Age provides enough uncertainty without someone forging it into incompetence.
I tightened my grip on the phone.
“Forgetful,” I repeated, “like the kind that lets me remember every tuition check, every credit card payoff, every rent payment, every car note, every emergency loan, every dollar I have ever spent on you?”
He gave a strained little chuckle, the same one he used to deploy as a teenager when caught lying.
“Mom, let’s not get emotional.”
Family, I thought, has ruined more people with that sentence than war ever did.
“You forged my signature, Daniel.”
“That’s not how it happened.”
“How did it happen, then?”
He rushed in too quickly. “Melissa has a friend at a notary office. There might have been a mix-up with the forms. Look, we can fix this. But if you start making this into some big legal thing, people are going to talk.”
The sentence sat between us, and I almost admired the nakedness of it.
