Derek stepped onto the porch, pale and out of breath, and Calvin handed him the agreement. Six weeks earlier, Brittany had made an offer on a large house with a pool and written into the contract that it depended on the sale of my home. To make it look real, she typed my name under her signature and emailed the sellers from an address she created in my name. They believed I had agreed. Derek had wired the earnest money from his retirement account, trusting I was already packing.

I asked Derek one question: had he ever heard me say yes? He shook his head and sat down on the step. He said Brittany told him I was thinking it over and that she would handle the paperwork, and he never asked to read a single page. Then he whispered that he had thrown his father’s name at me because she promised it would finally make me listen. I told him I loved him, and that his father would have been ashamed of those words, not of my decision.

Brittany arrived minutes later in her pajamas. Calvin set the typed signature line in front of her, and she went silent. She admitted she meant to confess after the closing papers were ready, sure I would give in once the deadline was close. Calvin explained that a forged consent voided the contract, and the sellers kept six thousand dollars of the earnest money for the damage. Derek lost that money in one afternoon, and Brittany finally cried.

I did not press charges. I told them I would never again pay a single one of those twenty-seven bills, and that a family budget, written by them with a counselor, was the first step. Derek took a second job, and Brittany mailed me a real apology, which I answered a month later. By spring, they rented a small place with a shared garden, and Derek began mending my fence on Sundays. That June, my roses bloomed, and for the first time in five years, my accounts held only my own bills.