I woke before my alarm.
For a few seconds, I lay still, looking at the ceiling.
Then I remembered the appointment.
Ten o'clock.
I had spent the previous day thinking about that time.
Now it had arrived.
I went into the kitchen and found the red folder exactly where I had left it.
Beside it sat the coffee cup.
I picked up the cup and emptied it into the sink.
The coffee had left a dark ring near the bottom.
I rinsed it twice.
It was a small thing to do, but I needed something ordinary to occupy my hands.
I made fresh coffee.
This time, I drank some while it was hot.
Then I sat down and opened the folder.
The lease renewal was still there.
So was the photocopy of my driver's license.
And the signature that had kept me awake for much of the night.
I looked at the writing.
My name was familiar.
The shape of the letters was familiar.
But I hadn't written them.
I knew that as surely as I knew the address of the house where I lived.
I didn't need to convince myself again.
I needed someone to help me establish how it had happened.
My attorney was coming at ten.
I had already told Valerie that.
I had also made it clear that I wouldn't discuss the paperwork without legal advice.
The decision had felt severe when I first said it.
That morning, it felt necessary.
I took a clean sheet of paper from the drawer beside the kitchen.
I wrote down two questions.
Who signed the lease renewal?
Who provided my driver's license?
Then I added a third.
What obligation was this document supposed to create for me?
I stared at that last question.
It frightened me more than the others.
Until then, I had concentrated on the fact that someone had imitated my signature.
I hadn't spent enough time asking what the signature might have been used to accomplish.
I looked at the lease renewal again.
It wasn't merely a piece of paper bearing my name.
Someone had prepared it for a purpose.
Someone had expected the signature to mean something.
I wanted to know what.
At a few minutes before ten, I placed the folder and my questions together.
When my attorney arrived, I let her in.
She carried a slim case and a notebook.
She looked at the table before she sat down.
"Is that everything you found?"
"Everything I have here."
She nodded.
"Then start with what you know for certain."
I appreciated that question.
She hadn't asked whether Valerie was a good daughter.
She hadn't asked whether Brandon disliked me.
She hadn't asked why I hadn't attended the wedding.
She wanted facts.
I told her I hadn't signed the lease renewal.
I showed her the signature.
Then I turned to the photocopy of my license.
"I didn't give permission for this to be included."
She studied the pages.
"Do you know who prepared them?"
"No."
"Do you know when the copy of your license was made?"
"No."
"Have you already spoken to the people involved?"
"Yes."
I explained the previous call.
I told her about Brandon's insistence that everything remain within the family.
I told her Valerie had asked to wait until today.
I told her there had been no explanation for the signature.
My attorney wrote something in her notebook.
"Did anyone specifically say who signed it?"
"No."
"Did anyone acknowledge that the signature wasn't yours?"
"No."
She looked up.
"Then we shouldn't assume we know who did it."
"I don't want to accuse the wrong person."
"Good. We can be firm without guessing."
I felt some of the tension leave my shoulders.
That was what I had been struggling to do by myself.
I knew something was wrong.
But I didn't know who was responsible.
And I didn't want my anger about the wedding to become a substitute for evidence.
My attorney looked at the license photocopy.
"Where was this when you found it?"
"Behind the lease renewal."
"Was it attached?"
"It was included with the same paperwork."
"Keep the originals in their existing order."
"I have."
She nodded again.
"That's sensible."
I told her how many times I had looked at those pages.
How carefully I had tried not to disturb them.
How frightened I had been that I might overlook something.
She listened.
Then she said something I hadn't expected.
"You don't need to solve every part of this yourself."
I looked down at my hands.
I had spent years thinking that being a good mother meant solving problems before Valerie ever saw how serious they were.
I knew how to do that.
What I didn't know was how to stop.
My attorney turned to the document.
"First, we need to establish where this paperwork came from, who submitted it, and what it was intended to authorize. Then we can consider the appropriate next steps."
I repeated the words silently.
Where it came from.
Who submitted it.
What it authorized.
They were ordinary questions.
Questions that could be answered with records.
I hadn't realized how badly I needed someone to put the situation into that order.
"What about Valerie?" I asked.
"What about her?"
"She's my daughter."
"I understand."
"I don't want to destroy her marriage."
My attorney set down her pen.
"Finding out whether your identity was used without permission is not the same thing as trying to destroy a marriage."
I looked away.
I had known that.
But hearing someone else say it mattered.
"She's thirty," I said. "I raised her alone."
My attorney waited.
"I keep thinking I should be able to fix this without hurting her."
"Do you know that she was involved?"
"No."
"Then begin there. Don't take responsibility for an answer you haven't received."
I thought about Brandon.
He had been so confident when he told me to keep lawyers out of it.
I wondered whether he would sound the same with my attorney present.
I hoped he would explain everything.
I hoped there was some detail we'd missed.
But I wasn't prepared to accept a comforting answer merely because it allowed me to go home and pretend nothing had happened.
My attorney asked if I had copies of any messages connected to the discussion.
I showed her what I had.
We went through them slowly.
I explained who Valerie was.
Who Brandon was.
And how Susan was connected to the family.
When I mentioned Susan's remarks about my house and work, I almost apologized for bringing up something irrelevant.
My attorney listened without encouraging me to dwell on it.
"That history may explain why these conversations are difficult," she said. "But let's keep the paperwork at the center."
"That's what I want."
"Then we agree."
I looked at the clock.
The morning seemed to be moving differently.
For once, I wasn't rushing toward the next apology.
I wasn't preparing a speech about how much I'd sacrificed as a mother.
I was preparing to ask three questions and listen to the answers.
My attorney and I reviewed them again.
When we reached the third question, she looked at me.
"Do you understand what obligations this lease renewal might place on the person named?"
"Not completely."
"Then don't agree to anything until we do."
I nodded.
That was another thing I had done too often.
I had agreed first.
Understood later.
Sometimes I had helped Valerie because she needed money.
Sometimes because she needed time.
Sometimes because she simply wanted me to make a problem disappear.
I had rarely demanded explanations.
And now I was facing a document I hadn't even agreed to sign.
I closed the folder.
My attorney kept her notebook open.
We were ready to hear what Valerie and Brandon had to say.
I didn't feel calm.
Not completely.
But I felt less confused.
The facts hadn't changed.
My daughter was still married.
I was still the mother she hadn't invited.
The signature was still disputed.
The license was still attached.
Nothing had been settled.
But for the first time since finding the paperwork, I didn't feel that I had to choose between loving Valerie and protecting myself.
I could do both.
I looked at my attorney.
"I want to give them a chance to explain."
"That's reasonable."
"But if they can't?"
"Then we deal with what we can establish from the documents and the people who handled them."
I put my hands on the table.
I thought about all the conversations where someone had told me I was being too sensitive.
All the times I'd tried to make my own questions smaller.
That morning, I wasn't going to do it.
I would listen.
I would be fair.
And I would not sign, approve, or withdraw anything simply to make the room comfortable.
The red folder lay between us.
For once, I was prepared to let the questions remain unanswered until someone who actually knew the facts was willing to answer them.
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: Brandon Had Plenty to Say About Family Loyalty, but My Attorney Kept Asking Him About the Lease Renewal
They Said I Was Only Angry About the Wedding, but Nobody Could Explain Why My Signature Was on Their Paperwork
Part 9 of 20
