Brenda spoke quickly. “You said you needed a break.”
“I said I might visit my cousin after Christmas.”
“Kenneth understood it differently.”
“No,” he said, turning toward her. “You said she’d already booked somewhere. Somewhere private. You said she didn’t want calls.”
The room seemed to shrink around the table.
Mr. Abernathy asked, “Did either of you submit these documents anywhere else?”
Brenda folded her arms.
“I think we need our own lawyer.”
“Yes,” he said. “You do.”
I reached for the torn sheet beside the eviction notice. The imitation of my signature curved across one half. Even the small upward stroke at the end looked right.
“Where did you get this?”
No one answered.
I remembered Brenda offering to organize my household files during the summer. Remembered the little scanner she brought, the neat folders she left behind.
“You copied it.”
“It’s a signature,” she said. “It isn’t a fingerprint.”
Kenneth stepped back from her.
That small movement hurt almost as much as the message. He could recognize something monstrous when it concerned a piece of paper. Why had he not recognized it when she asked him to throw away his mother?
Mr. Abernathy took out his phone.
“I need to contact my office and preserve everything we received. Then we should report this.”
Kenneth’s head jerked up.
“Report it?”
“Yes.”
“Couldn’t we stop whatever she sent? Get it back?”
I heard the boy he had been in that question: a broken window, a ball tucked behind his back, the desperate hope that fixing the glass would erase the throw.
“What did you sign?” I asked.
His mouth trembled.
“A statement about the properties. She said you’d agreed.”
“Did you ask me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
