The call came at 9:14 from a woman named Carla in the bank’s fraud department. She asked me to confirm I had applied for a $190,000 home equity line of credit against the house in September. I hadn’t. She asked whether I had signed the paperwork in person at a branch two hours away. I had never been to that branch in my life.

Diane Foster met me there that afternoon. The bank manager slid a copy of the application across his desk. My name. My Social Security number. My signature, almost perfect. Then he turned his monitor toward us and played the security footage from the day it was signed. Diane leaned in first. I heard her breath catch. The person sitting at that desk, signing my name, was not my son.