…your husband, Frank. Dated April 3rd of this year.”
I put my coffee cup down. “Mr. Klein. Frank died two years ago.”
“I know,” my attorney said. “I went to the funeral. That’s why I’m calling.”
My son, Brian, had walked into my attorney’s office the day after that dinner with a deed transfer, signed by me and witnessed by “Frank Ellis.” He’d apparently used an old document of his father’s to trace the signature. Apparently, nobody had told him you can’t have a dead man witness a deed.
I laughed. I’m not proud of it. I sat at my kitchen table and laughed until I cried, and then I just cried.
Mr. Klein reported the forgery to the county recorder and the police. He also sent Brian and his wife, Ashley, a letter, very politely explaining that the deed was void, that the forgery had been referred to the district attorney, and that any further attempts to transfer my property would be “very unwise.”
Brian came to my door that evening. He wasn’t angry. He was terrified.
“Mom,” he said. “Ashley did it. She said if you wouldn’t sign, she’d ‘handle it.’ I didn’t know she used Dad’s name. I swear I didn’t know.”
“You brought the papers to my attorney’s office, Brian,” I said. “With your father’s name on them.”
He didn’t have an answer.
I didn’t press charges against my son. The district attorney didn’t either, because Ashley confessed. She was charged with forgery and got probation. Brian and Ashley separated six months later.
I put my house in a trust. My lawyer is the trustee. When I’m gone, it goes to my three grandchildren equally, when they turn twenty-five.
Brian comes over on Sundays now. He fixes things around the house. Last week, he fixed the back gate his father always meant to get to.
When he was done, he sat down on the porch step and said, “Dad would be so angry at me.”
“Your father would be angry for about a week,” I said. “And then he’d make you fix the gutters.”
Brian laughed. Then he went and got the ladder.
