Page 40 of The Space He Left
Mrs. Patterson was kinder but no less disappointed. "Jack, dear, we all make mistakes. But when those mistakes affect other people's livelihoods and homes, they become more serious. I hope you can learn from this and become the man your father raised you to be."
Hanging up, I stared at the next name: Tom Brennan. He’d played poker with my dad. A phone call felt like a coward’s way out.
"Pete," I said, putting the phone down. "I'm going to see Tom Brennan in person."
Pete looked up from his desk, a flicker of surprise in his eyes. "He already signed with Roarke. There's nothing to salvage. Just call, apologise and move on."
"This isn't about salvaging the contract," I said. "He deserves an apology to his face."
Pete just grunted, a sound that might have been approval, and went back to his paperwork.
I found Tom at Brew & Bean, sitting at a small table by the window. He looked up as I approached, and his welcoming expression immediately hardened into a mask of cold neutrality.
"Tom," I said quietly. "Thank you for agreeing to see me."
"I've got five minutes, Jack," he said, not gesturing for me to sit. "What is it?"
I remained standing. "I'm not here to ask for the contract back. I'm here to apologize. To you, to your wife. What I did was unprofessional and inexcusable."
He folded his newspaper with deliberate precision. "You're right. It was."
"I let personal issues destroy my judgment," I continued, forcing myself to meet his gaze. "I broke my commitments and damaged the trust you placed in my company. There's no excuse for it."
Tom was silent for a long moment. "Your father," he said finally, his voice low. "John Henderson built that company on one thing: his word." He leaned forward. "I gave you that contract because I believed in Henderson Construction's reputation. Your father built that reputation on reliability and integrity. What you did these past few months... that's not the Henderson name I grew up respecting. For two months, Jack, you demonstrated a complete lack of character. I look at you, and I don't see the man who can be trusted to build an addition onto my home, where my grandkids will sleep. We need reliablecontractors, not someone who might disappear when personal drama comes up."
The quiet finality of his judgment was devastating.
"I understand," I said. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry in person."
"Apology accepted, Jack." He picked up his newspaper, a clear dismissal. "For your wife and new baby's sake, I hope you figure out how to be the man your father raised."
I walked out of the coffee shop, the bell on the door chiming my retreat. The public, personal rebuke solidified the truth: I hadn’t just lost contracts. I had lost a good name.
Back at the office, the rest of the calls were a blur of the same polite refusals. By lunchtime, the damage was clear. Not a single client was willing to reconsider. All of them wished me well personally, but none of them trusted Henderson Construction anymore. The damage to our reputation was complete.
"They're getting nervous," he said, gesturing to a teetering stack of unpaid invoices on his desk. "The lumber yard put a hold on our account. We're thirty days past due with the electricians."
"I can cover it," I said immediately. "Tell me the total, I'll write a check from my personal account right now. Money isn't the problem."
Pete held up a hand, stopping me. "It's not that simple, Jack. It's not just about the money. It's about the process. We have dozens of invoices that were never processed, change orders you never signed off on, and client payments that were never deposited. The paperwork is a catastrophe. Injecting cash is a band-aid. We need to untangle this mess and prove to our suppliers that we're a reliable business again, not just a guy with a checkbook."
He was right. This mess wasn't a cash flow issue; it was a management failure. A failure of my responsibility. For twomonths, I had let this pile up, undone, while I'd been spending time with Madison.
"Okay," I said, my voice quiet. "Where do I start?"
"Westart here," Pete said, tapping the invoice pile. "And we don't go home until a check has been issued for every supplier invoice, and every incoming check has been deposited."
As we worked through the mountain of paperwork, Pete's earlier comment about Roarke Construction echoed in my head. "Roarke has been telling people we're going out of business," I said, remembering what Tom Brennan had told me.
"He's not wrong," Pete said without looking up from his desk. "A business that doesn't pay its bills is a business that's going under. He's actively trying to poach our remaining clients."
"Can we sue him for that?"
"For what? Telling people the truth? Wearein danger of going out of business. He's just being opportunistic about it."
The rest of the afternoon was a grueling marathon of administrative catch-up. We sat side-by-side at my father's old desk, cross-referencing contracts with change orders, writing checks to placate overdue suppliers, and processing a backlog of incoming client payments. It was tedious, painstaking work. By the time we dealt with the last check, my hand ached from signing my name, but for the first time all day, I felt a flicker of forward momentum.
"You should know," Pete said as we were closing up. "I've had three job offers this week. Roarke, Bradley Construction, and that new company out of the city."
