“But it’s true, so.” She turned her cup. “You know what I thought it was going to be? I thought you’d tell me it was Russell’s fault. He took the loans, he pledged the assets, he built the thing on debt — which is all true, by the way.

My union rep said it for two years. Vaughn was going to fail.”

“It probably was.”

“So what’s the difference?” she said. “That’s what I’ve been chewing for nine years. If it was going to fall anyway, what did your family actually do?”

“We chose the date,” I said. “That’s all. We chose the date and it was three weeks before an offering that might have raised enough to cover payroll for another year, and we did it in sixty hours on a schedule set by my daughter’s head.”

Odalys Ferrante nodded slowly.