He confronted Gerald.
And Gerald told him I had approved it.
Which was a lie.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Gerald would never—”
“Then explain to me why Gerald’s name is on every transfer authorization, Linda.
Explain to me why the signatures don’t match mine.
Explain to me why the withdrawals doubled after Thomas told Gerald he was dying.”
“I think you’re upset,” Linda said, her voice tightening.
“I think someone is putting things in your head.
That old man at the retirement home—”
“Albert is Thomas’s biological father, Linda.
Thomas found him before he died.
And everything Thomas knew, he put in writing.
Everything Gerald did, he put in a safety deposit box.
And I have the key.”
“You need to calm down.
We can talk about this tomorrow—”
“There’s nothing to talk about tomorrow.
I’m going to the bank in the morning.
And then I’m going to a lawyer.”
“Eleanor, don’t do something you’ll regret.
We’re family.”
“Family doesn’t steal from family, Linda.
Family doesn’t forge signatures.
And family doesn’t take money from a dying man’s wife.”
She hung up.
I didn’t sleep.
I got in my car and drove to Gerald’s house.
He answered the door in a bathrobe, his reading glasses pushed up on his forehead.
“Eleanor?
It’s one in the morning.”
“I know what you did, Gerald.
All of it.”
He looked at me.
Then he looked past me, at the empty street.
“You should come inside.”
“No.
I’ll say this right here.
You forged my signature for thirty years.
You took almost two hundred thousand dollars from me and Thomas.
And when Thomas told you he was dying, you took more.”
Gerald’s face hardened.
“Linda called you, didn’t she?”
“Linda doesn’t know the half of it.
Thomas knew, Gerald.
