More financial worries

With Izzy only handing over the one page that she had found, it didn’t take you all long to read through the contents.

The header came from a regional bank and was addressed to your father, giving him the news that his application for a loan for ‘home improvement’ was currently in review. There weren’t any figures on the document but the address was listed as this current house so you assumed it was being used as collateral and the date showed that it was from a few weeks ago.

“He’d said he’d paid off the house a while back but he never mentioned anything about this…” Izzy mumbled to herself as you passed the paper back to her.

“I don’t know the full story but it backs up our idea that he’s in need of some money. If he’s trying to convince my Mom to sell then maybe that was a backup plan in case this didn’t work out? I also don’t know why he needs the money…” you said, trying to make sense of what you had seen.

“I hate to say it but… you don’t think he’s involved in anything do you?” Grace asked, getting an immediate shake of her head from Izzy and you were shortly behind.

“He’s not that kind of guy. Sure he’s an idiot but he’s too much of a coward to do something that risky. If he needs money then it’s probably something legitimate” Izzy commented, thinking on the same lines as you had.

You scanned the rest of the documents on the desk while you tried to come up with a suitable reason but all you could see were more work related documents, car and travel insurance with what looked to be some car rental fliers. All with the same business logo on them.

This was a moment where you wanted your improved intelligence to somehow kick in but even with your upgrades, there was still some information that was missing that stopped you from putting the pieces together.

You straightened out everything again and returned it to the drawer when you believed you had looked at everything and Izzy handed you the loan application last before you closed it.

The four of you stood in the room as you all continued thinking but you could see this wasn’t going anywhere.

“Shall we go back downstairs?” you suggested, knowing it was probably best to let everyone sit down and talk about this together.

“...Yeah that sounds good, I’ll go check on Jack” Izzy replied, shaking off her thoughts and motioning for everyone to follow her out of the room.

Nobody had touched much aside from the desk but you did your best to make it look exactly as it had before when you left the room. Izzy continued to go and see Jack while you, Emma and Grace went downstairs, giving you a brief moment to talk amongst yourselves in the kitchen.

“What do you both think of all this?” you asked, hoping to get Grace and Emma’s unbiased opinion on what had been found.

“There’s obviously something up with your father but with Izzy’s reaction, I don’t think she has any better ideas than we do” Emma replied, not able to connect the dots either.

“Yeah I don’t think she’s hiding anything from us after seeing that. Maybe she’ll be more open now though?” Grace questioned, thinking about this being in your favour.

“Maybe but, I don’t think there’s a point in getting her to agree with us while she’s angry if she could change her mind by the time we are back home. I’d rather we know for certain that she wants to help given the consequences for her are a lot harsher than they would be for us” you replied, silence settling over the two of them with your answer.

You had all sat back down at the table with you opposite the two of them. Grace still looked hung up on your response but Emma gave you a smile as she was in agreement. Her leg briefly brushed up against yours as that was the only casual touch she could give you at the moment while you sat facing each other.

Izzy came back a few moments later and had a baby monitor in hand, sitting down next to you without Jack with her.

“It looks like he settled down after all that fuss we gave him.” she said, looking at you and giving you a pat on the leg before turning back to the table.

“So… Any thoughts on explaining this in a way that doesn’t make my blood boil?” Izzy continued, letting out a long sigh and sinking into her seat when she admitted that.

“Sorry…I don’t think we have any good ideas” Grace replied, looking apologetically towards Izzy.

“I’m the most removed from this so I guess I’m as impartial as we are gonna get in this room unless we bring down Jack” Emma said, trying to lighten the mood for a moment before she started to go over what you all knew.

“We know John is trying to get some sum of money. He tried with Mary and it looks like he is trying here as well. We know he might not have gotten a promotion based on what Izzy has said. What we don’t know is why but maybe we don’t need to know at the moment. We just need to figure out how this could affect everyone and what we could do to stop it” Emma explained, stopping you from getting caught up with what reasons your father could have for doing this.

“Well, I guess the good thing about us not being married is that the debt won’t go to me but if he’s successful in getting the loan and doesn’t pay it back then they will take the house” Izzy said, explaining what her worst case scenario would be.

“And do you have other family to stay with?” Emma asked, trying to stay impartial but you could see she didn’t like playing the role in this situation.

“I do but they live a few states away” Izzy confirmed.

“Okay and Max?” Emma said, handing off to you.

“He asked Mom to sell the house so I guess that’s the worst case scenario. She seemed against it but if it was to happen… I think Mom would be hit the hardest. Me, Sarah and Lucy would be fine going to college but Lucy would probably never forgive her. Plus Mom wouldn’t have a place to stay if my father is just in it to get the money…” you said, running through a scenario you would never let happen.

“She’d stay with me” Grace added immediately.

“And Mom would accept eventually but I don’t think she would recover. She’d feel like a burden” You grimly replied.

The mood at the table darkened even further which seemed to be the opposite of Emma’s intentions, making her a bit flustered that her plan had gone like this until she spoke up again.

“Uh. Ah right! So those are the problems. Bad problems. So now, what can we actually do to stop it?” Emma asked.

Author's note: Happy holidays everyone!