I didn’t say anything for a while, and neither did she. The line hissed softly. Out in the lobby, a child shrieked happily, and somebody laughed. I think I’d been bracing for this for years. I’d known its shape without seeing it, the way you know there’s a stair in the dark. Every time Karen said, “Mom, can I borrow,” I heard something underneath the words, like a tide going out. And every time I said yes, because the alternative was saying no and finding out what came after. “Mr. Okafor,” I said. “What can be done about the money?”
He cleared his throat. He had the air of a man choosing his words the way you’d choose your steps on ice. “It depends, Mrs. Lane. Federal rules protect customers from unauthorized electronic transfers. But these were in-person withdrawals, at the counter, with a valid ID and correct answers to your security questions. Whether the bank is liable is…” He glanced at Brittany, who flinched. “Arguable. We’ll open a formal fraud claim today, and our legal department will review it. But I don’t want to promise you anything I can’t deliver.” “I understand.”
“However,” he said, “we have the security footage. We have the forged withdrawal slips. And we now have a confession, on a recorded line, to a scheme involving the identity theft of an elderly customer.”
“That’s a crime.”
“It’s several,” he said gently. “In Ohio, exploiting an elderly person financially is a felony. So is forgery. So is identity fraud. The bank is required to report suspected elder financial abuse to Adult Protective Services and to law enforcement. I’ll be filing that report this afternoon.”
“Would she go to prison?”
“That’s for a prosecutor to decide.”
“Would Diane?”
He hesitated. “Mrs. Lane, I’d like you to think carefully about what you want.”
So I thought about it. I sat in that leather chair in a bank I’d used for fifty-three years, with the speaker light blinking beside me, and I thought about what I wanted.
I wanted my husband. I wanted to wake up and have it be 1982, with Karen twelve years old in a Girl Scout sash, selling cookies door to door with her hair in braids. I wanted not to know.
I realized that not knowing was exactly what I’d been giving my daughter her whole life.
“Karen,” I said. “Are you at home?”
“Yes.”
“Is Brian there?”
“He’s at work.”
“Is Diane?”
A pause. “She’s in the guest room.”
“Good.” I stood up. “I’m coming over. With a police officer and a lawyer. In one hour.”
“Mom, please…”
“And I’d like you to have the money.”
She gasped.
“All of it. Whatever’s left. Whatever you can find in that house. I want it on the kitchen table when I get there.”
“Mom, it’s… most of it’s gone.”
“How much is left?”
“About eleven thousand.”
I closed my eyes. “Where did the other fifty go?”
“The bank,” she sobbed. “Brian paid the arrears on the loan so they’d stop the foreclosure. And the… the kitchen. I’m so sorry. It was Diane’s idea. She said if we were going to do it, we might as well. She said we deserved it.”
“The kitchen.”
“It’s a Wolf range. And quartz countertops.”
I put my hand over my mouth, and God help me, I started to laugh.
I’d like to tell you it was bitterness, but it wasn’t. It was the strange, helpless laughter of a woman being told, at eighty, that her husband’s life insurance had turned into a stove.
“Mom?” Karen said in a thin, frightened voice.
“I’m all right.” I wiped my eyes. “I’m quite all right. I’ll see you in an hour.”
