She said Terrence had approached her last year, saying his mother supported the venture and would personally oversee the funds.
“I never did,” I said.
She went quiet.
Then she asked why my name appeared on one of the promotional presentations.
I couldn’t answer.
I had no idea the company had been using my reputation to reassure investors.
When I confronted Terrence, he admitted he had shown people photographs of our family and said I was proud of the business.
He swore he never promised them a guarantee.
Lennox interrupted, saying everyone knew those claims were merely marketing.
I told them they could not move in until we understood whether this dispute might affect me.
Lennox accused me of siding with strangers over my own child.
Terrence looked as though he was ready to cry.
I picked up my damaged wedding photograph.
In the image, my husband was laughing at something I couldn’t remember.
He had spent years teaching Terrence that trust was earned, not borrowed from someone else’s name.
Then Patricia texted me a page from the investor presentation.
It contained my photograph beneath the heading FAMILY OVERSIGHT BOARD.
Below it was a digital authorization purportedly from me.
The signature wasn’t mine.
But the email address beside it was an old account only Terrence had helped me set up.
I enlarged the image on my phone until the false signature filled the screen. The first letter had been copied carefully. The last letter leaned backward, a way I had never written my name. Across the room, Terrence watched my thumb travel over it as if the movement itself might expose him.
“Open that email account,” I said.
Lennox gave a contemptuous little snort. “You can’t honestly expect him to remember a password from years ago.”
“I expect him to try.”
Terrence looked at the suitcases by my door. Our granddaughter, Lily, was sitting on one of them with a stuffed rabbit under her arm. She was nine, old enough to hear the tension but too young to understand why her parents had brought all their clothes to Grandma’s house. I lowered my voice.
“Lily, would you like to take your book into the breakfast room? There’s a lamp beside the window.”
She nodded and carried her rabbit away. I waited until the door swung shut before turning back to her parents.
“Whose idea was the oversight board?”
Terrence rubbed his hands together. “We needed investors to think the company had structure.”
“Did I agree to be part of it?”
