I asked the boy to read me the billing name again. It was a woman’s name, and the address was ours, but the account notes said the line had been activated in 2019 by someone with my husband’s authorization. I called my husband from the parking lot and asked him who she was. He said he didn’t know what I was talking about. I told him the number was being used every day and that someone had been receiving mail at our house under her name. He went quiet for so long that I thought the call had dropped. Then he said, “Don’t cancel that line.” I asked why. He said, “Because if she knows we’re looking, she’ll move.”
I drove home and checked the mail slot, the porch, and the little box where we keep things that aren’t ours. There were no letters with her name because somebody had been taking them before I ever saw them. I asked our younger grandson whether he’d ever seen anyone picking up mail. He said there was a woman who came sometimes on Fridays when my husband was home. I asked what she looked like. He said she had dark hair and always waited in the car. Then he said something that made me stop: she had the same little scar above her eyebrow that my husband has. I called the phone company again and asked for the emergency contact attached to the fifth line.
The girl pulled up the account and said there was one. It was my husband’s name, but the secondary contact was the woman’s. I asked when her information had first appeared. She said it had been there from the beginning. Then I asked whether the line had ever been transferred or upgraded. She said yes — twice. Once in 2021 and again last year. I asked where the devices had been shipped. Both had gone to our address, signed for by my husband. I went straight home and asked him to show me the phones. He said he didn’t have them. I told him the carrier had delivery records with his signature. He sat down, covered his face, and finally said, “She’s not someone I met recently. She’s your daughter’s half-sister, and I’ve been paying for that line because your daughter doesn’t know she exists.”
