I stared at it.
“I never signed this.”
My mother’s silence was immediate and absolute.
My father whispered, “Diane.”
She looked at the document, then at me.
“I was going to fix it.”
“How?”
“I thought the business would recover.”
“You used the cottage too?”
“It was empty.”
“It was mine.”
“I was your mother.”
The phrase sounded smaller now.
Not a defense.
A confession.
I held the document between us.
“Who forged my signature?”
My mother’s eyes filled.
She did not answer.
My father stepped away from her.
“Diane,” he said, his voice unsteady, “tell her the truth.”
My mother looked toward the attic window, where the town lights shimmered faintly below.
Then she reached into the pocket of her robe and removed a small brass key.
“I didn’t forge it,” she said.
She placed the key in my hand.
“It was already signed.”
I stared at her.
“By whom?”
Her gaze moved to my father.
My father sank back into the rocking chair.
And in the silence that followed, I understood that the lie had begun long before I ever left for the Army.
