PART 23 – What the Records Said

The weeks that followed were full of waiting.

There were letters to send.

There were copies to organize.

There were questions Patrice could not answer until other people responded.

I kept going to work.

I cut hair.

I colored roots.

I swept the floor between appointments.

Sometimes a customer would complain about her husband, and I would listen without offering advice.

I had learned how little a person could know about a marriage from the outside.

At home, Dale and I spoke mostly about ordinary things.

The water bill.

The groceries.

The weather.

We did not sit together after dinner anymore.

He watched television in the living room.

I sat at the kitchen table with my papers.

One evening, he stopped behind me.

“Still doing that?”

“Yes.”

“You've got enough to fill a filing cabinet.”

“Then I won't lose anything.”

He stood there for a moment.

“I never wanted you to worry about money.”

I looked at the statement in front of me.

“I worried about money every Saturday when I cleaned that dentist's office.”

He did not answer.

“I worried when I put off my mammogram because of the copay,” I continued. “I worried when I bought the cheaper groceries. I worried when you said the company might not make it through the year.”

“I was under pressure.”

“So was I.”

He walked away.

I kept sorting.

When Patrice finally called, I was standing behind my salon chair with a towel over my shoulder.

“Can you come in tomorrow?” she asked.

I closed my eyes.

“Have you found something?”

“We have information we need to review together.”

She would not say more over the phone.

That night, I barely slept.

I arrived at her office the next morning with the appointment book under my arm.

Patrice had laid out copies of the documents we had been discussing.

She explained that the records raised serious questions about how my name had been used.

She was careful about what she could establish from the papers we had.

Some documents showed obligations associated with the roofing business.

Some referred to accounts I had not known about.

The signatures needed further examination, and the lenders' own records mattered.

But one thing was clear.

I had not personally signed every document that carried my name.

Patrice pointed to the page I had recognized at the first meeting.

“You told me this signature wasn't yours.”

“It isn't.”

“We'll preserve your statement and pursue the appropriate verification.”

I looked at the papers.

“What about the boat account?”

“Your appointment notes give us a lead, not proof of the account's balance or ownership.”

I nodded.

I had written down Ashley's words about four hundred thousand dollars.

For weeks, that number had lived in my mind like a promise of what Dale had hidden from me.

Now I understood that a number spoken in a salon was only a number spoken in a salon.

“We'll seek the records we can legally obtain,” Patrice said. “And we won't assume that every claim Ashley made is accurate.”

“What about the debt?”

“We'll identify which obligations are yours, which belong to the business, and what was actually authorized. We also need to know whether any document was filed or relied upon.”

I pressed my fingertips against the appointment book.

I wanted one page that explained everything.

There wasn't one.

There were questions, records, missing information, and a husband who had refused to answer plainly.

Patrice leaned back.

“Carol, this is not solved today. But you are no longer being asked to sign blindly.”

That was the first sentence all morning that made me breathe easier.

I asked what I should do next.

She told me to keep copies, preserve originals, avoid signing new papers without review, and let her handle communications that needed legal attention.

I wrote everything down.

When I returned home, Dale was waiting in the driveway.

He stood beside his truck with his arms crossed.

“What did she tell you?”

“That we're reviewing the records.”

“Did she tell you how much this is going to cost?”

“Yes.”

“And you're still doing it?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head.

“You're going to spend our money fighting me.”

“I am spending money to understand what is in my name.”

He looked away.

For a moment, he seemed tired rather than angry.

“Carol, we could have handled this privately.”

“I asked you questions privately.”

He had no answer.

I went inside.

That afternoon, Ashley sent me a message.

I spoke to Patrice. I told her what I remember and what I don't know.

I read it once.

Then I wrote back.

Thank you for speaking with her directly.

I did not add anything else.

The next Thursday, Ashley did not come to the salon.

I noticed the empty appointment slot at two.

I had kept that time for her for months.

I used it to call a customer who had asked for an earlier appointment.

Then I swept up the hair around my chair.

The floor looked clean when I finished.

For once, I did not stand there wondering what Ashley might say next.

I had other things to do.

Click here to continue reading: PART 24: The Signature That Wasn’t Mine