CHAPTER 12: JUNE’S RULE
Samuel invited Eleanor to his sister’s former home on Saturday afternoon to review the latest findings.
The small house stood on a narrow street near the river, far from the grand office buildings that carried the Rowan family name.
June had refused to move after the hospitality group became successful because she liked knowing her neighbors and walking to the same bakery each morning.
Samuel kept the house furnished as she left it, with mismatched lamps, well-used cookbooks, and framed photographs of restaurant employees gathered around birthday cakes.
Eleanor sat at the dining table while Samuel made tea in a dented kettle.
He asked whether she thought he had acted responsibly when he told her to cancel every contract.
She said he had reacted to cruelty with the same impulse that often tempted powerful people to ignore procedure.
He accepted the criticism without defending himself.
Eleanor explained that freezing renewals was lawful under specified conditions, but abrupt withdrawal of critical supplies could injure workers more than managers.
She also reminded him that lenders and minority partners had rights of their own.
Samuel told her to make every decision on the evidence, regardless of whether it embarrassed him.
He said June had once caught him ordering the termination of a vendor after a heated argument about late deliveries.
She asked who would have to work through the weekend finding a replacement and who would lose wages if the kitchen closed.
Samuel had no answer, and June made him cancel his order.
“She told me that a person’s good intentions don’t pay somebody else’s rent,” he recalled.
Eleanor said Lily had reached a similar conclusion without knowing June existed.
Samuel asked whether the waitress had found work.
Eleanor said she understood Lily had started a temporary job, although Lily’s personal circumstances were not Samuel’s to monitor.
Samuel nodded and changed the subject.
The accountant’s report now showed enough discrepancies to warrant independent forensic review, and the operating partnership had appointed an interim compliance officer.
Samuel wanted the review funded without tying its conclusions to the outcome of Lily’s employment complaint.
Eleanor said that was essential because a financial problem could not be used to eclipse an individual harm.
Outside, children rode bicycles past June’s porch, and Samuel watched them through the window.
He had built an organization large enough that a single phone call could unsettle hundreds of workers.
He wondered how many times he had congratulated himself for that power without thinking about the responsibility attached to it.
