After the funeral, Margaret gradually withdrew from daily operations. She remained chairwoman and signed major ownership decisions, but she let experienced managers run the business. She wanted time for her grandchildren, for gardening, and for the grief she had never entirely learned to carry. She assumed the culture she and Walter had built would be strong enough to survive her absence.
The complaint file told her assumption might have been wrong.
Two days before the visit, Caleb drove her past the Crestline property without stopping. The showroom had expanded several times since the original gravel lot, and the newest building had walls of glass that reflected the sky. The old service station was gone. The parking area had been resurfaced and landscaped, and a high LED sign announced models costing more than Margaret and Walter's first house.
"It's a beautiful place," Caleb said, as they passed the entrance.
"It is," Margaret agreed. "Walter would have liked the workshop. He would have complained about the fountain."
"He would've asked what it costs to keep it running."
"He would have asked whether somebody who came in without a car could still get a drink of water."
Caleb glanced at her. "You really think the problem is that bad?"
"I think we have enough reason to look. And I think if I arrive in the company car with you beside me, we'll learn nothing at all."
They worked out precautions instead of continuing to argue. Caleb would remain a few minutes away in a parked vehicle. Margaret would carry her charged phone, her identification, and a small card with the direct number of company counsel Evelyn Price. She would not conceal who she was if her safety became an issue, and she would not let anyone physically restrain her for the sake of proving a point.
Margaret chose her own clothes. She wore the cardigan she used when visiting the neighborhood library, comfortable shoes, and the handbag Walter had given her for their twentieth anniversary. One button had come off the cardigan the previous winter. She had kept meaning to sew it back on, but the missing button bothered her less than the way Caleb kept trying to replace the whole sweater.
The morning of her visit was unseasonably warm. By noon the pavement would be hot enough to push the temperature in the open lot toward eighty-eight degrees. Margaret knew that long periods on her feet were no longer effortless, and she ate breakfast, drank water, and placed her medication inside the small handbag. She did not see those preparations as weakness. She saw them as the same sensible planning Walter had used before taking an old car onto an unfamiliar road.
Before she left, Caleb asked once more whether she wanted him to come inside.
"No, dear. You'll wait where we agreed. If I need you, I'll call."
"And if someone's rude?"
"I raised your father," Margaret said, adjusting the cardigan at her shoulders. "I can handle one salesman."