Chapter 6
I asked the man in the gray coat for his name.
“Martin Bell. I represent the owner.”
Nia held the page away from herself, as though it might change if she looked again.
The document said she had agreed to give up the rest of her lease and accept a smaller payment than the owner had originally offered. It also said she had received that payment.
She hadn’t.
“I want a copy of everything you say I signed,” Nia told him.
Martin looked irritated, but he handed her the envelope. “Talk to your legal aid office. I’m not having this discussion in the hallway.”
“Good,” I said. “Because the kids are here.”
Ava and Eli were in the apartment with our mothers. I could hear Ava directing where the boxes should go. I closed the door before she wandered out.
Martin left. Nia sat on an unopened box and stared at the signature.
“I signed for a delivery at work that day,” she said. “I remember because I was late to pick up Eli.”
“Could you have signed this by mistake?”
“I read what I sign.” She held up the page. “This isn’t even the way I write the end of my name.”
I looked closely. She was right. The last letter curled the wrong way.
We called the legal aid office she had contacted earlier. The receptionist gave her the next available appointment, Monday morning, and told her to keep every paper and message from the owner. Nia put the envelope in a folder before going back to the children.
I stayed until their beds were assembled. Eli wanted his near the window. Ava wanted hers on the opposite wall so she could see the park without Eli blocking her view.
They argued for three minutes and then made a plan that suited them both.
That night, I lay awake thinking about the agreement in the envelope. I could help Nia take the children to school. I could move every box she owned. I couldn’t fix a signature by wanting it to be false.
On Monday, Nia met with a legal aid attorney named Priya Shah. Nia called me afterward.
“Priya says not to contact Martin directly,” she said. “She’s requesting the original agreement and the payment record.”
“Did she think the signature was wrong?”
“She said she needs evidence before she can say.”
“You have the receipt you actually signed?”
“I’m looking for it.”
After work, I went to Nia’s old house with her. We had one final week to clear out the last things. Denise watched the kids at the new apartment while we searched through a stack of papers Nia had packed from the kitchen drawer.
We found school photographs, a library card Ava had lost months earlier, and a receipt from the grocery store on the day of the alleged signing.
No delivery receipt.
Nia sat on the floor beside a half-filled box. “I should have kept better records.”
“You kept the notice.”
“That didn’t stop them.”
I sat across from her. “We’ll give Priya what we have.”
Nia rubbed her forehead. “I keep thinking about the children hearing me cry. I thought I was hiding it.”
“They knew something was wrong. Now they know what the move was about.”
“I hate that I made you part of what scared them.”
I didn’t answer quickly. I still felt angry when I remembered Eli asking whether to wait for me.
“I need you to tell me when you’re scared,” I said. “Even if you think I’ll be angry.”
“I’m trying.”
“I can see that.”
She looked at me. “I’m sorry, Marcus. I should have said it plainly on the porch.”
“I know.”
“I told them you might not come because I wanted to make Saturday feel less important. If they didn’t look forward to it, maybe they wouldn’t be disappointed when everything else was changing.”
“They were looking forward to seeing me.”
“Yes.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “I see that now.”
We sat there until she could breathe evenly again. Then we carried the last box downstairs.
On Tuesday, Priya called with news. The owner’s office claimed someone had handed Nia a check in exchange for the agreement. There was no copy of a canceled check yet.
Nia checked her bank account and found no deposit from them.
Priya asked her to write down everyone she had spoken to at the old house. I remembered a woman delivering a notice while I had been there weeks earlier, but I didn’t know her name.
Then Nia remembered the building’s maintenance worker, Mr. Alvarez. He had been repairing the front steps the day she signed for the delivery.
“I’ll ask if he remembers,” she said.
“Let Priya know first.”
“I will.”
That evening, I took the children to the park across from their new apartment. Ava tried to race Eli to the swings and lost. Eli offered her a rematch, then slowed down at the end so they could reach the swings together.
Nia joined us after speaking to Priya. She looked tired, but she sat beside me on the bench.
“Mr. Alvarez remembers the delivery,” she said. “He said I signed on a handheld device, not on paper. Priya is asking the delivery company for its record.”
“That helps.”
“She said it may take time.”
“We have time to keep looking.”
Ava called for us to watch her swing. Nia stood. I stood with her.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a message from Priya, copied to both of us.
Martin had sent her a scan of the alleged agreement.
Attached to it was a photograph of a check made out to Nia. It had been cashed three days earlier.
Nia opened the image on her phone.
“That’s not my account,” she said.
May you like
Then she pointed to the name beneath the endorsement.
It was hers, written in the same unfamiliar hand.
