Chapter 3: The Letter at the Gate
“Give me the letter,” I said.
My sister moved toward the gate, but my stepmother seized her wrist.
“You are not giving her anything.”
“Let go of me,” my sister said.
Dad touched his wife’s shoulder.
“People are watching.”
“I don’t care!”
My neighbor had stepped onto her porch with her phone in her hand.
My stepmother released my sister, but her fingers left pale marks around her wrist.
I opened the pedestrian gate.
“My sister can come in.
You two stay outside.”
“You don’t give orders to me,” my stepmother said.
“This is my home.
I just did.”
My sister hurried through and placed the box in my hands.
Dad stared at it as though it might speak for him.
“Please read the letter before you judge me,” he said.
“You tried to take it from her.”
“I panicked.”
My stepmother laughed sharply.
“He panicked because your mother filled your head with nonsense before she was gone.”
I opened the envelope.
Inside were two folded pages and a small brass key.
My mother’s first line made my knees weaken.
“My darling, if you are reading this, someone has tried to take your home.”
My sister put a hand beneath my elbow.
“Keep reading,” she whispered.
“I’m here.”
The letter said my mother had discovered a loan secured against the family house.
She had never requested it, yet the paperwork carried what appeared to be her signature.
I looked through the gate.
“Did you borrow against my mother’s house?”
Dad pressed both hands to the metal bars.
“I didn’t understand what your stepmother had arranged.”
“You signed as a witness.”
“She said it was temporary.”
My stepmother stepped closer.
“That money paid your mother’s medical bills.”
The second page shook between my fingers.
“No, it didn’t.
My mother wrote that her insurance covered those bills.”
“She was confused,” my stepmother said.
“She was taking strong medication.”
“My mother listed three withdrawals.
Forty thousand, thirty thousand, and fifty-six thousand dollars.”
Dad closed his eyes.
“Answer her,” my sister said.
“Where did it go?”
My stepmother pointed at me.
“Ask your precious sister how she bought this new house so quickly.”
“I used my savings.”
“Can you prove that?”
“Yes.”
“Then explain the account in your name.”
I stopped breathing for a second.
“What account?”
Dad’s head lifted.
“She doesn’t know.”
My stepmother turned on him.
“Be quiet.”
My sister moved beside me.
“Know what?”
Dad’s voice dropped.
“An account was opened eight years ago using your sister’s name.
Some of the loan money passed through it.”
“I was seventeen.”
“I know.”
“You let someone use my identity?”
“I thought I could fix it before you were old enough to find out.”
My hand closed around the brass key.
“What does this open?”
My stepmother’s expression changed.
“It opens nothing,” she said.
“That key is worthless.”
My mother’s final paragraph said otherwise.
“The key opens the place where I left the originals.
Do not trust copies, and do not sign anything your father or his wife puts in front of you.”
My stepmother reached through the bars.
“Give me that letter.”
I stepped back.
“No.”
“If you refuse to cooperate, you’ll regret it.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It is a warning.
The account carries your name, your address, and your signature.
If anyone investigates, you will look responsible.”
My sister turned toward Dad.
“You said we came here to tell her the truth.”
“We did,” he muttered.
“No,” my stepmother said.
“We came here to solve this privately.”
A car stopped behind theirs.
A man in a dark jacket stepped out carrying a folder.
Dad’s face collapsed.
“Who is that?” I asked.
My stepmother smiled for the first time.
“He’s the investigator who received my report this morning.”
May you like
She looked directly at me.
“I told him you took the money.”
