Page 38 of The Space He Left
Marital Residence:You are not to enter the marital residence located in Willowbrook for any reason without the express prior written consent of our client, transmitted via this office.
Parenting Time:Our client is willing to facilitate parenting time with your daughter twice (2) per week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. These visits are to be supervised by your parents and are to take place at their residence. You are not to remove the child from their residence during these visits.
Be advised that any deviation from these stipulations, without prior written consent from our client, will be considered a material breach of this arrangement. Should such a breach occur, our client will instruct us to file a petition for the dissolution of your marriage immediately and seek sole legal and physical custody of your daughter.
Please govern yourself accordingly.
Sincerely,
Halloway, Finch & Associates
cc: Mrs. Harper Rose Henderson
Chapter 13
Jack
Iarrived at the office at 6 AM, an hour before Pete usually got there, hoping to assess the damage in private. But Pete's truck was already in the parking lot, and through the windows I could see him at his desk, surrounded by stacks of papers that looked ominous even from a distance.
He looked up when I walked in, his weathered face showing none of the warmth I was used to seeing. Pete had worked for my father for fifteen years before I took over, and had been like a second father to me since Dad moved to Florida when he retired. Now he looked at me like I was a stranger.
"Morning," I said.
"Jack." He gestured to the chair across from his desk. "Time for a long overdue talk."
I sat down, feeling like a schoolboy called to the principal's office. Pete opened a folder and spread its contents across the desk between us. Contracts, letters, email printouts. The paper trail of my failures. I'd fallen asleep after reading through mostof this last night, after Pete dropped a similar-looking folder off. He was right when he'd said it was bad.
"The Miller job," Pete said, pointing to a formal letter. "They canceled yesterday after I saw you. Said they can't work with a company that doesn't honor its commitments."
I picked up the letter, reading Mrs. Miller's carefully worded explanation. *After repeated missed meetings and a lack of communication from Jack, we have lost confidence in Henderson Construction's ability to complete our project in a timely and professional manner.*
"The Brennan contract," Pete continued, sliding another letter across the desk. "Also canceled. Found out this morning they hired Roarke Construction."
"Roarke?" Roarke Construction was our biggest competitor, run by a man who'd been trying to steal our clients for years.
"The Patterson renovation. The Williams addition. The new build on Maple Street." Pete kept sliding papers across the desk. "All gone, Jack. All of them cited the same reasons: missed appointments, poor communication, unreliable service."
I stared at the growing pile of cancellation letters, each one representing thousands of dollars in lost revenue, months of work that had evaporated while I'd been with Madison.
"How many total?"
"Seven contracts canceled. Three more clients have called to express concerns about their projects. Two are considering canceling if they don't see immediate improvement." Pete leaned back in his chair. "Jack, we're looking at a loss of nearly five hundred thousand dollars in contracted work."
The number hit me hard. Five hundred thousand dollars. The business my father had built over thirty years, the reputation he'd carefully cultivated in this community, was destroyed in two months of my negligence.
"The crew?" I asked, dreading the answer.
"We need to lay off Mick and Tommy. Not enough work to keep them busy," Pete said, his voice flat, but I could hear the disappointment underneath. "If we lose any more contracts, we'll have to let go of Jake and Chris as well."
"What about the current jobs? The Moye and Johnson projects?"
"Behind schedule on all of them. The Moye job is three weeks late because you weren't there to approve the electrical changes. The Johnson addition is stalled because you missed the inspector's visit." Pete gestured to a pile of invoices. "The delays mean our payment schedule is shot. We don't have the cash flow to keep a full crew."
I thought about all the times my phone had rung while I was with Madison, all the calls I'd ignored or dismissed as less important than her latest crisis. Every missed call had been a small betrayal of the trust these clients had placed in Henderson Construction.
Not to mention the crew. Mick had been with us for five years. Tommy had just bought his first house. They were about to lose their jobs because of me.
"No," I said, the word coming out quiet but firm. "We're not laying anyone off."
