Chương 8
I unlocked the door.
He opened it.
“You quitting?”
“No.”
“You’ve been sitting here ten minutes.”
“I found a car loan in my name.”
Luis stopped.
“What?”
“It’s not my car.”
He leaned one forearm against the door.
“Identity theft?”
“Maybe my dad.”
Luis’s expression lost all humor.
“You call the bank?”
“Lender.”
“And?”
“They’re reviewing it.”
He nodded slowly.
“You need the police.”
My stomach tightened.
“He’s my dad.”
Luis shrugged once.
“Then he’s your dad who maybe stole your identity.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“No.”
His voice sharpened.
“My brother used my information for a phone account when I was twenty-seven.”
I looked at him.
He rarely talked about family.
“He paid it late for a year,” Luis continued.
“I kept saying I’d handle it inside the family.”
“What happened?”
“He did it again.”
“With what?”
“Credit card.”
Luis tapped the door frame.
“People learn from what costs them.”
Then he walked into the shop.
I sat there another minute.
At 8:14, the secure documents arrived.
I opened the application in the break room.
My name was at the top.
My address.
My employer.
My annual income.
My Social Security number.
Everything was correct.
Then I reached the signature page.
My name was written there.
Not my signature.
Close enough for somebody who had seen it on birthday cards and forms.
Wrong enough that I knew immediately.
The loops were too rounded.
I printed the application.
My hands were steady until I saw the employment verification section.
A phone number had been provided for my workplace.
Not the shop’s number.
Dad’s cell.
I sat back.
Someone had impersonated my employer too.
That made the whole thing feel less like desperation and more like preparation.
I called Mom.
She answered quietly.
“Are you at work?”
“Yes.”
“So am I.”
“Did Dad use my identity to finance Jake’s car?”
Silence.
My chest tightened.
“Mom.”
“I don’t know.”
“That was too long.”
“I said I don’t know.”
“The down payment came from your checking account.”
Another silence.
I could hear office sounds behind her.
A printer.
Someone talking in the distance.
Then a door closed.
Her voice dropped.
“He said it was temporary.”
I stood so fast the chair slid backward.
“What was temporary?”
“He said he was going to refinance it.”
“You knew?”
“I knew he used your credit.”
“That’s called fraud.”
“Lower your voice.”
“I’m at work.”
“So am I.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should care.”
“I’m looking at a fake signature with my name on it.”
“I did not sign anything.”
“But you knew.”
“Not until after.”
“When after?”
“A few weeks.”
“And then what?”
“What was I supposed to do?”
“Tell me.”
“He said the payments were being made.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It matters if nobody is losing anything.”
I laughed.
A mechanic passing the break room glanced in and kept walking.
“Nobody?”
“You weren’t paying it.”
“It’s on my credit.”
“And it’s current.”
“That is not the point.”
“Then what is the point, Mike?”
Her voice cracked.
I stopped.
She continued more quietly.
“Your brother needed a reliable car for school.”
“He needed a fourteen-thousand-dollar car?”
“It wasn’t fourteen when we bought it.”
“That’s what’s left.”
She did not answer.
“How much was it?”
“Eighteen.”
I closed my eyes.
“Mom.”
“It was used.”
“That’s not helping.”
“He needed transportation.”
“There are cars that cost less than eighteen thousand dollars.”
“Your father wanted something safe.”
“My father wanted something he could not afford.”
“That’s enough.”
“No.”
I looked at the printed application.
“No, it isn’t.”
Her breathing changed.
I pictured her at her desk, probably turning away from coworkers.
“Did you know the five-thousand-dollar down payment came from money I sent?”
“That account has all our money in it.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Money doesn’t stay labeled after it enters a checking account.”
I actually had to sit down.
“You used my money to put a down payment on a car in my name for Jake.”
“That is not how we thought about it.”
“How did you think about it?”
“We thought we were getting through a difficult year.”
“That seems to be how you explain everything.”
“Because you have no idea what it’s like to keep a family afloat.”
“I was keeping it afloat.”
“You were contributing.”
“I paid the mortgage.”
“You paid rent.”
“Then why did the mortgage bounce when I stopped?”
She went silent.
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.
“Is the second loan in my name too?”
“What second loan?”
“Jake heard Dad mention one.”
“I don’t know what he heard.”
“Mom.”
“I have to go.”
“Don’t hang up.”
“I’m at work.”
“So am I.”
“We’ll talk tonight.”
“No.”
I looked at the false signature again.
“We’re talking now.”
“I said I don’t know about another loan.”
“Do you have access to Dad’s credit report?”
“Of course not.”
“Joint accounts?”
“Some.”
“Any home equity loan?”
“No.”
“Personal loan?”
She hesitated.
That was enough.
“How much?”
“Mike.”
“How much?”
“Seven thousand.”
“In whose name?”
“Mine and your father’s.”
“What was it for?”
“Bills.”
“Which bills?”
“Everything.”
I heard somebody knock on her office door.
Mom whispered, “I have to go.”
Then she hung up.
I sat there staring at the application until Luis came in for coffee.
He looked at the papers.
“Bad?”
I handed him the signature page.
He studied it.
“That yours?”
“No.”
“Then stop calling it family drama.”
I looked at him.
He set the page down.
“It’s a crime.”
For the rest of the morning, that sentence stayed with me.
At noon, I drove to the police station.
I parked.
I did not go inside.
For fifteen minutes, I sat with the engine off and watched people enter through the glass doors.
A woman carrying a folder.
A man in paint-covered work clothes.
Two officers laughing about something beside a patrol car.
My father’s face kept appearing in my head.
May you like
Teaching me to change brake pads when I was fourteen.
Standing beside me at my high school graduation.
