You have to send the notices somewhere.
So they did.
Every annual meeting notice, every consent form, every K-1 tax document for nine years went to 1140 Harrow Street, which is my parents’ house, which was my address of record when I enlisted at eighteen and which I never changed because I have not had a permanent address since.
And somebody signed for them.
And somebody signed as me — on shareholder consents, which is how three people with forty-three percent have been running a company that requires a majority for eleven different categories of decision.
Including, it turns out, an eleven-percent distribution in April.
A hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars, paid out to shareholders of record.
My share of that was thirty thousand, seven hundred and eighty dollars.
It went into an account at a credit union in my parents’ names.
Eleven days later, they made a down payment on a yacht.
I want to write the arithmetic out plainly, because for three days I could not make myself believe it and then I made myself write it on a legal pad, and it has been the clearest sentence in my life ever since.
My parents used my money to buy my sister a boat, and then told me they couldn’t spare five thousand dollars for my knee.
