Every investment committee meeting followed one rule.
Before spreadsheets, we met employees.
Machine operators.
Receptionists.
Drivers.
Cooks.
Warehouse workers.
People whose names never appeared in investor presentations but whose lives depended on the decisions made inside boardrooms.
Some deals failed.
Some businesses couldn’t be saved.
Others flourished.
Within three years, Halston Community Ventures had invested in eighty-seven companies and protected more than twelve thousand jobs.
Richard rebuilt Mercer & Field.
He renamed it Field & Company.
Nina became chief operating officer.
Three former interns became directors.
Gavin never returned.
Claire divorced Marcus.
She spent nearly a year avoiding the business world entirely before eventually joining a nonprofit focused on financial-literacy programs for young adults.
She and I became something neither of us expected.
Family.
Not close immediately.
That took time.
But real.
One Thanksgiving, she sat beside Sophie and helped her apply to colleges while Lucy burned dinner rolls in my kitchen.
