Chapter 4 - THE ACCOUNT WITH MY NAME
I left the party twenty minutes after discovering the account.
Not dramatically.
I put on my jacket.
Took the birthday card my sister had brought.
Left the cake untouched.
Daniel followed me to the driveway.
“Dad, stop.”
I kept walking.
“You’re making a huge deal out of a stupid joke.”
I turned.
“What account?”
He looked away.
“What?”
“The one using my name and your phone number.”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why did you go pale?”
“I didn’t.”
“Daniel.”
He sighed.
“It might be related to the business.”
“My name is not part of your business.”
“You co-signed things years ago.”
That answer made my stomach tighten.
“What things?”
He spread his hands.
“I’d have to look.”
That was when Ashley came outside.
She was still holding her phone.
“Ernest, just go home and calm down.”
I looked at her.
“Why did you stop recording when I mentioned the account?”
Her expression hardened.
“Because family finances don’t belong online.”
Neither did family humiliation, apparently.
I drove away.
The following morning, Susan met me at my bank.
Within an hour we learned the account was a revolving line of credit opened eighteen months earlier under my name.
Original limit:
$75,000.
Current balance:
$68,412.
The mailing address was Daniel’s business office.
Recovery phone:
Daniel.
Recovery email:
An address combining my first initial and surname.
I had never created it.
The application used my Social Security number.
My date of birth.
My former home address.
My retirement-income information.
The signature was electronic.
I had never signed it.
Then the banker showed me the linked external account receiving advances.
Mercer HomeWorks operating account.
For several seconds I could hear nothing but the ventilation system.
Susan asked the banker:
“Can you preserve the application records and access logs?”
“Yes.”
I stared at the screen.
May you like
My son had not borrowed money from me.
He had borrowed money as me.
