The clerk turned the journal toward me and pointed to the ID number written beside the signature. She looked it up twice, then asked whether I’d ever had an Oklahoma driver’s license. I told her no. My husband had handled every piece of the refinance while I was recovering in the hospital, and I remembered signing the papers on a clipboard because I could barely sit upright. But the license number in that book belonged to a woman with a different name, and the issue date was three years after the refinance. Then the clerk found the photocopied ID attached to the notary’s record. It wasn’t mine, but the photograph was close enough that I understood why nobody had questioned it.
I asked her what the fingerprint meant. She said the notary had started requiring one for certain transactions after a previous fraud complaint, which meant whoever signed that day had left a print beside my name. The clerk pulled out the closing packet and found the same name appearing on another document I’d never seen. It was an authorization allowing someone else to communicate with the lender about the property. My husband’s signature was underneath it. Mine was beside his. I told her I’d never given anyone that authority. She asked me whether my husband had ever mentioned a woman helping with the refinance. He hadn’t. Then she compared the handwriting on the other documents and said, very quietly, “This isn’t your husband either.”
I thought the worst part was discovering someone had forged my signature. Then the clerk opened the final page. The person listed as the emergency contact for the woman whose license had been used was my husband’s name. I stared at it for so long the clerk asked whether I needed water. I didn’t. I asked her when that license had been used at the courthouse before. She checked the log and found another transaction from six months earlier involving a property two counties away. My name appeared on that deed too. I walked out with copies of everything, called my husband from the parking lot, and asked one question: “How many properties have you put my name on?” He didn’t answer. Then I heard a woman’s voice in the background say, “Don’t tell her anything until we get the other papers.”
