The clerk pulled up the parcel records, frowned, and said, “There is a recently recorded quitclaim deed.”
From: Rosalind Margaret Hale. To: Peter Winston Hale. Recorded three days earlier.
Three days earlier I had been in Philadelphia fitting a bride for a last-minute sleeve adjustment while my son, somewhere else, was recording a deed transferring my house into his name.
The signature was mine in shape but not in soul. Anyone who had seen me sign enough things could have imitated the loops. The notarization was from New Jersey. Notary public: Anthony Bell.
“Tiffany’s cousin,” I said at once.
There were more documents. A pending home equity line application tied to Peter’s name using the property as collateral. A valuation request from a brokerage. Nothing had closed yet, but enough had been set in motion to frighten any sensible woman out of a decade.
Peter was in debt. The bank representative, careful but unable to hide the shape of it, made that clear. A failed investment in luxury event spaces, personal guarantees, a collapse he had not told me about. My house, fully owned in a rapidly appreciating coastal market, had become the easiest source of
