I wasn’t snooping. I need to say that first, even though I know exactly how it’s going to sound. I went down to the basement looking for the dishwasher warranty, that’s all. The thing had started leaving white spots on the glasses, and Gary kept saying he’d call somebody about it.

Now, Gary saying he’ll call somebody is its own kind of warranty, if you follow me. So I went looking myself. Filing cabinet, second drawer, behind the folders for the furnace and the water heater.

That’s where I found it. Not the warranty. A mortgage paper I had never laid eyes on in my life.

Second lien, it said up at the top. One hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars. On our house. The same house Gary and I have lived in for thirty-one years, the one we paid off back when our knees still worked right. I read the first page twice because the words just wouldn’t sit still for me. And then I got to page fourteen, and there was my name. My signature. Except it wasn’t.

I held it up to the light coming through that little basement window. I’ve signed my name a million times in sixty-eight years. The y at the end of it curls to the left, always has, ever since Sister Margaret stood over me teaching cursive. This one curled to the right. Whoever signed it didn’t know that little thing about me. And my own husband would know that little thing about me. So who didn’t?

I kept reading because my legs wouldn’t carry me back up the stairs yet. There was a notary stamp down at the bottom. A witness signature next to it. And I knew that handwriting too, only it wasn’t Gary’s. It was my brother Tommy’s. Bless his heart, Tommy’s been a notary down at the insurance office for years, always so proud of that little stamp of his.

His name sat right there next to mine. Witnessed. Like he stood there and watched me sign something I never once touched.

The lender was a name I’d never heard. Pacific Ridge Financial. I went on up to the kitchen, found the phone number printed on the paper, and called before I could talk myself out of it. My hands weren’t even shaking. That part came later.