Part 3 — The Doctors Stamp
Luis held the paper under the pharmacy light, and the blue ink of the stamp glittered a little.
“Señora Ortiz, may I say something?”
“Of course, Luis.”
“Dr. Villareal retired in 2018. The state medical board shows no stamp in use after that date. And his license number on this stamp has two digits reversed.”
My daughter stared at him. Brandon put his sunglasses in his pocket.
“Mija,” I said, “that stamp is in a cigar box in the garage, in a drawer of your fathers papers. It is the last thing I put away after his funeral. Who gave you the key to the garage?”
Marisa began to cry. She said that when she came for the funeral she had gone through the boxes alone, looking for photographs. She had found the stamp and kept it without knowing why.
Then Brandon had asked about money, and she had told him I was alone, and he had asked her if I ever got confused.
Ernesto had been a gentleman all his life, and his old doctors stamp turned out to be the only witness that could not be talked over.
Ana, the young clerk, quietly put the medications back behind the counter. She said she would be glad to explain to the owner what she saw, and then she blushed, because I was standing right there.
Brandon backed toward the door. He said it was a misunderstanding, that Marisa had been confused, that he had just been trying to help. Luis stepped between him and the exit, politely, and Brandon sat down on a chair by the blood pressure machine.
I looked at my daughter for a long time. She was thirty-eight, and she looked about nine.
I told her I would not call the police. I told her she would give me back the stamp, and that she would tell me, in my own kitchen, the whole story of what she and Brandon had planned for my house.
She did, that night, over café con leche and a plate of pan dulce. Brandon owed forty thousand dollars. They had meant to have me declared unfit, so that the house on Alameda could be sold.
I had my lawyer draw up a new power of attorney naming Luis and my cousin Teresa, and I revoked every older one. Brandon left for Scottsdale the following week, alone.
Marisa stayed. She asked to come to church with me on Sunday. I said yes.
At Christmas she brought a tray of tamales to my door, and she asked me to teach her the masa.