The Deed He Never Saw Coming
I called the number on the recorded document. It listed a notary in Corpus Christi. When I reached her, she confirmed, calmly and immediately, that she had never met my parents, had never notarized anything for a Reggie or a woman by my mother’s name in her life, and had no idea how her stamp number had ended up on a document she’d never seen. She said she’d need to file a report of her own, because someone had used her license number without her knowledge, which is its own kind of crime.
I did not tell my parents any of this over the phone. I did not want my mother finding out over a call that somebody had tried to steal the one nice thing anybody had ever bought her, not before I understood exactly what I was dealing with. Instead I called an attorney, a woman named Denise Aldrich who specializes in real property fraud out of the Corpus Christi office the title company had recommended, and I asked her exactly one question: if I walk in and hand law enforcement the real, validly recorded deed, and the notary’s own statement that her seal was used without her consent, what happens to the people who filed the fake one.
She told me. I am not going to pretend I wasn’t glad to hear it.
I did not confront anyone. I did not call Tonya. I packed the cake, got in the truck, and drove the eleven hours planning to arrive exactly on schedule, on the day I had always planned to arrive, and see for myself what I already knew was waiting.
Kurt’s Math
Kurt is Tonya’s husband of six years, a big, easy-talking man who sells used trucks off a lot on the edge of our hometown and has never, in the time I’ve known him, done anything the slow way when there was a faster way that cut a corner. I liked him fine at their wedding. I have liked him less every year since, mostly for small things: a story that didn’t quite hold together, a business deal that fell apart and somehow was never his fault, a habit of talking about “we” whenever there was money involved and disappearing entirely whenever there was work.
When I walked into that living room with the cake still in my hands, Kurt didn’t look surprised to see me. He looked, if anything, like he’d been expecting an audience and had already decided how the scene was going to go.
“Gail,” he said, like he was greeting a coworker. “Good, you’re here. We can get this settled as a family.”
“Settled,” I said.
“The house,” he said, spreading a hand toward the living room like he was showing it off. “Family property. We already talked to a lawyer about it. Your folks can’t be managing a place like this on their own, not at their age. Those porch steps alone are a liability. We’re going to handle it. Rentals, mostly, in season. You two can come down whenever you want, off-season.”