I have spoken with Arnold Gray and explained this.

The Grays have been very kind to my family and me over the past four years and I would not do anything to make them think otherwise. If anything, I went above and beyond to help them in the business and outside of that.

There were some things that needed further explaining and we agreed that he would treat that amount as a loan for now until we could both sit down and go through paperwork and remember what caused that check to be written. At such time money owed back to me would be returned. This was done on my part to show that I have no reason to steal from him and that I want to resolve any question that he has.

The last year and a half the bookkeeping was not filed and kept as neat as it should have been. This I have no excuse other than I was working too many jobs and didn't have the time. But during this time I did not take money that did not belong to me either in a paycheck or reimbursement for expenses or supplies purchased.

In the end, all worlds, whether they're set in the future or in New Jersey of today, are fictions. Sure, you don't got to do too much work to build a mundane world, but don't get it twisted: you still got to do some work.

There are a couple of strategies for writing about an absence or writing about a loss. One can create the person that was lost, develop the character of the fiancee. There's another strategy that one can employ, maybe riskier... Make the reader suffer the loss of the character in a more literal way.