Grandma shook her head.
“No.
Thank you.”
Carol left the office, pulling the door almost closed behind her.
Grandma sat with her hands folded on her knee.
She hadn’t touched the bank statement since she’d placed it on the desk.
“He set up the online account,” I said.
“Yes.”
“He had your Social Security number.
Your date of birth.
Your security answers.”
“He helped me fill out a form two years ago,” she said.
“For a Medicare supplement.
I gave him everything he needed.” She paused.
“I thought I was giving it to my son.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Don’t,” she said quietly.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were going to tell me it wasn’t my fault.”
I looked at her.
“It isn’t.”
She turned toward the window.
A long moment passed.
“Your grandfather built that house,” she said.
“He poured the back porch himself.
Took him three weekends.” She stopped.
“Arthur grew up in that house.
He learned to ride a bicycle in that driveway.”
Her voice didn’t waver.
That was almost worse than if it had.
Carol Simms came back in with a woman in a dark blazer who introduced herself as the head of fraud investigations.
“Mrs.
Sterling,” the woman said, sitting down across from her, “my name is Diane Marsh.
I’ve just reviewed your account history.
I have some questions, and then I want to explain your options.”
Grandma straightened in her chair.
“Ask,” she said.
Diane Marsh opened a folder.
“In the past eight weeks, were you aware that a secondary authorized user was added to your account?”
“No.”
“Were you aware that your mailing address was changed in our system three weeks ago?”
Grandma’s chin lifted.
“To what address?”
Diane Marsh read it aloud.
It was Arthur’s address.
The changed address explained why the fraud letter never reached her.
It explained why no bank correspondence had reached her in weeks.
It explained why she hadn’t known how bad it had gotten until she found that statement herself, tucked into a drawer she still checked by habit.
