Chapter 5 - WHAT WAS ON THE TABLE
I stared at the document until my eyes hurt.
The signature looked like mine.
Too much like mine.
But I hadn’t met a notary.
I hadn’t agreed to transfer my house.
And I hadn’t signed anything on Thursday.
Maya contacted the title company handling the proposed transaction and raised the disputed documents. She told me to stop discussing the matter with anyone in Jake’s family.
“No explanations,” she said. “No arguments. Save what comes in.”
By evening, twelve messages had arrived.
Linda called me selfish.
Don called me unstable.
Jake’s cousin told me marriage was private.
One aunt wrote, You don’t throw away six years over one bad night.
I put the phone facedown.
Claire made toast because it was the only thing I could stomach.
“Why do they all sound like him?” I asked.
“Because he’s telling them what happened.”
After Jake’s release, I was told about the conditions restricting his contact with me.
For almost two days, he followed them.
Then flowers arrived at Claire’s house.
White roses.
My favorites, before he started using them as receipts for forgiveness.
The card said:
WE BOTH MADE MISTAKES.
Claire photographed everything before moving the flowers out of the room.
I sat at her kitchen table and remembered another bouquet.
Three years earlier, after Jake shoved me into a bedroom door.
Two years earlier, after he threw my car keys into the garbage.
Last spring, after he broke the mug my mother had made.
Always flowers afterward.
Always a card that used “we.”
That night, I opened my email and searched for Miller Family Holdings.
Nothing.
I searched for the broker’s name.
One message appeared in my sent folder.
Thursday, 2:18 p.m.
Please proceed with the transfer. My husband is authorized to handle all details.
I had been at work at 2:18.
The office schedule could prove it.
But someone had sent the email from my account.
I showed Claire.
“Change your password.”
“I already did.”
“Change everything.”
We spent an hour securing accounts and writing down unfamiliar logins.
Then I found a photograph saved in my cloud storage.
It had uploaded automatically from the old shared tablet.
Tuesday’s kitchen table.
The folder open.
My signature on a sheet.
Beside it, a page I hadn’t seen.
May you like
Don’s hand held the corner flat.
And reflected in the dark microwave door was Linda, raising her phone to photograph my signature.
