The Bill I Finally Sent My Mother

“That’s not me,” I said.

“It’s your name. It’s your Social Security number and your date of birth.” She was gentle about it. “The mailing address on all three is on West Thirty-Fifth Street.”

That was my mother’s house.

“How much?” I asked.

She added it on the adding machine so I could watch the tape. $9,870 on the first. $8,215 on the second. $5,315 on the third.

“Twenty-three thousand four hundred dollars,” Mrs. Abel said.

“And they’ve been paid?”

“The minimum, every month, for fifteen years. That’s why they’re still open, and why the limits are so high. A bank raises the limit on somebody who pays.” She turned a page. “All three are sitting close to those limits. And this past winter two of them went ninety days late.”

That is why they were on my report at all. An account that was closed years ago drops off in time. These had never been closed. Somebody had kept them alive and nearly full since I was eighteen.

She told me my credit score. It was 591.

“I can’t write this loan,” she said. “I’m sorry. With that score, and that much debt against your income, it wouldn’t get past the first desk. I wouldn’t be doing you a kindness to pretend otherwise.”

I had driven past that white house every evening for three weeks. I had already decided where the kitchen table would go.

“What do I do?”

Mrs. Abel folded her hands. I have thought since about how carefully she chose her words, and how she did not once tell me what I ought to feel.

“If you did not open these accounts, then someone used your identity. The way to get them off your report is to report it as identity theft. You fill out the federal form, and you file a report with the Kearney police. Then the bureaus and the banks have to look into it.”

“A police report.”

“Yes.”

“Saying who?”

“They’ll ask if you know who did it.” She looked at me over the glasses. “Do you know who did it?”

I did not say anything. I did not need to. She had read the address the same as I had.

“I’ve sat at this desk twenty-six years,” she said quietly. “You would not be the first, honey. It is nearly always a parent.”

“If I file, what happens to her?”

“I can’t promise you what a county attorney would or wouldn’t do. I’m a loan officer. I can only tell you it is a crime, and that’s the honest name for it.”

I looked at the adding machine tape curling on the desk.

“Could I have thirty days first?”

“The sellers won’t wait thirty days on that house.”

“I know.”

She was quiet. Then she nodded.

“You can have all the time you want. It’s your name and your choice. But I’d be lying if I told you waiting fixes it. You may give her thirty days and still end up at the police station. I want you to walk out of here knowing that.”

“I know that too,” I said.

“Then do two things today, whatever you decide about her,” she said. “Freeze your credit with all three bureaus, so nothing new can be opened. And dispute that address on your file. Neither one accuses anybody. They only shut the door.”

She printed the report for me and stapled it, and she put two butterscotch candies on top of it like a woman who did not know what else to do.