Chapter 11 - Forty Thousand Dollars
The bank statement changed the shape of my marriage.
Naomi had urged me to check our joint credit reports and accounts the moment we found the forged authorization. I thought I might discover a late payment. Instead, I found a business-credit guarantee opened in my name eight months earlier for forty thousand dollars. The application carried a scanned version of my signature.
I recognized the signature immediately. It came from the car insurance policy Ryan and I signed two years before. The shape of the E was identical, down to a blot of ink where my pen had stalled.
"He didn't just lie to you," Naomi said. "Someone appears to have used your identity in a financial transaction. Report it to the lender and the authorities. We'll request the application history."
The loan proceeds had gone from Ryan's contracting account into Westbrook. Then smaller payments came back labeled CHILD DEVELOPMENT SERVICES. Diane had built a circle of money and tried to hide it beneath Lily's name.
I remembered Ryan asking me to work a holiday shift because our mortgage insurance had increased. We'd sold my grandmother's antique sewing machine to cover the car repair. I'd worried about spending fifteen dollars on a birthday gift for myself while he moved thousands between accounts.
That afternoon, the bank's fraud specialist called to confirm my dispute. She said they would investigate the application and put appropriate restrictions on the account. She could not promise the debt would disappear overnight.
When I hung up, Lily brought me her stuffed fox. One ear had been chewed flat. "Fox hungry," she said.
"Then Fox gets lunch," I answered, making a tiny sandwich from two crackers.
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There was a knock at the door. A courier stood outside with a sealed packet from Ryan's attorney. The first page was a request for an independent psychological evaluation of me.
Attached was a transcript of a private voicemail I'd left Ryan after my own mother died, three years before Lily was born.
