A roll of packing tape lay on my bed.
I stood there until Helen appeared behind me.
“Were you planning to move?”
“No.”
Downstairs, Melissa was whispering fiercely to Brian. When I came back, she folded her arms.
“We were looking at places that would be easier for you.”
“You wrote a deadline for me to leave.”
“It was a conversation starter.”
“You listed me as dead.”
Brian flinched.
Melissa looked at Helen rather than at me.
“There were errors in the paperwork.”
“Then tell me which parts were true.”
Neither answered.
I opened the folder. Under a copy of the torn notice was a rental listing for a small apartment across town. Someone had circled the words assisted living nearby.
They had not merely imagined my absence. They had researched it.
Helen explained that further communication about the house would go through her. She would arrange the proper process for their departure. They were not to remove my belongings or interfere with my records.
Melissa laughed once.
“You’d throw out your own son?”
I looked at Brian.
“I gave him a home.”
He covered his face.
For a moment, I wanted to go to him. My body knew the movement: cross the kitchen, place a hand between his shoulders, wait until his breathing settled.
Instead, I took my blouse from Melissa’s side of the laundry basket.
“You’ll return the one you’re wearing, too.”
My voice shook.
I said it anyway.
CHAPTER 3 – What He Knew
Helen asked whether I wanted someone else present when I gave my statement to the investigator.
I chose Ruth.
Brian had asked to speak to me first. His message was short enough that I read it several times without meaning to.
Please let me explain before this becomes something we can’t take back.
At Helen’s office, I held the pen above the statement.
“What happens to him if I sign?”
Helen did not promise me anything comforting.
“The evidence will be investigated. You cannot control every consequence by deciding how much of the truth to tell.”
Through the window, a man was helping a child into a raincoat. He pulled the hood gently free where it had caught beneath a backpack.
I remembered Brian’s small, hot hand inside mine.
Then I remembered him holding his car keys while I tore up the notice.
I signed.
Brian came to Helen’s office that afternoon. I agreed to see him with her present.
He looked as though he had slept in his clothes.
“I thought we could pay it back,” he said.
There was no greeting. Perhaps he had used up his courage getting through the door.
“Pay what back?”
“The loan. Once I had steady work.”
“You couldn’t borrow against my house without asking me?”
“Melissa said you’d never agree.”
“She was right.”
He pressed his hands together between his knees.
He told us about credit cards, unpaid bills, and money Melissa had put into an online retail business that never earned what she expected. Then he told us about a second loan he had hidden from her.
There had been more than one person lying in my house.
“When did you learn about the death documents?” Helen asked.
Brian stared at the carpet.
“Before they were submitted.”
I had prepared myself for that answer. It still made the room seem to tilt.
“And you submitted them?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Did Melissa make you?”
His eyes finally met mine.
