Chapter 12 - GREG FINALLY SAID WHY HE THOUGHT HE DESERVED IT
Greg’s auto shop began failing.
Without access to my transfers, cash flow tightened.
Lenders reviewed questionable guarantees.
Vendors demanded payment.
He requested mediation over money he claimed I had “invested.”
My records showed no investment agreement.
Only transfers to Susan’s household account followed by unauthorized movement elsewhere.
During one proceeding, Greg finally lost his temper.
“You left!”
I stared at him.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it matters.”
“How?”
“I stayed here. I handled Mom. The house. Paige.”
“You handled Paige?”
His face changed.
Wrong wording.
He continued anyway.
“You got to go to Canada and make real money while I stayed in Detroit fixing everybody’s problems.”
“You opened a business.”
“With nothing.”
“So you used my money.”
“You had more.”
There it was.
Same belief as Susan.
If one family member has more, somebody else gets to determine how much they need.
Greg said:
“You were going to come back rich anyway.”
“No.”
“You were making six figures.”
“Before rent, travel, taxes, living costs.”
“You still had more than us.”
“That isn't consent.”
He looked genuinely confused.
Then he said something I finally understood.
“Dad would have done it.”
Our father, Raymond Cole, died nine years earlier.
He had always mixed family finances.
Loans without paperwork.
Cash passed between brothers.
Everyone owed everybody.
Susan had continued the culture.
Money was not owned.
It was available to whoever claimed the strongest emergency.
I had escaped that system geographically.
Then recreated it by sending money to my mother without boundaries strong enough to survive family entitlement.
Greg did not invent the belief.
He still acted on it.
May you like
Explanation.
Not absolution.
