In the margin, in small, shaking letters: Signer NOT present. Per H.G.
My eyes burned.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“Because he was Uncle Herb,” Sherry whispered. “Because I was twenty-two, and then I was thirty, and then it was too late, and I told myself no one was hurt.”
She wiped her face with her sleeve.
“Last year I did one of those DNA kits for Christmas. I got a match. A first cousin once removed. Anders Treadwell. I saw the face and I knew. I sat with that message for fourteen months and never opened it.”
“You came tonight,” Anders said from the corner.
“My uncle called me today,” she said. “He wants me at the courthouse Friday to swear I watched you sign in 1996. He says if I do it one more time, he’ll sign my mother’s mortgage over free and clear.”
She laughed once, a terrible little sound.
