The Day I Stopped Holding This Family Together Chapter 18

The Day I Stopped Holding This Family Together Chapter 18: The Firm Begins to Fall
By Friday, two of Cade’s three primary investors had pulled out.
I learned about it from Priya, who learned about it from Neil, who learned about it from a junior partner who was already shopping his resume on LinkedIn.
By Saturday, the Austin Business Journal ran a small piece on the website’s third tier: *Lawson & Associates Faces Investor Exodus, Sources Cite Operational Concerns.*
By Sunday, a longer piece on a tech-industry blog: *The Quiet Architect: Who Really Built Lawson & Associates?* It quoted my podcast. It quoted three unnamed former employees. It quoted a junior associate who said, on the record, that Cade had not been able to find his own laundry detergent.
By Monday morning, the third investor had pulled out.
By Monday afternoon, Cade was at my apartment door.
I saw him on the building security camera. He was wearing a suit but he had not shaved. He looked like a man who had not slept since Tuesday.
I let him stand in the hallway for a long time before I opened the door.
I did not invite him in. I stood in the doorway with my arms crossed.
“What.”
“Can I come in.”
“No.”
“Sienna.”
“Theo is here. He’s doing homework. He doesn’t want to see you.”
Cade flinched.
“I know. I called the school. The counselor told me he doesn’t want unsupervised contact right now.”
“Good. Then you understand.”
“I came to ask you to call off the dogs.”
“What dogs.”
“Ryker is buying my investors. Your podcast cost me the Anderson account this morning. There’s a CPS investigator coming to my house tomorrow. I have a press piece dropping in twenty-four hours that I cannot stop.”
“That sounds difficult for you.”
“*Sienna.*”
“What do you want me to do, Cade. Specifically.”
“I want you to issue a statement saying the podcast was a misunderstanding. I want you to retract the contributions piece. I want you to call off Ryker. I want my son to talk to me.”
“In exchange for what.”
He looked surprised that I had asked.
“In exchange for what, Cade.”
“Whatever you want. The house. The car. Spousal support. I’ll sign over a percentage of the firm. We can talk about anything.”
“You think I’m doing this for money.”
“Aren’t you?”
I almost laughed.
“Cade. I’m not doing this for money. I’m not doing this for the house. I am not doing this so you can offer me a percentage of a firm that I already built. I’m doing this because for six years, you used me as the floor of your life, and the second I started to crack, you replaced me with another woman, told my son I was crazy, and tried to lock me out of his life. There is no statement I am willing to issue. There is no retraction. There is no call to Ryker. You did this. You will live with it.”
“What about Theo.”
“Theo will see you when Theo decides to see you. Not before. Not at my discretion. *His.*”
He looked at his shoes for a long time.
When he looked up, his eyes were wet.
“Sienna. I am asking you. Please.”
I stared at him.
“You replaced me on the school form before I even left, Cade. You replaced me. With *his ex-wife.*”
Cade went still.
“What.”
“You didn’t know.”
“What did you just say.”
“Elena. Ryker’s ex-wife. From 2018 to 2020. She had an affair with a man Ryker worked with — a man he never named in public. You. You are that man. She was your mistress for at least four years. She used to be his wife. You hired her under her maiden name and put her on the *Special Projects* line. You did it on purpose. You took Ryker’s wife. You spent four years sleeping with her. You brought her into the firm you built with him and called her a junior analyst. And then you tried to use her to replace me as Theo’s mother.”
He had gone the color of cold milk.
“I didn’t—”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t know who she was. You knew exactly who she was. You knew. That’s why you wanted her.”
His mouth opened. Closed. Opened.
“How did you find out.”
“Someone has been sending me photographs since the day I left. I assumed it was Elena. It wasn’t. It was someone who knows both of you very well. Someone who has been watching this go on for years. And they were waiting for me to leave you, Cade. They were *waiting.*”
“Who.”
“I don’t know. I don’t care. I just thank her, whoever she is.”
I stepped back.
“Go home, Cade. There’s nothing here for you.”
“Sienna—”
I closed the door.
I locked it. Both bolts. I leaned my back against the wood and slid down until I was sitting on the floor.
Theo came out of his room. He was holding a granola bar.
“Was that him.”
“Yes.”
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
He sat down next to me on the floor. He handed me the granola bar.
“Eat that.”
I ate it.
He leaned his head against my shoulder.
“Mom.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad you didn’t open the door.”
I started crying, finally, quietly, sitting on the entryway floor of an apartment I had signed for myself, next to a fourteen-year-old boy who had been told for months that I was unstable, and who had chosen to sit with me anyway.