December 16, 2008. That was the day we realized we had $68 left to our name. 

With hindsight, I remember that the months leading up to that date were super strange. My first novel (Hurricane Season) was in circulation that year, and I was just getting back from my opening book tour in late September. I killed it on the tour — thanks to my amazing friend and writing muse, Allison. She helped me set up and fund a four-college tour to speak to sorority girls about the premise of my novel. It was incredibly affirming to be so well received, and thanks to Allison, my first tour was a total success.

But something had been going on with our personal bank accounts for several months. Money was being held up, and things just seemed…

Hinky.

Every time Lou would call his attorney or his trust accountant, they would offer a plausible explanation for the issues. But talk wasn’t going to keep this heavy-duty life of ours afloat. So we did what I think most people would do — we started to bootstrap our lives. We ended up using the profits from my book tour and paid for everything else on our credit cards. I hated to do that, but Lou and I honestly believed that the trust mix-up would be resolved, and we could pay off everything once things were sorted. 

Of course, that didn’t happen, and by October of 2008, the reality of the situation hit me hard. We suddenly had all of this new debt hanging over our heads, and I remember feeling so uncomfortable about this reality. But I also had a strong desire to believe that there was just a simple mix up with the trust. In the seven years that I’d been married to Lou, nothing like this had ever happened before, so why should I doubt it? All of Lou’s financial statements showed we still had plenty of money in the trust, so there had to be a logical reason for the delays.

But one of the many things I’ve learned about myself is that my logic can be easily swayed by my desire and willingness to believe that something is true! And, at that particular point in my life…

I needed to believe in these excuses no matter how illogical they sounded. 

However, looking back on it now, I know my belief was pretty shaky even before our first credit card statement was due. I have this very specific memory of being in our swimming pool in late October of 2008. Our trust missed a third consecutive disbursement, and I was riddled with worry. I remember paddling around the pool, fretting about it while Lou was up in our condo, trying to sort out the details with our accountant. 

When he finally joined me in the pool, Lou said, “I’ve been assured that there are some banking issues that have nothing to do with us, and our transfers have been held up in some sort of red tape. But the accountant said we’ll be completely caught up on all of our disbursements by November 17. That includes everything we’ve missed so far, plus some interest.”

I remember letting out a huge sigh of relief and thinking, “If we can just make it to November 17, this nightmare will be over. Now… How in the heck are we going to make it to November 17?” 

Here’s a crazy fact: As of this moment in time, I’ve lived through a total of ten November 17ths, and that money has never shown up! I think back then, I put so much hope and trust in that date that it’s become like a strange anniversary that I’ll probably never forget. I guess it’s the date that marks the day that I finally lost my trust in our trust… And, that was also the day that I started to try to come to terms with the fact that we were on a sinking ship…and there was no life preserver being tossed our way to save us.

In December, Lou finally managed to get our attorney to look into everything, and we found out that our trust officer had been quietly embezzling our money for some time. We were told that he purchased the rights to build three gambling Casinos in Canada. Then, a combination of things happened: The land deal went belly up, and the American banking crisis of ’08 made it impossible for our trust officer and his accountants to “rob Peter to pay Paul” in their cover-up attempts. By the time we found out, it was simply too late for us to do anything about it.

All of the money was gone.

After we paid our December bills (including the minimum payments on our enormous credit card statement), we had a total of $68 left in our bank account. I’m sure it won’t surprise you to know that Lou and I didn’t even bother to check to see if we could retain our attorney for $68 to help us go after our trust officer… 

So on December 16, 2008, Lou and I realized that we would need to find a way to fight for the things in our life that we could actually save.