Chapter 6 - KARLA’S MELTDOWN
Karla called me sixteen times in one day.
I answered the seventeenth.
“What?”
“You need to turn the transfer back on.”
“No.”
“You can’t just stop paying!”
I almost admired her nerve.
“It’s your mortgage.”
“You promised to help.”
“I promised because you told me you were struggling.”
“I am struggling!”
“You received around sixty thousand dollars from a loan taken against my property.”
Silence.
Then she said, “Who told you that?”
“Interesting question.”
“Laura—”
“Did you know my signature was forged?”
“No.”
Too fast.
“You’re lying.”
“I knew Mom and Dad were helping me with the down payment. I didn’t know where the money came from.”
“Did you ever ask?”
“No.”
“Of course not.”
“Don’t act like you’re perfect.”
“I’m not. That’s why I don’t steal people’s signatures.”
She started crying.
Not softly.
Angrily.
“You have always thought you were better than me.”
“No, Karla. I thought you were my sister.”
“That’s the same thing with you.”
I hung up.
The following week became ugly.
Mom started calling relatives.
By Thursday, I had received messages from three aunts and two cousins.
How could you put your elderly parents through this?
Family should forgive.
They made a mistake.
One aunt told me to think about my father’s heart condition.
Nobody asked where Sophia had slept after being thrown out.
Nobody asked why my signature had been forged.
So I stopped explaining.
Nathan told me to save every message.
Then something unexpected happened.
Dad showed up alone at the boarding house.
Mrs. Gable came upstairs.
“There’s a man asking for you.”
I looked through the window.
My father stood on the sidewalk.
I went down alone.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I needed to talk without your mother.”
“That would be a first.”
He flinched.
Good.
“I’m sorry.”
I waited.
“For which part?”
He looked away.
“Everything.”
“That’s convenient.”
“I didn’t know Diane was going to throw you out.”
“But you carried Sophia’s stroller outside.”
His face crumpled.
“I was angry.”
“At a two-year-old?”
“No.”
“Then why punish her?”
He couldn’t answer.
I stepped closer.
“Why did you sign my name?”
His eyes filled with shame.
“My business was collapsing.”
“So you committed fraud.”
“I thought I could pay it back.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Did Karla know?”
He hesitated.
That was enough.
“She knew.”
He whispered, “Not everything.”
“How much did she know?”
Before he answered, a car pulled up.
Mom jumped out.
She had followed him.
She stormed toward us.
“You pathetic coward!”
Dad turned.
“Diane, go home.”
“You came here to beg her?”
Sophia appeared upstairs behind the window with Mrs. Gable.
My mother pointed at me.
“Look what you’re doing to your father!”
I felt something inside me snap.
“No. Look what you did to your granddaughter.”
Mom’s face twisted.
“That child is the reason—”
Dad shouted, “Enough!”
We all froze.
I had rarely heard my father raise his voice.
He faced her.
“Don’t blame Sophia.”
Mom stared at him.
Then laughed.
“So now you’re choosing Laura?”
Dad whispered, “I’m choosing the truth.”
Her face went cold.
Then she looked at me.
“You want the truth?”
I said nothing.
She smiled.
“Ask your father whose idea it really was to transfer the apartment to you five years ago.”
May you like
Dad went pale.
And suddenly I knew there was another secret.
