We sat at the kitchen table the next morning with the bank statement, the Pinewake deposit record, and my own retirement account summary spread out between us like three different autopsies of the same small body.
"Twenty-two hundred in, six refunds out at roughly two-forty each," I said, running the pen down the column. "That's closer to fifteen hundred gone before we've covered Deb's hours again, let alone the truck payment that deposit already paid once."
Grant didn't argue the math. He never does, which is its own kind of tell. "So we're underwater either way. The only version where we're not underwater is the one where the weekend still happens and we still get paid for the three who stayed."
"The only version where you're not underwater," I said. "I have a cost for this too. I've got a withdrawal I can make from my retirement fund, enough to cover what we owe through March, maybe into April if we're careful."
He looked up at that, something in his face loosening for a second, the way it used to when I'd say I'd cover a field trip fee he'd forgotten to mention. "You'd do that?"
"On terms. You pull out of Monday. Not just the school's name, you personally, no guiding, no route, no mention of the Voss case in another brochure as long as this business exists. We rebuild smaller, driving lessons, maybe a defensive-driving contract with the county, nothing that uses a missing man to fill a bus."
He was quiet long enough that I let myself believe it was working, that he was doing the arithmetic I wanted him to do instead of the one he'd been doing for a week. Then he shook his head.
"I can't just hand Della three customers and a cancellation two days before the walk. That's not fixing anything, that's just quitting with extra steps, and quitting doesn't make the truck payment either."
"Grant, I'm not offering you a loan to keep doing the thing I'm trying to stop. I'm offering it instead of the thing."
"And if I say no to your terms, what happens to the three who stayed? They've moved their bookings over to Della now. They still walk out there Monday. At least if I'm the one leading it, I know the ground, I know where the crossing's bad, I can keep them off it."
"You can keep them off it by telling them not to go. You don't need a flashlight and a rope to do that, you need one sentence."
"One sentence doesn't pay anybody," he said, and stood up, and I watched him go into the back room where he keeps the guide pack he uses for the handful of hunting-season driving clients we get each fall, the headlamp, the trekking poles, the folded emergency blanket.
"Where are you taking that?"
"Della's. She wants someone who actually knows the track leading it instead of whoever she's got lined up now. I told her I'd do the walk myself Monday morning if the drive portion's off the table."
I stood in the doorway while he loaded the truck, not blocking him, because I'd learned decades ago that blocking a door never once changed a mind, only the shape of the argument that followed. "I'm still here when you want the terms," I said. "They don't expire."
He didn't answer, just backed out of the driveway with the pack on the seat beside him, and I went back inside and sat with the three untouched numbers on the statement, understanding that I'd offered him a way out and he'd chosen the thing I was trying to save him from instead. Whatever happened Monday, I was going to be there whether he wanted me or not.