Chapter 9 - The Hospital
I drove. Chloe sat beside me, calling Dad’s phone over and over. Gwendolyn finally answered and gave us the name of the hospital.
Dad was awake when we arrived. A doctor told us he’d fainted and was being evaluated. He had a bandage where he’d hit his forehead, and he looked embarrassed to see us standing together.
“I’m all right,” he said.
Chloe rushed to his bedside. Gwendolyn stayed near the window, her arms folded.
“This stress is doing it,” she said, looking at me.
Dad closed his eyes. “Gwen.”
“What? Somebody has to say it.”
I stepped outside. Chloe followed a minute later.
“I’m sorry I posted the video,” she said. “I took it down.”
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t know about the fake email.”
“You didn’t ask.”
She nodded. “I know.”
We stood beside a vending machine while nurses passed us in the hall. Chloe twisted the ring on her thumb.
“Mom told me the renovation was for Dad,” she said. “She said renting the house part-time would let him retire. The studio was supposed to help me make money too.”
“That might be what she hoped.”
“Do you think she copied your signature?”
“I know I didn’t sign it.”
Back in Dad’s room, Gwendolyn was leaning over his bed.
“Tell them,” she said.
Dad stared at his hands. “Gwen, I need a minute.”
She straightened. “I have spent nine years holding this family together. And now everybody is looking at me like I’m some stranger.”
Dad finally raised his head.
“I gave her the copy of your old license,” he told me. “She said you’d agreed to help and the lender needed proof of identity. I should have called you.”
Gwendolyn’s face went still.
“You believed me,” she said.
“Yes,” Dad answered. “And I was wrong.”
For the first time, he said it while I was there to hear him. I wanted to feel relieved. Instead, I thought of the signature he had brought to my office and how close he had come to asking me to sign away my choice.
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Then Nina called.
The lender had found a recorded call about the application. Whoever spoke on it had claimed to be me.
