The Loan File Opened On A Lawyer's Plain Desk

Mara Bell read Lorraine's bill without changing her face.

Then she placed it beside the loan agreement, as if setting a cracked plate beside a sound one.

"Did you ever agree this was a gift?"

"No."

"Did you forgive any balance?"

"No."

"Good. Let's work with what you signed."

Her office had no grand shelves or leather chairs. A radiator clicked beneath the window. I liked that. I needed someone who could keep a room warm without making a speech about it.

Mara had prepared the loan fourteen months earlier. She turned to the page I remembered best.

Lorraine's company had pledged its large electric kiln and its customer receivables, including future ones, as security. The kiln's serial number appeared on an attached sheet. Lorraine had signed for the company and had personally guaranteed repayment.

"You hold a security interest," Mara said. "You don't own everything because she's rude. We enforce the agreement because payments are missing."

"I know."

I knew it now with a sharp, clean feeling. At the showroom, Lorraine had offered me a mop. In this room, I had a place in the records.

Mara pulled up the financing statement filed with Colorado when the loan began. The company name matched its formation papers. The filing covered the same equipment and accounts.

I remembered paying that filing fee. Lorraine had called it another little waste.

"Ten payments totaled $15,000," Mara said. "That leaves $63,000 in principal. Four missed installments mean $6,000 is overdue. Your contract gives her fifteen days after written notice to cure."

"If she pays the six?"

"The loan continues. You don't get to change that because you want an apology."

"I want my money and my work back."

She nodded.

We prepared the notice. It listed dates, amounts, and the account where payment belonged. It gave the exact deadline. It said that failure to cure would let me demand the remaining balance and pursue the pledged property through lawful steps.

There was no sentence about the bucket.

Before sending the notice, Mara asked me to check the missed dates against the actual bank deposits once more. I found a payment for a pottery order between two installments. We marked it separately. I wanted every dollar counted, including any dollar that might help Lorraine.

I almost asked for one.

Instead, I signed.

Mara also sent a separate request for my unsold consignment pieces. That agreement let me recall them on seven days' notice. My bowls were stock I owned. The kiln was collateral. Keeping those things straight made me feel less lost.

Owen came to the studio that evening carrying soup in a pot.

"She wants us for dinner Sunday."

"Us, or an apology?"

He set the pot on a folded towel.

"She thinks you gave the money because we're family."

I pulled out the payment list.

"Why did she make ten loan payments?"

He read the dates.

Through the window, I could see cottonwood fluff caught against the fence. It looked soft until the wind pressed it hard into the wire. I waited while he checked each line. For years, I had filled every pause between him and his mother. This one belonged to him.

"I didn't handle that."

"You saw the agreement. You checked the kiln's serial number for the attachment."

"I remember."

"Then stop saying she thinks. Tell me what you know."

He rubbed his face. His nails were short and clean, except for a white line of kiln wash along one cuticle.

"I know she signed it."

That was the first true thing he had said since the showroom.

We ate the soup. It tasted mostly of pepper. I let him stay, but I did not tell him everything was fine.

During the next week, I packed my recalled work at the showroom with a clerk watching. I matched each piece to its delivery sheet. Lorraine stayed in her office.

One bowl had a tiny chip in its rim. I noted that too.

"You really keep every slip?" the clerk asked.

"Clay shrinks. Numbers shouldn't."

She smiled without lifting her eyes.

Nine days after the notice arrived, Lorraine called.

"Your lawyer is charging you to attack your own family."

"You have six days left to bring the loan current."

"I could tell people what you are."

"You already did."

I hung up before my voice could shake.

The deadline passed with no payment. Mara sent the demand for the $63,000 balance and filed the civil complaint. I paid her $2,400 retainer from my separate business account. Revenge, I learned, had invoices of its own.

On the following Monday, a kiln mover I knew called about shelf clearances.

"You still work over at Lorraine's place?"

"Why?"

"I've got a quote request. Big electric kiln. They want it lifted Friday."

I asked for the serial number on his request. He read it from the page.

It matched my attachment.

Then he added, "They say the lender already signed a release."