could say anything more.

“He sounded pissed.” It was Pen, standing in my bedroom doorway.

I nodded. “He was.” I paused. “But then again, I was pissed yesterday, too, and he didn’t give me back our money.”

Pen smiled. “Now you get it.”