Paying three hundred thousand dollars of debt before being ordered out of the house
The red ink on the demand letter from Broad Street Savings had smeared across Marcus’s thumb. It was the third notice in nine days, this one warning of an immediate freeze on his business line of credit for seventy-four thousand dollars. He laid the paper on our mattress, right beside the blue leather binder that held the original deed to our Elmwood Avenue home.
“We just need to clear this first block,” Marcus said, his voice rising with that familiar, rapid pitch he used on prospective clients. He was rotating his gold signet ring round and round.
I straightened the leather strap of my wristwatch, keeping my eyes on the neat columns of his company’s outstanding debts. “A joint signature on a new consolidation loan means my personal assets are in the pool, Marcus. It means this house is in the pool.”
“I just need you to stand with me on this, Clare, because we are a team.”
He did not look at me when he said it, choosing instead to stack the late notices into a neat, white tower.
At seven the next morning, the sun had barely cleared the oaks on Elmwood Avenue when I asked for the business tax returns. Marcus was already at the mahogany dining table, his laptop closed, a half-empty mug of black coffee between his hands.
“The corporate filing is separate, Clare,” he said. He did not look up. “It is standard intellectual property protection. James and I agreed to keep the raw returns confidential until the merger is finalized.”
“I am restructuring three hundred thousand dollars of liabilities,” I said. “I do not work in the dark, Marcus. Not even for you.”
He stood up so fast his chair scraped against the hardwood. “Everything you actually need to see is in the green leather ledger. I will bring it from the Cary Street office tonight.”
He left his coffee on the table, still steaming.
By noon, I was sitting at my own desk in the Cary Street consulting office, staring at the digital cash-flow projections Marcus had emailed me three weeks ago. On my right sat a fresh blue folder containing his company’s bank statements from the last six months, which I had retrieved using our joint account credentials.
