months in advance.
My younger sister, Madison, had spent those same years treating money like applause.
Luxury leases.
Designer clothes.
Failed online businesses.
Then she borrowed nearly a million dollars from a private lender trying to rescue a beauty brand that had already collapsed.
My parents called an emergency family dinner.
Dad slid a folder toward me.
“Your business is worth enough.”
I stared at him.
“Enough for what?”
“To sell,” Mom said. “Madison needs nine hundred and eighty thousand dollars by the end of the month.”
Madison did not
