Part 3
Dad had the dining-room light on when I reached his place Friday morning. Through the window I could see envelopes laid in straight rows across the table, each stack squared against the grain of the wood.
He lived twenty-three miles inland, under an awning that rattled whenever a hard rain came through. I still had his key. At seven o’clock I knocked instead of using it.
He opened the door wearing work trousers and a faded undershirt. His eyes dropped to the papers in my hand.
“You saw what went to the credit union.”
“It was in the seller’s file.”
He moved back, but I waited on the step. After a moment he said I could come in.
Coffee had burned down in the pot. Under it was the dry, familiar smell of his garage, carried into the house on his clothes. Near the kitchen, a photograph of Mom sat slightly crooked in its frame.
I stopped beside it. The timer had caught all four of us after a game of hearts the summer before I enlisted. Mom had beaten us badly. There was flour on one sleeve and a dish towel sliding off her shoulder, and Dad was looking at her instead of the camera.
She’d brought biscuits to the card table and declared that once the clock passed six, nobody could object to calling them dinner. Curtis accused her of keeping the good cards under her plate. She flicked the towel at him; Dad caught the end without looking, and I had laughed just as the shutter clicked.
After she died, Dad packed the mixing bowl for me. On the carton he wrote JULIA in thick marker. He said I was the only one of us willing to take the time to cut cold butter into flour properly.
I laid the payoff demand over a stack of unopened envelopes.
“How long were you going to keep the foreclosure from me?”
Dad took two mugs out of the cupboard. He filled mine black without asking.
“I put my name on a credit line for the shop. Parts and materials, until his customers paid. It wasn’t supposed to last.”
“And when that wasn’t enough?”
He carried his mug to the back door. Beyond the glass, the garage stood open. Shelves we’d built together had empty patches where he used to keep his better tools.
“I borrowed against this place to pay down the business line. Curtis had work coming in. One of the bigger jobs canceled.”
“When did the betting start?”
Dad pressed his thumb against the mug handle. “He was trying to catch up.”
“He was using borrowed money to gamble.”
“You wanted the account of it. Let me give it to you.”
The new house loan had fallen behind. Dad had sold tools, delayed bills, and kept waiting for the next job Curtis said would put the shop right. Then Fenwick offered a fast way to raise money.
“Did you honestly believe he could amend my signature into existence?” I asked.
“Not like that.”
“How, then?”
“He said I’d been managing the property for years. That the new page put what you’d entrusted to me into the right form.” Dad turned away from the window. “I thought I could replace what we took.”
I left my coffee untouched. “Tell me what was paid.”
“The house loan. The employees Curtis owed. Two customer refunds.”
“Those two names in the disbursements?”
He nodded.
“What else?”
“Some creditors. Fenwick’s charges were higher than he’d told us.”
“Were the creditors people he owed from betting?”
“I didn’t have every detail.”
“You signed the directions.”
His mug struck the counter. Coffee jumped onto the laminate.
“You phone from the other side of the world and want everything checked off,” he said. “House okay? Bills current? Your brother working? I say it’s handled, and you can get on with your life. Do you ever ask what I’m doing to keep it handled?”
I looked at the stain spreading toward the seam in the counter. I had sent money when his heating system failed. When Mom was sick, I had made medication charts and expense sheets from another time zone. I had known how often Dad put himself between Curtis and a consequence, yet I’d chosen him to hold the power of attorney. I had relied on the restriction rather than ask what he might do if Curtis needed more than he could give.
“You could have told me it wasn’t handled.”
“Would that have brought you back?”
“If you’d told me you were considering stealing my house, I’d have found a way.”
He pulled his chin back. For a while the only sound was a spoon settling in the sink.
“I tried you the day after the deed went through.”
Three calls. I had watched them arrive after the county alert. I wanted a voicemail that said what he had done, something I could hear again without having to listen to his fear in real time.
All he left was a request to call when I got a chance.
“I should’ve picked up,” I said. “You should’ve told me what was wrong.”
Dad wiped the spilled coffee with a towel, then folded the wet part inward. His eyes returned to the payoff demand.
“What are they going to do?”
“The insurer has a claim to investigate. My lawyer has to deal with title. Once the acknowledgment and records are checked, there may be a criminal investigation too.”
He lowered himself into a chair. “Curtis won’t manage that.”
“Bethany’s managing what you left her.”
I set my untouched mug beside his and went to the door.
Valerie’s office was above a tax preparer and a shop selling outdoor chairs. I reached the landing with sweat under my collar and found Bethany already in the conference room. A hospital badge hung from her tote: respiratory therapy.
She had worked overnight, changed in the employee locker room, and come straight there. Her notebook lay open to a page of questions. She capped her pen when I sat down, but she didn’t close the notebook.
Valerie had contacted the title insurer and the closing lawyer. A claim was open for Bethany, and the closing lawyer had preserved his file and notified his own insurer. Valerie had also filed an action contesting the transfer and a notice that would warn any later buyer or lender of the pending dispute.
“Doesn’t the county remove it once they see the original?” I asked.
“The recording office isn’t deciding whose evidence wins,” Valerie said. “We clear this through a binding agreement or a court order. Neither happens at the records counter.”
Bethany turned her pen between her fingers. “What happens to me while everyone decides?”
“I’m not asking you to leave.”
Valerie put down the page she was reading. “We need more than a good intention.”
She proposed an interim occupancy agreement. Bethany could remain while the claim was examined, keeping utilities and whatever insurance her own lawyer advised. Entry and removal of belongings would require written arrangements and consent. I offered not to pursue possession while the lawyers prepared the terms.
“My attorney reviews every word,” Bethany said. “And until we sign, no surprise visits. You write to me first.”
“Yes.”
She put her notebook into her tote. “I won’t be another person your family moves around to make this easier.”
“I understand.”
Before leaving, I sent her the records she hadn’t yet received. She checked that the attachments had arrived, then slung the tote over her shoulder and went downstairs.
That night Dad called while my uniforms were washing at the motel. I sat on a plastic chair with a basket between my boots, listening to the machine thump each time the wet sleeves fell.
“You need to hear something,” he said.
He played a message Curtis had left three days before the closing. Under his voice, an engine ran unevenly. Two customers had reported missing deposits to the sheriff. The credit union had been ordered to produce the shop’s records that Friday. If the money went back first, Curtis said, maybe the complaints would stop.
Then his voice broke. He said he couldn’t face being charged. He told Dad not to look for him if the money wasn’t replaced.
The recording ended. Dad stayed on the line.
“I thought my son was going to kill himself,” he said. “What would you have done?”
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