Chapter 15 - The Signature Dad Forgot
George produced a photocopy.
A memo.
Arthur Henderson’s signature.
Acknowledging a proposed warehouse transfer.
I stared at Dad.
“Is that yours?”
He read it.
“Yes.”
George smiled.
“Tell him.”
Dad sat down.
“I approved a review.”
“You approved the transfer,” George said.
“No.”
“The paper says acknowledged.”
“Not approved.”
George laughed.
“You knew.”
Dad looked at me.
“I knew the pension trustees were restructuring assets. I did not know the appraisal was false.”
“Convenient.”
Dad did not defend.
She did.
The signature was real.
The context mattered.
But the damage was done.
Dad had known something.
Not everything.
Still more than he remembered.
He looked at me.
“You didn’t remember?”
“No.”
“Or didn’t want to?”
That hurt him.
Good.
Truth should.
He answered:
“I don’t know.”
George leaned forward.
“There. Your hero is human.”
I looked at him.
“He never told me he wasn’t.”
George’s smile disappeared.
Dad said:
George blinked.
“That’s it?”
“What do you want?”
“Fight.”
“I am.”
“No, you’re surrendering.”
Dad shook his head.
“Accountability is not surrender.”
George stood.
“You always do this.”
“Do what?”
“Make the rest of us look dirty because you refuse to hide your own dirt.”
Dad stared.
Maybe that was the whole feud.
Not money.
Not patents.
Shame.
George wanted Dad corrupted enough to justify himself.
Dad’s phone rang.
Rebecca.
The final warehouse transfer passed two days after Dad’s memo.
Arthur Henderson was absent from the vote.
George cast the deciding vote.
May you like
And the official appraisal had been replaced overnight.
By someone using George’s trustee credentials.
