Chapter 7 - ERIC FINALLY OPENED THE BOOKS
The business did not collapse.
It came close.
Eric had two choices.
Find another person willing to inject money.
Or confront why the company needed injections.
For once, nobody volunteered.
Diane did not have the money.
Mark did not.
Eric’s father had died years earlier.
The bank wanted financial improvement, not another explanation.
So Eric hired a restructuring accountant named Samir Patel.
I knew because Samir called me.
With Eric’s written authorization.
“I’m trying to understand historical owner and related-party funding.”
I sent records.
My $42,000 loan.
$31,000 additional funding.
Household transfers that appeared to flow into the business.
The guarantee.
Samir asked:
“Were these intended as gifts?”
“No.”
“Documented loans?”
“The first forty-two was. The rest is mixed.”
“Understood.”
He did not invent certainty.
Good.
Three weeks later, Eric sent me an email.
Subject:
You were right about some things.
I almost deleted it.
Then opened.
He wrote:
Samir says our pricing has been wrong for years.
I kept reading.
Mercer Homeworks had underbid jobs to win contracts.
Then made up shortages with change orders that did not always materialize.
Eric kept too many vehicles financed.
Allowed customers to delay final payments.
Gave Mark irregular work without clear labor-cost tracking.
Took owner distributions during profitable-looking months without preserving enough working capital.
And whenever the cash hole opened—
I filled it.
Eric wrote:
I thought the company was profitable because money always appeared when we needed it.
I stared at that sentence.
Money always appeared.
Like groceries.
Insurance.
Property taxes.
Dental bills.
Mortgage rescues.
Not because families magically generate resources.
Because I generated them.
He continued:
I told myself you helped because you believed in me.
I did.
Eventually I stopped noticing it was help.
There.
May you like
That was the marriage too.
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