After a bracing swallow of Marianne’s high-octane coffee, Matt told John and the girls what he’d discovered last night. Then he sat back and looked at each of them, trying to gauge the impact of what he’d said. Although he’d spent a restless night going through the options, he still hadn’t made up his mind about what to do. He was counting on their reactions to help him make the toughest decision of his life. At first, all he got was dead silence. The three of them traded pained looks, obviously trying to come to terms with what he’d said. As he’d expected, Marianne spoke first. She was the self-appointed mother hen of the family, always practical when it came to the farm. “I don’t understand. I do the books, and I had no idea. I mean, things are tight, but that’s nothing new. How could he manage to do something like this?” “He used his salary to make the payments on the loans. From what Caty and I saw, he didn’t make a dime the last five years.”
