For Fourteen Years My Son Lived Rent-Free in a House He Believed Was His

I stood and slipped my handkerchief back into my coat pocket.

“He can take it up with the public land records.”

“Where will you be at two o’clock?” Margaret asked me.

“At the brokerage office out on Oakridge Highway,” I said.

At eleven twenty I walked into the First National Bank branch on Oakridge Avenue.

Bank Manager Stevens was waiting for me by the carpeted stairs that led down to the vault room.

He was holding a thick cardboard file with two red tabs poking out of the side.