The signature was not mine, but it was close. Whoever traced it had used the letter I sign on school forms, not the one on legal documents, which told me they had copied it from something taped to a refrigerator. The loan modification put Roberta’s house into a refinance that added my income as a guarantor. Fifty-one thousand dollars. The notary had stamped it in a strip-mall office eleven minutes from Danielle’s apartment.

The branch manager called back Sunday morning because he had flagged it himself. He had known my signature for ten years and said it looked like a photocopy trying to be handwriting. He froze the file before a dollar moved.

Wesley found out that afternoon. He drove to his mother’s house and came home three hours later and sat on the bottom stair without taking off his shoes. His sister had done the paperwork. His mother had known. He had been telling me for fourteen years that they meant well, and he had believed it, because believing it was cheaper than the alternative.