My Holiday Bonus Was a $5 Million IOU! I Quit and Their Company Collapsed novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Number

Hattie let him in and put him at the kitchen table, where he took up most of one side.

He set his coffee down and didn't drink it.

"I never got a letter," I said.

"I wrote one every January for three years." He opened a folder and slid three sheets across the oilcloth. "These are my copies."

They were handwritten, in dark blue ink.

I didn't pick them up.

"The first one says I think Sunday Table is the only cooking account that sounds like a person," he said. "The second asks if you'd come to Chicago and see the foundry. The third just says I'm still here, and the door is open."

"Where did you send them?"

"To Sjoberg Creative, marked for the creator."

Hattie made a small sound at the stove.

I turned.

She had her back to us and a wooden spoon in her fist.

"They came to the front desk," she said. "I put them on Constance's desk. She said anything for that account went to her, and she'd pass it on."

"Hattie."

"I know. I know what I did, honey. I thought she was passing them on." She turned around, and her eyes were wet. "She told me you'd answered them, and that you always said no."

I didn't say anything.

Ansel looked at Hattie, and then at me.

"Each time, I got a reply," he said. "The first year it was from your brother. 'Mara doesn't take meetings. She's shy, and I handle everything for her.' The second year, the same. The third year nobody answered at all, and I took that as the answer."

"Why take it as one?"

"Because I'd already been told twice, and I believed it."

He said it flatly, with nothing in his face.

"I thought, fine. She doesn't want to be reached, and I have no right to push. I renewed anyway because the videos were good, and I let that be the end of it."

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