Chapter 2

I buckled Wren in and drove to my parents' with the folder on the passenger seat and the radio off.

Nine days earlier, on a Saturday morning, I'd cleared out the hall closet to make room for the next size of baby clothes. Paint cans on the floor, a bag of rags, a curtain rod I'd been meaning to hang. Behind the paint cans sat a banker's box. Inside the box sat a lender's folder.

I thought it was taxes. It wasn't.

There was a payment ledger stapled inside - eleven months of payments, then four missed, with a red NOTICE OF DEFAULT on the last page. There was a line of credit for ninety-two thousand dollars against the Chestnut Street house. My house. The one my grandmother left me, in my name alone, before I ever met Grant.

And at the bottom of the folder, folded twice, was a ruled sheet with my name on it eleven times in blue ballpoint.

I sat down on the closet floor with my back against the door frame and looked at that page a long time. The first three signatures wandered. The last three were steady. Somebody had practiced.

I called the bank the next morning from the truck. The woman asked me to verify my mother's maiden name and the last four digits, and then she told me the account was real, it was mine, and it was in default.

I thanked her. I hung up. I drove to the Hendersons' and tuned their upright and said nothing to anybody.

That was nine days ago.

At two in the morning, in my parents' kitchen - the one my father rebuilt by hand the summer Grant and I married - I opened the folder again and went all the way to the back.

Two pages were folded there, heavier than the rest. I hadn't touched them that first morning in the closet because I'd already found enough to stop my heart.

A listing agreement. A draft sale contract. A closing date: Monday, eight days off.

The buyer's name was typed in full at the bottom of the contract.

Gerald R. Bellamy.

My father-in-law.