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“We can have her making the reports,” James said. “But it seems clear that we also need someone there looking over her shoulder, making sure she spends the funds correctly as we have dictated.”

“Rita did not take a salary the first two years of Bahia Street,” I said. “She has managed an incredible program with tiny funds. I don’t think we can possibly think at this stage that she would misuse funds.”

“We are not suggesting that she would misuse them, just that she doesn’t know what she’s doing.” Henry tapped his paper with his pen. “You will ensure that she’s not doing anything on the project, won’t you, Margaret? That she has not begun demolition. Or even hired an architect? Because we will need to approve all these people first.”

I said nothing.

“You aren’t saying anything, Joyce,” James said. “What is your opinion on all this? What do you think of us having to build a building now? Would you have agreed to borrow all this money if we had known that?”

Joyce shook her head. “I don’t know what to say. I react to things in an emotional way. I’m in a kind of shock. I need to think about it.”

“But really,” James said. “You’re on the board. We want to know what you think.”

“No, no, I don’t know what to say yet.”

“Well, give us at least an impression of how you feel then. You’ve said nothing at all.”

“I guess I feel betrayed,” Joyce said.

I covered my eyes.

“Perhaps that’s how we all feel,” James said. “Margaret, you have never done anything this large before either. Starting this nonprofit was great. You have done a wonderful job, but now, when we are talking about this amount of money, we need someone else to oversee things in Brazil. I think we should get one of Henry’s contacts to suggest someone to oversee the project.” Henry nodded his approval.

“That won’t work,” I said. “It will just cost a huge amount, and Rita won’t work under some middle-class person anyway.”

“Well, if we had done this properly from the beginning,” Henry said, “if you had listened to my suggestions, then you wouldn’t have this mess.”

“So, let’s see who Henry can come up with,” Mo said. “I would like to know the actual liability risk. And we also have to discuss how we are going to pay Meps and Barry back for their loan.”

“The promissory note we have from them says we will have a lien,” Henry said. “We really need to get it as soon as possible.”

“I would think that if it is causing a problem,” I said, “and is going to cost a lot of money, than Meps and Barry would be happy to remove that statement from the note. I doubt they want the responsibility of getting landed with some building in Brazil anyway. We have said we will pay them back. It’s our word they trust.”

“What we need is a lien,” Henry said. “And we should have had it from the beginning.”

Joyce gave me a ride home. We said little. Joyce had been my strong supporter for years, a person I’d gone to when I saw no way to proceed.

“You know, I didn’t want to say anything,” she said. “I’m not ready to know how I feel. I wish James hadn’t pushed me.”

I said nothing. As she pulled to the curb at the front of my house, she turned to me. “You know, I never told my husband when I agreed to this loan. I never thought about liability. I never quite understood that I’m legally responsible. We don’t have much money. My husband would kill me if he knew I’d done this.”

I looked at her as I opened the car door. In the reflected streetlight I saw tears in her eyes.

Then, although I didn’t think this could happen, things with Bahia Street got worse. Henry contacted his person in São Paulo who, without seeing it, said the building would cost even more to rebuild than Mario’s estimate. Henry’s other contact said he could find someone to oversee the project, but a person who spoke English, which was what both Henry and James wanted, since they could not speak Portuguese. This would cost us about two thousand a month. It would use up all our money without our