We Signed The Exit Terms And Rolled Into Another Shop

Trevor wanted his money first.

Ruth wanted the city's money back where it belonged.

Those two wants met across a table on Friday morning.

Our accountant, Paul Avery, had brought bank statements and a list of company bills. He had found no receipt behind the $6,200 transfer.

“Then call it an advance against my share,” Trevor said.

“There may not be that much to distribute,” Paul said. “And this payment was needed for an open job.”

Trevor pushed the statements away.

“I won't hand over my whole design account.”

“We asked for the company files,” Ruth said. “You can export them without giving us your password.”

He kept refusing. I had heard enough.

“We can finish the map,” I said. “Record the refusal. Keep our right to claim added costs. Don't let him sell us back our deadline.”

Ruth revised the agreement while we waited.

Trevor would return the full $6,200 before the agreement took effect. He would resign as manager, stop speaking for Harborline, and correct his retirement claim to everyone who had received it.

He would also pay $2,800 toward my legal and accounting costs within thirty days. If he withheld files after another written request, any claim over the added expense would remain open.

I would finish the city job through Harborline, under Paul's review. We would then close the company, pay its debts, and divide the net balance under our sixty-forty agreement.

My presses would leave under a signed equipment release.

I gave Harborline fresh written permission to use them at the new address until the map was accepted. The earlier use agreement had ended when Trevor tried to sell them. This permission had a firm end date and allowed no sale or pledge.

Paul attached it behind Schedule B.

“You two certainly like attachments,” Trevor said.

“The first one would have saved us this meeting,” I said.

“So you get to keep printing,” Trevor said.

“That was always my plan.”

He stared at me for a long time.

Then he opened his banking app.

Paul waited until the bank confirmed the returned funds. We signed only after that. The full $9,600 went into a separate project account with me as the authorized manager and Paul checking the ledger.

There was no handshake.

On Monday, Trevor's correction reached Mara, the guests from his party, and the city purchasing office.

It said I had not retired. It said the presses were my personal property and had been removed from the sale proposal.

Esme read it twice.

“Shorter than his announcement,” she said. “Much better type.”

I signed the new room's lease in my own name. A licensed electrician checked the power. Our insurer approved the equipment list. Mrs. Alvarez gave us a written end date for the old lease.

Lena approved Harborline's move and my role as project contact in a contract amendment. The company name on the city order stayed the same.

Only then did I book the riggers.

The move cost me $2,400. It came from my savings. Paul kept it out of the city job account because I was moving my own property.

On Tuesday, rain struck the open loading door while the crew worked.

I wanted to help with every strap.

“Your job is to tell us where it goes,” the crew chief said. “Mine is to get it there.”

So I stood back.

One press rolled out. Then the next. Then the last, its flywheel wrapped and tied.

Trevor watched from the office door.

For the first time, his new studio looked the way his ownership papers said it should: without my presses.

Jun carried the type drawers. Esme carried the job folder in a lidded box against her chest.

“Sacred text?” I asked.

“Worse. Revised specifications.”

At the new room, I offered them paid work through the map delivery and jobs in my new shop afterward. Neither had to answer that day.

Jun looked at the light over the stone table.

“Same hourly rate?”

“Eighteen dollars. With regular reviews.”

“And the names of people who did the work go on the job record?” Esme asked.

“Every time.”

They both stayed.

I put their letters of employment into separate envelopes with copies for them. Esme checked the pay dates before she signed. Jun asked about paid training time, and I wrote the answer into both letters. I wanted their work here to begin with terms they could read, keep, and question.

We set the stone near the window. The room smelled of damp coats, fresh soap, and old machine oil. Through a gap in the clouds, the hills across the water showed dark and clear.

I laid the rule down and tapped three times.

Esme pinned our full-size map proof above the table. A neighborhood reviewer had returned it that morning, and we hadn't opened her folded note during the move.

Jun opened it now.

“Lionel.”

He held up a red-marked corner of the map.

Across our featured walking route, the reviewer had written: PEDESTRIAN CONNECTION CLOSED—PLEASE CHECK BEFORE PRINTING.