Chương 7
Emily had signed forms at the dining room table between two evening classes.
She had been nineteen.
Robert had pointed to the signature lines.
Linda had made spaghetti.
Emily had not thought about the account afterward because financial aid had changed the next semester and Robert told her the loan had been canceled before disbursement.
“Was it Sterling Capital Education?”
Lauren went quiet.
“That sounds right.”
Emily leaned against the brick wall of a pharmacy.
The city seemed suddenly distant.
“How much?”
“I told you, I don’t know.”
“Ask Mom.”
Lauren said something away from the phone.
Linda answered too softly for Emily to understand.
Then Lauren returned.
“Originally, eighteen thousand.”
Emily felt cold despite the mild evening.
“That loan was canceled.”
“Apparently it wasn’t.”
“I never received eighteen thousand dollars.”
“I know.”
Emily went still.
The answer had come too quickly.
“What does that mean?”
Lauren did not speak.
Emily’s voice dropped.
“How do you know?”
“Because Dad did.”
The silence between them changed.
Cars passed.
Someone opened the pharmacy door beside Emily and held it unnecessarily long, waiting for her to enter.
She shook her head.
The stranger let it close.
“Say that again.”
Lauren swallowed audibly.
“The money went into Dad’s business account.”
Emily stared at the sidewalk.
“No.”
“It did.”
“He told me the loan never funded.”
“I know.”
“Was my signature on it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said he got the money.”
“That’s what Mom says.”
Emily pushed away from the wall.
“Put her on.”
“Emily—”
“Put Mom on the phone.”
There was muffled movement.
Then Linda’s voice came through.
“Hello?”
Emily had forgotten how small her mother could make that word sound when she was afraid.
“Did Dad take out a student loan in my name?”
Linda breathed out.
“It wasn’t exactly like that.”
Emily laughed once.
There it was.
The family phrase.
Not exactly.
Nothing was ever exactly what it looked like after somebody needed forgiveness.
“What was it like?”
“Your father thought he was helping.”
“With whose money?”
“Emily.”
“Mine?”
“It wasn’t yours yet.”
“That is not an answer.”
Linda began crying.
Emily felt almost nothing at the sound.
That frightened her more than anger.
“Mom, tell me what happened.”
“Your father was having trouble with the company.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“Obviously.”
“Before you graduated.”
Emily squeezed the bridge of her nose.
“He said he could borrow through that education program because the terms were better.”
“In my name.”
“He was going to repay it.”
“In my name?”
“Yes.”
The word landed quietly.
Emily closed her eyes.
“Did you know?”
Another pause.
“Not at first.”
“When did you know?”
“Emily, this was a long time ago.”
“When?”
“A few months afterward.”
“And you said nothing.”
“Your father was making payments.”
“Until he wasn’t.”
Linda sniffed.
“He missed some.”
“How many?”
“I don’t remember.”
“How did it become a judgment?”
“He stopped paying when the trucking contracts fell apart.”
Emily looked up at the buildings across the street.
Office windows had begun turning dark one floor at a time.
“How did I never know?”
“We handled the mail.”
The sentence was so simple that Emily almost missed its meaning.
“What?”
“The notices came to the house.”
“After I moved out?”
“Yes.”
“You opened my mail.”
“Some of it.”
“And when collectors called?”
“We changed the contact information.”
Emily pulled the phone away from her ear for a second.
Her hand was shaking.
She pressed it back.
“You impersonated me?”
“No.”
Linda said it too fast.
“What did you do?”
“Your father spoke to them.”
“As himself?”
Silence.
Emily felt nausea rise.
“Mom.”
“He was trying to fix it.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I don’t know exactly what he said.”
“You lived with him.”
“I was not standing beside him every time he made a phone call.”
Emily heard the old defensiveness return, almost reassuring in its familiarity.
“So seven years ago, while you were telling me I was selfish for leaving, you already knew Dad had borrowed money in my name.”
Linda began to speak.
Emily cut her off.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“And the morning you locked me in my room?”
“Those things had nothing to do with each other.”
Emily stared straight ahead.
For the first time all evening, the answer came easily.
“Yes, they did.”
Linda’s breathing hitched.
“No, Emily.”
“You needed me dependent.”
“That is not true.”
“You needed me living there.”
“No.”
“You needed my mail coming there.”
“Stop.”
“You needed me not looking too closely.”
“Stop saying that.”
People moved around Emily on the sidewalk.
A young couple argued softly about where they had parked.
A delivery driver balanced three paper bags against his chest.
Life kept happening with irritating efficiency.
“Did Dad forge my signature?”
Linda started crying harder.
That was enough.
Emily’s voice went flat.
“Put Lauren back on.”
“Emily, please.”
“Put her back.”
Muffled voices followed.
Then Lauren returned.
“I’m here.”
“Why did you say the house debt was partly mine?”
“Because when the judgment finally hit, Dad refinanced to settle it.”
“When?”
“About four years ago.”
Emily’s mind moved automatically toward numbers.
Dates.
Lien priority.
Loan proceeds.
The kind of trail she could normally reconstruct without emotion.
“How much was the judgment?”
“With fees and interest?”
“Yes.”
“Almost thirty-eight thousand.”
Emily closed her eyes.
The original eighteen thousand had more than doubled.
“And they paid it from the house refinance.”
“Yes.”
“So that debt is part of the mortgage Harrington now owns.”
“I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I’m not you, Emily.”
Lauren sounded suddenly irritated.
“I don’t spend my day reading loan documents.”
“No, apparently everybody spent years making sure I didn’t read mine.”
Lauren went quiet.
The words hung between them.
Emily regretted them almost immediately.
Not because they were false.
Because they had hit the one person who had finally told her.
“I’m sorry,” Emily said.
Lauren did not answer.
Emily leaned against the building again.
“That wasn’t fair.”
“No.”
“I know.”
A car alarm began chirping nearby.
May you like
Lauren sighed.
“I deserve some of it.”
