Chương 6
“You couldn’t talk about it.”
“I was trying not to die.”
“And I was trying to understand what happened if you did.”
His voice broke on the last word. Elena leaned against the wall.
For a moment, she saw him as he had been during treatment, asleep in a plastic chair with his chin on his chest, one hand still resting near her blanket. She remembered him driving home in silence after bad appointments because he knew music irritated her. She remembered snapping at him for buying the wrong yogurt and refusing to apologize.
Then she remembered his hand on the false application.
“You should have told me,” she said.
“I tried.”
“No. You tried to get permission for what you’d already decided.”
“My mother said you were shutting me out.”
“You let your mother turn my fear into a power of attorney I never signed.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like?”
He said nothing.
She ended the call.
That night, she opened the kitchen junk drawer and found three of Warren’s pens. She threw them away, then took them out of the trash because the gesture felt theatrical and she was embarrassed even alone.
In March, the lender scheduled Elena’s deposition.
She sat for six hours under fluorescent light while three attorneys asked about her health, memory, marriage, finances, and use of medication. Franklin objected when necessary and remained silent when he could not protect her from an answer.
The lender’s attorney was not cruel. That made the questioning worse. He spoke softly and apologized before displaying texts Elena had sent during treatment.
I can’t do another month like this.
Tell Warren I’m sorry.
Maybe Mom was right about not putting anyone else on the deed.
Elena had sent the last message to Nora after an argument with Warren. The lender’s attorney asked what she meant.
“I meant my mother distrusted joint ownership.”
“Did you also distrust your husband?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did you believe he was financially irresponsible?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did you ever tell him the house would never be his?”
“Yes.”
“Did you understand he had incurred debt while caring for you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you authorize him to borrow funds for household and medical expenses?”
“Not against my house.”
“Did you authorize him to sign routine documents on your behalf?”
“Some insurance forms.”
“Did you sign a general authorization?”
“No.”
“Could you have?”
“I could have done many things I did not do.”
The attorney paused.
Franklin glanced at her. She recognized the warning and lowered her voice.
When the deposition ended, Elena walked to the parking garage alone. Franklin offered to drive her home, but she said no. She sat behind the wheel for ten minutes without starting the car.
On the concrete pillar across from her, someone had written WASH ME in the dust.
She laughed at the stupid ordinary request.
Then she called Nora and apologized for accusing her of keeping secrets.
Nora said, “I did keep secrets.”
“I know.”
“I thought protecting you meant deciding what you could handle.”
“That seems to have been popular.”
“I’m sorry.”
Elena rested her forehead against the steering wheel.
“I was awful sometimes.”
“You had cancer.”
“I was still awful.”
“You can be both.”
Franklin’s phrase, returned in Nora’s voice.
A week later, Marlene Cobb agreed to be interviewed.
She arrived at Franklin’s office carrying a purse large enough for a weekend trip. She was sixty-seven, soft-spoken, and furious at Ruth Ann in the frightened way people become furious when blame approaches them.
Her attorney sat beside her.
Marlene admitted she had notarized the loan without Elena present.
“Ruth Ann told me Elena had signed at home,” she said. “She said Elena was too weak to travel.”
“Then why does the certificate state Elena appeared before you?” Franklin asked.
“That’s the language.”
“It is also the requirement.”
Marlene twisted the strap of her purse. “Warren brought the driver’s license.”
“Was the document already signed?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see who signed it?”
“No.”
“Did you speak with Elena?”
“Ruth Ann called her.”
Elena leaned forward. “Called me when?”
Marlene looked at her for the first time. “While we were sitting there.”
“I never spoke to you.”
“She put the phone on speaker. A woman said it was fine.”
“What did the woman say?”
“I don’t remember exactly.”
“Did she identify herself?”
“Ruth Ann said, ‘Elena, Marlene is here.’ The woman said, ‘Yes, I know.’”
Elena felt the room narrow.
“Describe the voice.”
Marlene’s attorney intervened. “My client is not a voice-recognition expert.”
Franklin said, “No one asked her to be.”
Marlene looked down. “It sounded younger than Ruth Ann.”
Warren had a cousin named Beth who could imitate voices. Ruth Ann had a neighbor. Possibilities multiplied without evidence.
Then Marlene added, “There was a television in the background. A game show.”
Elena looked at Franklin.
The infusion center kept televisions mounted above the chairs, but Elena never turned hers on. Ruth Ann watched game shows every afternoon.
“Did the woman sound sick?” Franklin asked.
“I don’t know what sick sounds like.”
It was the most honest sentence anyone had spoken in the case.
Marlene surrendered her notary journal. The entry for Elena’s loan had been written in Ruth Ann’s handwriting.
Ruth Ann denied it.
A document examiner later concluded the journal entry and the forged signature were probably written by the same person, though Franklin warned Elena that probability would be argued.
Warren’s text messages supplied stronger evidence.
He had deleted several conversations with his mother, but backups remained on an old tablet recovered during discovery. The messages began weeks before the loan application.
RUTH ANN: You need to secure the house before the bills consume it.
WARREN: She won’t sign anything.
RUTH ANN: She is not thinking beyond the next appointment.
WARREN: Stop.
RUTH ANN: Someone has to think beyond it.
Later:
WARREN: What if she comes home?
RUTH ANN: Then we explain that we saved what she could not manage.
May you like
WARREN: She’ll never forgive me.
RUTH ANN: She may never know.
