Chapter 8 - Three Days After Dinner
On the third morning after I left, I woke to a call from Nina. The lender had paused its review of the loan while it examined the disputed consent. No money had been released.
“They also sent us a copy of the identification submitted with the application,” she said.
“It’s mine?”
“It’s a picture of your old driver’s license. Was it ever kept at the Phoenix house?”
I remembered leaving the expired card in a desk drawer when I renewed it.
“Yes.”
“We’ll document that.”
After the call, I made coffee and sat on my back porch. The hills were pale in the morning light. I had pictured this house as a place where I could rest after work. Instead, I had spent three nights reading forms and watching my phone.
A car rolled up my driveway.
Chloe got out.
I hadn’t given her the address. She stood beside her car, taking in the house with an expression I couldn’t read.
I opened the front door. “How did you find me?”
“Dad followed you the night you left,” she said. “He gave me the address.”
For a second, I couldn’t speak. He had watched me arrive safely and never called to say he was sorry.
Chloe looked past me at the wide windows. “So this is why you didn’t care about your room.”
“I cared.”
“You could’ve told us you were rich.”
“You never asked what I did.”
“That’s unfair.”
I stepped aside to let her in. She walked through the living room, touching nothing. At the kitchen island, she turned to me.
“Mom says you’re making up the signature thing. She says you told Dad you’d help.”
“Did she show you anything I actually signed?”
“No.”
I pulled out the email Dad had forwarded and showed her the address. Then I showed her an email I’d sent him from my real account the week before.
Chloe looked from one to the other.
Her phone buzzed. She read a message, and all the color left her face.
May you like
“What is it?” I asked.
“Mom says Dad collapsed at the house.”
