…”an account in his name only. It’s set to go through Friday morning, as soon as the bank gets your signature.”
I asked her where the forty-one thousand dollars had come from. She was quiet, then said, “The largest deposit came from a life insurance company, three years ago.”
My father died three years ago. My husband told me the insurance had barely covered the funeral.
The woman on the phone, her name was Teresa, said something that saved me. “Ma’am, I can’t stop the flag on this call. But if you come into a branch in person, with your ID, you are a joint account holder, and nobody can move that money without you.”
I didn’t wait. I left my phone on the kitchen counter, so he’d see it there, and drove to the nearest branch. I got there twenty minutes before closing. The branch manager pulled the account up and turned the screen toward me. The signature on the account opening form was supposed to be mine. It wasn’t even close.
She froze the account on the spot and called their fraud department while I sat there. Then she gave me a card for a lawyer her sister had used in her own divorce. “Don’t go home tonight if you don’t feel safe,” she said.
I went to my best friend’s. My husband called me forty-one times that night. I counted.
The bank’s fraud team confirmed the signature was forged. My lawyer used that, and the three years of receipts he made me send him, to show the court exactly how our money worked. The account was released to me in full.
We’re divorced now. Last week I bought a pair of running shoes, a plant, and a very expensive coffee. When the cashier asked if I wanted my receipt, I laughed so hard she looked worried. “No,” I said. “I don’t need it. Nobody’s going to ask.”
