On the dining room table, Joshs phone lit up with a number from Broken Arrow, because the fraud report Marcy helped me file at the credit union had gone through, and the account with my forged signature was about to become my brothers problem to explain.
For a year Brianna cast me as the selfish one who would not help with the kids, even as I paid my way watching them. This time the truth reached Josh first, because Marcy the teller would not let me deposit my check without asking a question.
What Marcy showed me on her screen was an account opened in my name that I had never opened, with withdrawals in a signature that was not my handwriting, and Brianna, who handled all the family paperwork, had been using my name and my credit to move money for over a year.
The printout in my bag held it. The account I never opened. The forged signature card. The withdrawals. Marcy and I printed everything the day she caught it, and that afternoon, while Brianna was at the salon, Marcy filed the report and told me the credit union would be calling my brother, whose name was also on the account.
Brianna threw my FAA acceptance letter and my boarding pass into the fireplace and told me I was not going anywhere. She did not know the flight the academy books does not depend on a printout I can request again, and she did not know the fraud was already reported. She told me I would be back Tuesday crying, and then Joshs phone lit up.
Josh finally looked up. I told him to ask Brianna about the account with my name on it. Brianna told me to get out. My ride was already there.
I did not need the burned letter. The academy reissued everything, and I reported to the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City on schedule. I am training as an air traffic controller now, which is the most demanding thing I have ever done and the thing I was born for.
The forgery is with the credit union and the police, and Brianna is answering for a year of it on paper, where the girls trip to Cancun does not help her.
Josh called me a week later, not to defend her, but to ask how much she had taken and how he had not seen it. I told him to look at the statements. He is looking now.
This isnt your handwriting, honey, Marcy told me. It was not. And Brianna stopped talking before Joshs phone finished lighting up, because the truth reached my brother before her version could.