![\"May](\"https:\/\/scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net\/v\/t39.30808-6\/854338711_122150957301351703_3223665558345712532_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_tt6&cstp=mx896x1200&ctp=p526x296&_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=fMDiEgu9EqsQ7kNvwGP8WeT&_nc_oc=AdoXxwQ0vyfyN3m8XTsYGbjTEMxpj1_H5CfMy6y1_Uj8jmVDVZ3vESeWq9atGvjsraY&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.xx&_nc_gid=s7oMcjr1UkAkDb2bKMAzUg&_nc_ss=792a8&oh=00_AQO8pM339Y97AW7TcUXrgoYDPzjMDovo3YUbF3Aq0INvNQ&oe=6ADE7FF2\")
<\/p>\nSo were my deployment bonuses. The money I\u2019d been saving for two years. The money I\u2019d planned to use for a new roof, because my grandfather\u2019s roof was forty years old and I\u2019d promised myself I\u2019d take care of it. Gone. I pulled up the transaction history. Transfers, one after another. Five thousand dollars. Eight thousand. Three thousand. Ten thousand. All going to the same account. An account I didn\u2019t recognize. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my ears.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I clicked on the account information page. There was a section I never looked at. Authorized Users and Agents. There was a name there. Evelyn M. Hollis. Agent under Power of Attorney. There was a document attached. Uploaded seven months ago. A little PDF icon. I opened it. It was a power of attorney. A durable, general power of attorney, giving my mother complete authority over my finances while I was deployed. At the bottom, there was a signature.<\/p>\n
Katherine A. Hollis. It was my name. It looked almost like my handwriting. The K was right. The loop on the H was almost right. Except I had never signed it. I had never seen this document in my life. I sat there on the cot for a long time, staring at my own name. I thought about the day before I deployed. My mother standing in my kitchen. \u201cWhy don\u2019t you let your father and me keep an eye on the place?\u201d I thought about how easy I\u2019d made it for them.<\/p>\n
I went through the records one more time. Slowly. I wrote every number down on the back of an envelope, the way my grandfather taught me to do the checkbook when I was ten.<\/p>\n
Then I added it all up.<\/p>\n
The total came to $45,000.<\/p>\n
Upstairs, somebody turned on music. I heard my mother laugh.<\/p>\n
Even then, I didn\u2019t go up and confront anyone.<\/p>\n
Not yet.<\/p>\n
Vance came home at six-fifteen.<\/p>\n
I heard his truck in the driveway. I heard the front door. I heard Chloe come down the stairs slowly, and my mother say, \u201cCareful, sweetie, careful,\u201d and then the murmur of all their voices in the kitchen.<\/p>\n
I came up from the basement.<\/p>\n
Everyone stopped talking.<\/p>\n
Vance was standing by the refrigerator in his work clothes. He was a tall, heavy-shouldered man with a soft face and a beard he\u2019d grown since the wedding. He worked for a construction company, or he had, the last I\u2019d heard. He looked at me and his face went a little red.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey, Kate,\u201d he said. \u201cWelcome home.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks, Vance.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then Chloe.<\/p>\n
My little sister was sitting at the kitchen island in my grandfather\u2019s old stool, the one he used to sit on to drink his coffee. She had one hand on her belly. She looked tired and pretty and very pregnant.<\/p>\n
\u201cHi,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHi, Chlo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look thin.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a long nine months.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah.\u201d She didn\u2019t quite look at me. \u201cMom said you might be upset. About the room.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not upset.\u201d<\/p>\n
That seemed to surprise her more than anything. She finally looked at me. Our eyes met. For a second, she looked like she was about to say something real.<\/p>\n
Then my mother cut in.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course she\u2019s not upset. Kate understands. Don\u2019t you, Kate?\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at my mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand a lot of things now,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
My mother\u2019s smile flickered. Just once. Then it came back.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell,\u201d she said. \u201cDinner\u2019s at seven. You\u2019re welcome to join us, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n
You\u2019re welcome to join us.<\/p>\n
In my own kitchen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m pretty tired,\u201d I said. \u201cI think I\u2019ll eat downstairs.\u201d<\/p>\n
I made myself a peanut butter sandwich at my own counter while my whole family watched me and didn\u2019t say anything, and then I took it down to the basement and ate it sitting on the cot, with the unshaded lamp throwing hard light on the concrete.<\/p>\n
It was the best peanut butter sandwich I\u2019ve ever had. Because I was making a plan while I ate it.<\/p>\n
That night, I didn\u2019t sleep much.<\/p>\n
I lay on the cot looking at the beams and thinking about my grandfather.<\/p>\n
I thought about a summer when I was fifteen. My parents had gone on a cruise with Chloe and left me with Grandpa for two weeks. They said it was because I\u2019d get seasick. I found out later it was because the cruise was cheaper for three.<\/p>\n
I was sitting on the porch that first night, feeling sorry for myself, when my grandfather came out with two bottles of root beer.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what I noticed about you?\u201d he said, handing me one.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never ask for anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t know what to say.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour sister asks for everything,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd she gets most of it. You ask for nothing. And you get about that much.\u201d He tipped his root beer at me. \u201cThat\u2019s not fair, Katie. And it\u2019s not your fault. But it\u2019s going to be your problem someday, if you\u2019re not careful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople like your parents,\u201d he said, and then he stopped. He took a long drink. He looked out at his pine trees.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy son is a good talker,\u201d he finally said. \u201cAlways has been. He can make anything sound like it\u2019s for your own good. You remember that. When somebody tells you something\u2019s for your own good, you check their pockets.\u201d<\/p>\n
I laughed. I thought he was joking.<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The next afternoon, my father threw a barbecue.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d planned it weeks before, apparently. My mother told me about it at breakfast, like she was letting me in on a secret.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour father\u2019s invited some people from post. Colonel Brandt and his wife. The Ashfords. A few others. It\u2019s important for his work, so please. Be pleasant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colonel Brandt was a brigade commander. He was also, as it happened, on the board that would be reviewing my packet for promotion to major that spring.<\/p>\n
My father knew that. I found out later that was why he\u2019d invited him.<\/p>\n
By three o\u2019clock, my backyard was full of people.<\/p>\n
My father stood at my grandfather\u2019s grill in an apron that said GRILL SERGEANT. My mother moved through the guests with a tray of deviled eggs. Chloe sat in a lawn chair in the shade with her feet up on a cooler, and people kept coming over to touch her belly and ask when she was due.<\/p>\n
I stood by the fence in jeans and a T-shirt and watched it all.<\/p>\n
It was a nice party. I\u2019ll give them that.<\/p>\n
It was a nice party at my house, with my grill, on my lawn, with my grandfather\u2019s pine trees throwing long shadows across the grass. And every single person there thought it belonged to my parents.<\/p>\n
I heard my mother say it. Twice.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, we\u2019ve been so lucky with this house. Richard\u2019s father left it to the family.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family.<\/p>\n
I heard my father say it too. He had Colonel Brandt by the grill, and he was waving his tongs at the back porch.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad built that porch himself. Summer of \u201978. I helped him set the posts.\u201d<\/p>\n
My father was twelve in 1978. He\u2019d spent that summer at a baseball camp in Denver. I know, because my grandfather told me. \u201cBuilt the whole thing myself,\u201d he\u2019d said. \u201cYour dad was too busy hitting balls to hold a level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colonel Brandt nodded politely. He glanced over at me. I nodded back.<\/p>\n
Around five, my father caught my eye across the yard and jerked his head toward the side of the house.<\/p>\n
I followed him around the corner, past the garbage cans, to the narrow strip of gravel between the house and the neighbor\u2019s fence.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t waste time.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to handle something tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat kind of something?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA transfer. Paperwork. Simple.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTransfer of what?\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked at me like I was deliberately wasting his time. Like I was a lieutenant who\u2019d forgotten how to read a map.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe house.\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t say anything.<\/p>\n
\u201cChloe needs stability,\u201d he went on. \u201cShe\u2019s having a baby. Vance\u2019s company cut half their crew in March. They need a place that\u2019s theirs. Not a place they\u2019re<\/p>\n
borrowing from you. You\u2019re gone all the time. You don\u2019t even use it. There\u2019s no reason for you to keep holding onto it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHolding onto it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s mine, Dad. Grandpa left it to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGrandpa,\u201d my father said, and something ugly flashed in his face, \u201cwas an old man who played favorites. He should have left it to me. Everybody knows that. You got lucky. And now it\u2019s time to do the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd what\u2019s the right thing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a title company in town. Mesa Title. Your mother set it up. The paperwork\u2019s ready. You go in tomorrow at two, you sign a quitclaim deed putting the house in Chloe and Vance\u2019s names, and it\u2019s done. Clean. Simple. Nobody has to make a big deal about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at him for a long moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy do you need me to sign it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Mom has power of attorney,\u201d I said, very evenly, \u201cwhy doesn\u2019t she just sign it for me?\u201d<\/p>\n
For a second, just a second, my father\u2019s face went completely blank.<\/p>\n
Then he recovered.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe title company wants you in person. Some rule about military and real estate. Whatever. It doesn\u2019t matter. Just go sign it.\u201d<\/p>\n
So they\u2019d already tried.<\/p>\n
They\u2019d walked into a title company with a forged power of attorney and tried to sign my house away while I was on the other side of the world. And somebody at the title company had stopped them.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if I don\u2019t?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
My father\u2019s tone changed.<\/p>\n
It got quiet. Quiet was always worse with my father.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still have connections, Kate.\u201d<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re up for major this spring,\u201d he said. \u201cBrandt\u2019s on your board. I\u2019ve known Tom Brandt for fifteen years. It would be a real shame if something came up. Some financial irregularities. Some questions about your judgment. You know how the<\/p>\n
Army is about officers with money problems. Security clearances. Background checks.\u201d He shrugged. \u201cIt would be a shame if something complicated that process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Money problems.<\/p>\n
He was threatening to report me for money problems.<\/p>\n
Money problems he had created. With money he had stolen.<\/p>\n
For several seconds, I just stared at him.<\/p>\n
He still thought he was giving me orders.<\/p>\n
He still saw me as the daughter who would bend. Who would soak up whatever damage they did and quietly clean up whatever mess they made. The good sister. The one who never asked for anything.<\/p>\n
I was holding a plastic cup of lemonade. I raised it and took a slow drink.<\/p>\n
Then I smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll make sure the paperwork is handled exactly as it should be, Dad.\u201d<\/p>\n
He watched my face for a moment. Something in him wasn\u2019t sure.<\/p>\n
Then he said, \u201cGood,\u201d and walked back around the corner to the grill.<\/p>\n
I stood there between the garbage cans for a while, finishing my lemonade.<\/p>\n
Then I went down to the basement and got the folder out of the safe.<\/p>\n
The next morning, I walked into the Legal Assistance office at Fort Carson at 0800 with the folder tucked under my arm.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d called ahead. I\u2019d said it was urgent. I must have sounded like I meant it, because they got me in to see Captain Morales at the start of the day.<\/p>\n
Captain Elena Morales was about my age, maybe a little older, with dark hair pulled back tight and a desk so neat it looked like nobody had ever used it. She shook my hand and pointed to the chair across from her.<\/p>\n
\u201cTell me what you\u2019ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n
I told her.<\/p>\n
I told her about the trash bags. The basement. The cot. I told her about the bank alerts and the transfers and the power of attorney. I told her about the barbecue and the side of the house and \u201cI still have connections.\u201d<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t interrupt. She just wrote.<\/p>\n
Then I laid it all out on her desk. The bank statements, printed at the library that morning. The account access records. The power of attorney.<\/p>\n
She went through them slowly. Page by page.<\/p>\n
When she got to the power of attorney, her pace slowed.<\/p>\n
She looked at the signature for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not yours.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, ma\u2019am.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
I took a pen off her desk and signed my name on a blank sheet of paper. Katherine A. Hollis. I slid it next to the power of attorney.<\/p>\n
She looked from one to the other.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour K is completely different,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd whoever did this was copying something. Look at the pressure. See how it\u2019s heavier here, where they slowed down?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI see it.\u201d<\/p>\n
She kept reading.<\/p>\n
\u201cForty-five thousand,\u201d she said. \u201cTransferred while you were deployed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, ma\u2019am.\u201d<\/p>\n
She leaned back in her chair. She took a breath and let it out slowly.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right. This is already bad,\u201d she said. \u201cForgery. Theft. Probably identity theft. Misuse of a power of attorney against a deployed service member. Your father\u2019s threat about your promotion could be something too, depending on how it plays out. And that\u2019s all before we even get to the house.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe house is what I\u2019m most worried about.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d She reached for her phone. \u201cWhich is why I\u2019m calling somebody who knows real estate better than I do. We work with a civilian attorney for cases like this. Give me five minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
His name was Martin Dalton.<\/p>\n
He was maybe sixty, with a gray mustache and a tweed jacket that looked like it had been through a few decades of courtrooms. He came in twenty minutes later carrying a briefcase with a broken latch, shook my hand, and sat down right next to Captain Morales without waiting to be asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cShow me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He worked through the paperwork even faster than she had. Page after page. Every so often he\u2019d grunt, or tap something with his pen, or say \u201cMm-hm\u201d in a way that didn\u2019t sound good for somebody.<\/p>\n
He went through the bank statements. The power of attorney. Then he picked up the manila folder from my grandfather\u2019s safe.<\/p>\n
He took out the deed. He held it up to the light. He ran his thumb over the seal the same way I had.<\/p>\n
\u201cOriginal,\u201d he said. \u201cGood.\u201d<\/p>\n
He went through the trust documents. The distribution papers. The recording from the county, when the house passed from the trust to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is clean,\u201d he said. \u201cYour grandfather knew what he was doing. Or he had somebody who did.\u201d He turned another page. \u201cYour father\u2019s never been on this title. Not once. Not even in the trust. He was never a beneficiary.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe thinks he should have been.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLots of people think lots of things,\u201d Dalton said. \u201cThe county only cares what\u2019s recorded.\u201d<\/p>\n
He kept going. He was almost at the end of the folder.<\/p>\n
Then suddenly, he stopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cHold on.\u201d<\/p>\n
He turned toward the very back of the folder. There was a pocket there, sewn into the inside of the back cover. I\u2019d never noticed it. The folder had been sitting in that safe for years, and I\u2019d only ever looked at the deed on top.<\/p>\n
Dalton reached into the pocket and pulled out an envelope.<\/p>\n
A thick, cream-colored envelope. Sealed. Yellowed a little at the corners.<\/p>\n
He looked at the front of it. Then he slid it across the desk toward me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat yours?\u201d<\/p>\n
On the front of the envelope, in my grandfather\u2019s handwriting, in blue ink, were three words.<\/p>\n
For Katie. Only if.<\/p>\n
My hands started shaking.<\/p>\n
I hadn\u2019t seen my grandfather\u2019s handwriting in seven years. It was square and slanted and a little shaky, the way it got near the end. I\u2019d know it anywhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never seen this before,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell,\u201d said Dalton gently, \u201cI think it\u2019s been waiting for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at Captain Morales. She nodded.<\/p>\n
I opened it.<\/p>\n
Inside were two things.<\/p>\n
The first was a letter. Two pages, folded in thirds. The second was a document, several pages stapled together, with a notary\u2019s stamp on the last page.<\/p>\n
I unfolded the letter.<\/p>\n
\u201cKatie,<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re reading this, something has gone wrong. I told you to only open the safe if you needed it. So you needed it. I\u2019m sorry, sweetheart.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to guess it\u2019s your father. I hope I\u2019m wrong. I\u2019ve spent a lot of years hoping I was wrong about him.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s something I never told you. I never told anybody. In 2011, your father forged my signature on a loan against this house. Sixty thousand dollars. He said<\/p>\n
later he was going to pay it back before I noticed. He didn\u2019t. I found out when the bank sent a letter about late payments.<\/p>\n
I paid it off. Every penny. I didn\u2019t go to the police. He\u2019s my son. I told myself it was a mistake. That he was in trouble and he panicked and he\u2019d learn.<\/p>\n
So were my deployment bonuses. The money I\u2019d been saving for two years. The money I\u2019d planned to use for a new roof, because my grandfather\u2019s roof was forty years … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,21,22,1,5,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aita","category-daily-article","category-reddit-stories","category-story","category-story-daily","category-viral-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6798,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6793\/revisions\/6798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}