Chương 2
Her eyes moved down the page.
Brandon stood.
“Charlotte, I can explain.”
She lifted one hand without looking at him.
“Don’t.”
Near the bottom of the document was a signature.
Her name was printed beneath it.
Charlotte Mercer.
The signature above it looked enough like hers that a stranger might have accepted it.
Charlotte stared at the long upward stroke on the C.
She never made that stroke.
Not anymore.
She had changed the way she signed her name after college because her old signature looked, according to a bank teller twenty years ago, like “a tornado hitting a fence.”
Only three people in the room would have known what the old version looked like.
One of them was Charlotte.
One was Brandon.
The third was Gertrude, who had helped them retrieve old documents from storage when they refinanced five years earlier.
Charlotte’s thumb stopped beside the signature.
“What exactly did you sign?”
Brandon opened his mouth.
Gertrude answered first.
“Nothing has happened yet.”
Charlotte looked at her.
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“You’re exhausted.”
“I’m standing.”
“Charlotte.”
“I’m standing, Gertrude, so apparently I have enough energy to hear what you signed.”
Hailey stopped wiping the soy sauce.
Brandon came around the table.
Charlotte stepped backward before he could touch her.
His face changed at that.
Not much, but enough.
“Please,” he said.
She looked down at the second page.
There were references to a secured obligation, property interest, and authorization.
The language blurred because Charlotte was reading too fast.
She forced herself to begin again.
Her hands had started trembling.
She hated that they were trembling.
Brandon saw it.
“Nothing is finalized.”
“Then why is my signature here?”
Nobody answered.
Charlotte turned another page.
Another signature.
Hers again.
The same old looping C.
A sound came from the hallway.
Skylar had returned wearing mismatched socks, one white and one pink.
She stopped when she saw everyone standing.
Charlotte lowered the papers.
Skylar’s eyes went immediately to Brandon.
Not to Charlotte.
Not to Gertrude.
To Brandon.
That frightened Charlotte more than the forged signature.
“Baby, take your noodles to your room.”
Gertrude frowned.
“We don’t eat in bedrooms.”
Charlotte looked at her.
Gertrude closed her mouth.
Skylar picked up the cup.
“Can I microwave them first?”
Charlotte glanced at the swollen noodles floating in lukewarm broth.
“Throw those away.”
Skylar looked alarmed.
“I’m still hungry.”
“I know.”
Charlotte reached into her tote, found her phone, and handed it to her.
“Order whatever you want.”
Brandon gave a humorless laugh.
“That’s responsible.”
Charlotte ignored him.
Skylar held the phone uncertainly.
“Anything?”
“Anything that counts as dinner.”
“I want pancakes.”
“Pancakes count tonight.”
Skylar disappeared toward the kitchen with the phone.
Charlotte turned back to the documents.
Her anger had become quieter.
That was usually when Brandon became nervous.
He preferred her angry enough to argue because arguments gave him something to push against.
Silence left him alone with facts.
“Whose idea was this?”
Gertrude straightened in her chair.
“We were trying to prevent a much bigger problem.”
“We?”
Brandon rubbed both hands over his face.
“Mine.”
Gertrude looked at him sharply.
He did not look back.
Charlotte watched that exchange.
“What problem?”
Brandon stared at the stained table runner.
“I’m behind.”
“On what?”
He swallowed.
“More than one thing.”
“How far behind?”
“Charlotte, can Skylar hear us?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because unlike everyone else at this table, I’ve been paying attention to where she is.”
Hailey flinched.
Brandon’s jaw tightened.
“That’s cheap.”
“So was her dinner.”
“Stop.”
“No.”
The word came out softly.
Brandon looked almost surprised.
Charlotte placed the documents flat on the table and smoothed the bent corner with two fingers.
“Tell me why my name is on paperwork I have never seen.”
Gertrude stood now.
“You have benefited from that house every bit as much as Brandon has.”
Charlotte turned toward her.
“I pay the mortgage.”
“So does he.”
“No, he transfers money into our joint account when he has it, and I pay the mortgage.”
“You always have to make him sound useless.”
“I didn’t say he was useless.”
“You imply it.”
“Mom,” Brandon said.
Gertrude ignored him.
“You’ve made this family revolve around your work schedule for years, and then you come through the door and act shocked that decisions get made without you.”
Charlotte felt the accusation land because part of it touched something she already hated about herself.
She had missed Skylar’s spring recital.
She had answered work calls during two family birthdays.
Last month Skylar had asked whether Saturday was “a real Saturday or one of Mom’s work Saturdays.”
Charlotte carried those things around without needing Gertrude to point at them.
But guilt was not consent.
She picked up the papers again.
“Did you forge my signature?”
Gertrude’s face went still.
Brandon whispered, “Charlotte.”
She looked at him.
“Did you?”
His eyes dropped.
That was the answer before the answer.
Charlotte folded the papers once.
Not neatly.
Not carefully.
Just enough to fit them beneath her arm.
Then she picked up the white receipt.
Brandon moved closer.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding out what you did.”
“I just told you I’ll explain.”
“No, you told me you’re behind.”
She slipped the receipt between the folded documents.
“Those aren’t the same thing.”
Gertrude’s confidence finally cracked.
“You cannot take those.”
Charlotte looked at the woman who had fed her granddaughter instant noodles beside a table covered in food and then hidden forged property documents beneath a dinner plate.
For the first time that evening, she almost smiled.
“Watch me.”
Charlotte expected Brandon to block the doorway, but he only stood beside the table with his hands hanging uselessly at his sides.
Gertrude did move.
She stepped between Charlotte and the hall, not aggressively enough to call it aggression, but deliberately enough that Charlotte stopped.
“Those documents concern all of us,” Gertrude said.
Charlotte tucked them deeper beneath her arm.
May you like
“My forged signature concerns me first.”
“You keep using that word as if somebody stole your identity.”
