I was eight, and I remember we would always leave at dusk, driving south from Akron to the Ohio town where this man lived. When we arrived it would be dark, and we would park across the street, my parents and I perched in our little burgundy Geo Prizm, eyes steadied on that unassuming house, watching lights flicker on in one room and then another. “He’s home,” my father would whisper. “Why is he avoiding our calls?” And then we would sit in silence, my parents lost in reflection at the shame of it all. We never left the car, and certainly never went up to the door to confront the man. After an hour my father would drive us home.

My parents had immigrated to the United States from China two years earlier so my dad could attend graduate school at the University of Akron. Through a mutual friend, the owner of the house had been introduced to my parents. He convinced them that he had an infallible business plan and could guarantee a 12 percent return on their money. My parents scrounged up $25,000 and gave it to him—all they had saved from my dad’s $12,000-a-year school stipend and money borrowed from friends.

Originally published in California Lawyer Magazine - Spring 2015.