Dad’s face changed.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean someone forged my name.”
He stared at the page.
Then whispered, “Your mother gave this to me four years ago.”
My phone buzzed.
A message from Ryan.
Mom says don’t tell Dad about the refinance.
I turned the screen toward him.
Dad went pale.
“What refinance?”
The refinance was worse than the missed mortgage payment.
Dad checked the county records the next morning.
Two years earlier, Mom had refinanced the house and pulled nearly eighty thousand dollars in equity from it.
Dad’s signature appeared on the paperwork.
He had never signed it.
Neither had I.
The money had been deposited into an account Dad didn’t know existed.
Most of it eventually went to Ryan.
His failed restaurant.
His truck.
His credit cards.
The fifteen thousand he had asked me for was meant to cover the next problem.
Dad confronted Mom that night.
I was there because he asked me to come.
For once, nobody yelled.
Dad placed the refinance documents on the table.
Mom stared at them for a long time.
Then she said, “I was trying to keep everyone afloat.”
“No,” Dad said. “You were deciding who mattered.”
Ryan admitted he knew about some of the money but claimed he knew nothing about the forged signatures.
Mom cried.
I didn’t enjoy watching it.
I was too exhausted.
Dad met with an attorney and the lender.
