The Chapel Wars Read Free Page A

in seven years. I used that cash on the chapel. Okay, I also used the cash to take care of gambling debts and lost some more sports betting (stupid Lakers!), but most went to the chapel. Marble isn’t cheap,and with how things were rolling, there was no end in sight
.
Then the end became desperately visible. Apocalyptic. The economy crashed. People weren’t coming to Vegas to get married; they weren’t coming here period. Businesses failed, homes were lost. And the value the bank had put on my business didn’t exist anymore
.
I’ve been struggling to come up with money for the past couple of years and it’s just not there. My savings are wiped, my assets laughable. I paid myself scraps to get by so I could still get money to your parents and other employees. No one has seen the books. No one else knows what situation we are in
.
When it comes time to refinance this spring, I have to pay off the balloon payment or risk defaulting on the loan. They might refinance me again, but they will value the business at much less, and I will have to pay the difference back or lose the chapel
.
    Here, the handwriting switched to a bubbly cursive.
     
I’m feeling too weak to write, so I had this lovely nurse finish for me. Her name is Kiki. She’s a keeper. And beautiful. Hey,if I make it out of this surgery, can I take you out for a steak dinner?
(From Kiki: Your grandpa has flirted with every nurse on this floor. He has a lot of steak dinners in his future.)
I don’t know HOW you’re going to keep the chapel in business. You’ll have to talk to financial people, clue Donna in (I’m glad I’m dead so she can’t kill me). Come up with a game plan to make some money. Believe me, if I could have fixed it alone, I wouldn’t have to write this pathetic letter or the letter I need you to hand deliver to Dax Cranston.
Anyway, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m leaving this to you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I’m sorry that your chances of success aren’t great. I’m sorry because if you’re reading this (and I really hope you never read this), it means I’m gone and our time together is gone too.
I’m sorry.
I love you, Holly Bean. You care about this chapel as much as I do. You know what this place means to our family. As for me, U2 said it best: “Home,I can’t say where it is but I know I’m going home.”
Grandpa Jim
    My brother’s eyes were wide and alien-like in the dim cell phone lighting. “I can’t believe he was dealing with all of that and he never told anyone.”
    My throat felt like I’d swallowed James’s Swiss Army knife. “Me too. He was … he was drowning. Since we were kids. The whole time we’ve known him, like, really
known
him, he’s been dealing with this.”
    “Poor Grandpa.” For all my brother’s toughness, he was a sweet kid. Reminded me of Pony Boy from that old book/movie
The Outsiders
. He talked big but had these chubby little cheeks. No matter what he did, I figured his cheeks would save him from too much destruction. Unless he joined a gang and they started to call him Baby Face. “That was probably the last thing he ever wrote.”
    “If the chapel closes …” I swallowed that painful “if.”
    “It’s just a building.”
    “No, it’s home.”
    James tossed a rock into the lake. “Home isn’t a place, Holls.”
    I folded up the envelope, then smoothed out the four creases. Folded, unfolded. How desperate did he have to be to leave a failing business to his seventeen-year-old granddaughter?
    James dumped half a bag of the seeds into his mouth and chomped, shells and all. His cheeks bulged. “Well, at least we know one thing.”
    One thing. One thing was a start. One thing could turn this crushing burden into a ray of hope. “What?”
    “You’re so going to screw this up.”

Chapter 3
     
    I woke up Saturday and enjoyed a good three seconds before I remembered that my grandpa was dead, just like he had been the morning before, and today … today I was