“Next stop,” she said, rising to her feet, “is the bank.”
We walked out into the gray afternoon.
My phone buzzed again.
Arthur.
I answered it this time.
“Ivan.” His voice was careful.
Measured.
The voice he used when he was managing a situation.
“I’ve been trying to reach you.
I think there’s been a misunderstanding about your grandmother.”
“Where are you right now, Dad?”
A short pause.
“I’m at home.
Why?”
“Were you at Grandma’s house this morning?”
Another pause.
Longer.
“I stopped by briefly, yes.
To check on a few things.”
“With a moving truck?”
The line went quiet.
“Ivan, I think we should talk in person.
There are things about your grandmother’s situation that you don’t fully understand.”
“I understand fifty-five thousand dollars,” I said.
“I understand a property transfer filed eleven days ago.
And I understand a revocation that was signed three days before that transfer.”
Silence.
“I’ll call you back,” he said.
And he hung up.
Grandma was already in the passenger seat, the manila envelope on her lap, looking straight ahead.
I got in.
Started the engine.
“He’s going to call Gerald Holt,” she said.
“Right now, while we drive to the bank.”
“I know.”
“Then we need to move faster than he does.”
I pulled out of the parking lot and pressed down on the accelerator.
My phone lit up on the console.
Not Arthur this time.
A text from Wendy: *Ivan, please don’t do anything rash.
Your father is only trying to protect her.
The branch manager’s name was Carol Simms.
She had reading glasses on a beaded chain and a small American flag pin on her lapel.
She shook Grandma’s hand first, which I noticed, and led us into her office without asking us to wait.
“Mrs.
Sterling,” she said, settling behind her desk.
“What can I do for you today?”
Grandma placed the bank statement on the desk.
The three circled withdrawals faced upward.
“I need to understand these transactions,” Grandma said.
“Who authorized them, how they were processed, and whether any of them can be reversed.”
