After having dinner at a family restaurant, they went on separate ways. Alice had to go back home and it wasn’t safe for Cat to stay out on the streets. If the demon wouldn’t ruin her life, the paparazzi surely would. The best medicine for this whole social media shitstorm was to wait it out. Cat and her bodyguards went back to New Jersey and fortified themselves in the Wallenstein mansion.
Free of any involvement with the justice system, she was finally her own person. If only she could ignore the demon that was hunting for her soul-tenant, which she couldn’t. But as Alice said, the only thing they could do was search for information. She went to her desk, where two laptops sat next to one another. One of them was Catherine’s original computer, the other she’d asked Oliver to buy back at the hospital. She didn’t feel like using another person’s computer and only used Catherine’s phone because she had to keep the impression she was her. Cat sat at her desk and turned on the laptop. Searching the surface web, indexed by the almighty web-crawling bots turned up fuck all useful information. Whatever nuggets of truth left to be found in there were drowned by thousands upon thousands of crappy web fiction.
She fired the blockchain software and took a look at the cryptocurrency market fluctuations. She still had the codes to William’s wallet of crypto coins but she wouldn’t touch them yet. Her initial wish was to gift them to Dahlia, the bouquet of “stonks” William carefully cultivated over the years. She didn’t. If it weren’t for her miraculous rebirth, these cryptos would remain forever unused, like thousands of other virtual wallets.
Closing the crypto software, she went through Catherine’s financial situation. She still hadn’t taken control of the Wallenstein trust fund but the girl had another trust in her name. After making sure everything was in order, she searched the web for how to fight the powers of hell and found only trash. Again. Some charlatans advertised spiritual help but she would be a fool to trust them.
As a last resort, she registered a new email account through a double-layered VPN and sent some messages to religious organizations, including the Vatican. The entity that came for their souls mentioned hell, the purgatory, and the Guf, the biblical place where souls awaited to be made flesh. It was a far shot but maybe the Catholic church could help them. She remembered exorcists depicted in media. A priest in a black habit with a crucifix, who usually ended up very dead. She didn’t want anyone to get hurt because of her, much less die.
Dismayed, She rested her elbows on the desk’s edge and set her forehead against her crossed wrists.
“I do. Sorry about making you feel down,” Cat replied, aware that the ghost was forced to feel whatever she felt.
----------------------------------------
Catherine’s cheer-up treatment was to call in the “Beauty Wagon”, a mobile beauty salon built on a van. She also hinted it might be enough to get Mrs. Wallenstein out of her room. Cat just had to talk to the matriarch again.
She knocked on the door, “Mom. It’s me, Catherine! Can we talk?”
“Begone!” The woman’s rejection was followed by the sound of glass breaking. By the way, she slurred, Cat was inclined to believe she was getting booze deliveries via drone or had a secret stash with hundreds of years' worth of spirits.
Cat sniffled and cried, “Mom, don’t do that. We only have one another in this world. Please, let me at least see you!”
“You’re not my daughter, body-snatching devil!”
She looked down and saw a few letters stuck underneath the door. By the scrape marks on them, they were pushed out by her mother. “Mom, what are these letters?”
“See for yourself the fruits of your work!”
That counted as consent. She took the opened envelopes and read the printed correspondence. Official documents from the bank and a subpoena. Mrs. Wallenstein defaulted on several loans and they were attempting to collect.
“Did you answer any of these?”
“No!”
“Good. Don’t talk to anyone.”
“Who’s there to talk to?”
“Me?”
“Leave this place and get my daughter back.”
Cat worried about the woman but unless she took drastic measures again, she couldn’t force the proverbial horse to drink water. At least she was eating the food Esmeralda delivered to her door.
“I’m going to see what I can do about these letters.”
“Do what you must.”
With a sigh, she left Mrs. Wallenstein to her own devices, hoping she wouldn’t cut herself on broken glass. Inside their head, Catherine whimpered and sobbed.
[Your mom might need an intervention.]
William worked with financial advising but he knew more than the common layman about how a bank operated. He called Rothman & Sullivan to see what powers of attorney they could get regarding Mrs. Wallenstein’s situation. To her dismay, short of declaring her financially incompetent or having her sign off such powers (which she hadn’t), every act must be done through her. After hours of reviewing her financial situation, the best prospect for her financial health was to declare bankruptcy.
Aided by the law firm’s financial advisor over the phone, Cat delved deeper into the Wallenstein family’s web of financial structures. They made sure the trust funds weren’t eligible for collection as they didn’t belong to the individual and were set up properly. William saw one or two instances of a poorly-constructed trust fund being torn apart and devoured by creditors like ravenous sharks.
Both advisor and reincarnated banker agreed that filing for bankruptcy was the best choice. They started to plot Mrs. Wallenstein's debts and earnings on a spreadsheet, which quickly derailed into a complex web of cross-referenced formulas and automatic calculations.
Cat started to explain. To her surprise, the ghost was eager to learn, as she still believed it was her duty to take over the Wallenstein small empire. The shrinking and infertile family was part of “the 1%” but at the middle-to-lower end of the spectrum.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
The conclusion they reached was that Mrs. Wallenstein was, for the lack of a better word, financially fucked. The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act curtailed attempts to do exactly what they wanted, which was to file bankruptcy, give the creditors the middle finger, and move on. Mrs. Wallenstein received some stipend from the dynasty trust, and that counted as income. Even when they dumped all the household expenses on her, she was still above the limits for filing chapter 7. Both advisor and Cat knew very well they couldn’t bend the numbers more without entering fraud territory.
One alternative was to take over the trust fund and adjust the distributions to reduce Mrs. Wallenstein’s reported income. It would take six months to kick in as the BAPCPA averaged income over that period to find the yearly income and had too many drawbacks. One, it would feed the woman’s fears she was indeed taking over the family and kicking her out, and two, it could be challenged in court by the creditors.
That meant she would have to file chapter 13 and set up a repayment plan. They could restructure some debts and greatly lower interest rates, but Mrs. Wallenstein would feel the sting of her spendthrift donation spree for decades. The stain on her credit score was the least of their worries. She would have to give up most of her wastrel lifestyle, and would probably receive fuck all invitations to the fundraisers she was so fond of.
A small part of Cat, William’s analytical mind, knew it was Karma knocking at the woman’s door. But as she merged with Catherine’s mindset, she couldn't help but think of the woman as her mother. And she hadn’t lied when she said she loved her.
“Thanks for your help, Phillip. Be sure to round up to the next hour when you bill me for your time,” she said to the financial advisor over the video call.
“It was a pleasure, miss Wallenstein. I wished to tell you that everyone here at the office worries about Mr. McNamara.”
Cat groaned and sighed, “Oliver is like the uncle that spoils his niece too much for me. I hope he bounces back soon. I am almost inclined to commit some felony just to see if he will rush to help me again.”
Phillip laughed, “Don’t, please. The longer we can keep you out of a courthouse, the better.”
Cat scoffed playfully, “Don’t I know it? I have twenty reporters camping outside my house. Some even offered to rent my neighbor’s place to set up a base of operations.”
“I don’t envy you. Stay safe, miss.”
“Bye, Phillip. Send my regards to the rest of the team.”
----------------------------------------
After lunch, Cat went to see her mother again. The mobile salon was stuck in traffic and would probably not come today. She had a binder full of reports and graphs from their analysis. Now all she needed to do was convince the woman to give away her social life by signing the forms and filing for bankruptcy.
They had the usual passive-aggressive exchange through the closed door and talking about bankruptcy only caused another bottle to break. Cat made sure to ask if she was hurt and earned only a burst of sardonic laughter in return.
“I’m hurt, daughter-doppelganger. Not my body but my soul and heart,” Mrs. Wallenstein dramatized.
[Help me here,] Cat asked her soul-tenant.
[We can make it a mother-daughter bonding experience. Nice one, Catherine.]
Frivolous though it may appear to Cat, if it worked, it worked. They had to get Mrs. Wallenstein out of her room and hopefully sober her up. She called the service and rescheduled them for the next day. The Beauty Wagon would arrive at six in the morning to avoid traffic, and stay until nightfall.
“Did you hear that, mom? Would you come with me? Please?”
“No! Why would I need a makeover? I’m on house arrest. My life is over!”
She heard shards of glass tinkling against each other. Fearing the worst, she reached for the doorknob and to her surprise, it opened. “Please don’t!” She shouted as she entered the room. Walking over the broken shards, Cat found Mrs. Wallenstein in her robes, sitting at the edge of her bed, with a half-dozen bottles of liquor strewn around her. The shards were on the wall near the bed, away from her. The woman’s appearance was ghastly. Pale, with dark circles around her puffed eyes. Her hair was so tangled it looked like a bird’s nest.
“Go away!” The woman flinched away.
Adamant, she quickly reached the woman. “No. Hit me with one of these bottles for all I care, but you are coming out of this room today. By all that’s holy, who’s the teenager in this situation?” Mrs. Wallenstein just glared at her. “Let me tell you a story. I shouldn’t have told you I’m not Catherine. But I couldn’t lie to you? Do you know why?”
The woman crossed her arms. “I believe you are going to tell me either way, so out with it.”
Her breath was making Cat dizzy. She endured nonetheless.
“You are all Catherine ever knew. Despite all you did to vent your widowy grief on a child, all the abuse and beatings, she still stubbornly loved you. She still does. I do. I’m more Catherine than I would like to admit, mom. I love you. Please, let’s turn over a new page and start a new life together.”
“I-I can’t!” She averted Cat’s gaze.
“Why not? How long until you run out of alcohol and reality catches up, mom. It is already here. This,” she presented the binder, “is the analysis I did on your finances. You’re not the Fed, mom. You can’t print money whenever you need more.”
She took the binder and tossed it on the ground. “There’s so much money in the bank, what’s the...”
“That money is not ours, mom. It’s the Wallenstein trust. And it is there to keep it safe from us, for the next generation of the family.”
“You can’t even have children! There’s no next generation!” She screamed. “You killed not only my husband but also my grandson! It is ALL your fault!”
“For what? Not letting you give away my money to doubtful charities that only exist to line up the pockets of their administrators? The friends you thought you had were only friendly until your bank account hit the red. Tell me, did they call you after the money dried up? Any invitations for old times’ sake?”
The woman raised her hand, causing Cat to flinch instinctively. The slap didn’t come, however. Sulking, she said, “No. Because they’d only ridicule me with all the stunts you’re pulling out there. I turn on the TV, all I see is my daughter’s… your face.”
“Not my fault either. I was a victim over and over. But this is not about me. It’s about you. You can solve your financial situation. It won’t be easy or fast, much less painless. But it is doable.”
Mrs. Wallenstein crossed her arms, “What do I have to do?”
Cat bent down to pick the binder. “You have to file for chapter 13 bankruptcy. It’s the only choice.”
“Bankrupt?” She sputtered. “Preposterous. I’m not bankrupt.
Cat pinched her nose and massaged the bridge next to her eyes. It was not that Mrs. Wallenstein was dumb or either playing deaf. Her alcohol-addled mind refused to accept reality. She clung to her own delusions as if they would help her avoid reality. She was sick with one of the most insidious illnesses that existed. The kind where admitting to being sick was eighty percent of the first battle. Remembering one was sick was ninety-nine of the war for the rest of her life.
“You are bankrupt. Look at you. Look at your bedroom. Look at the collection bills. You owe more money than you can ever repay with your stipend in your lifetime. You have no money left, mom. That’s the definition of bankrupt.”
“There’s a lot of money in the bank!”
She needed to go to a support group, to get clean, to introspect, and rediscover herself. Let go of the eleven years worth of grudges and turn over a new leaf. For both her and Catherine’s sake, even though it was posthumously for the latter.
“No, there’s not. Mom, that money is not ours. Even if it was, the creditors would take it all away. Please, mom. Just come with me. I’m trying to give Catherine a new life, why not come along? She misses you.”
She felt she was breaking that shell. All she had to do was not screw up and let things run their course.
“If I file this bankruptcy, what will happen?”
“The judge will force the creditors to readjust the debts into something you can afford to pay. I talked to the people at Sullivan & Rothman, there are some tricks we can do. We can get you back on your feet, mom. Look, I’ll call Phillip over the day after tomorrow, he’ll explain everything as many times as you want. You’ll only sign anything if you really think it is the best for you. Nobody will force you to do anything regarding your money.
“But now, I’m going to give you a good, long, and relaxing bath. Wash your back, your hair, your feet. Tomorrow, we’ll have a day spa here at home where we’ll be fawned over like goddesses. Esmeralda will come and clean your room. She’ll take all the alcohol away, mom.”
The last statement was risky. Cat expected the aggression to come back but Mrs. Wallenstein had truly surrendered. With a shrug, the woman raised the white flag, “Whatever.”
The passive-aggressive statement was a tiny step forward. Taking her mother’s elbow, Cat led her into the bathroom. She opened the door and shut it down immediately, retching as a noxious wave hit her.
“We’re using my own. Come.”