He Changed the Lock to His Own Phone Number and Forged My Dead Wife’s Signature on the Deed. He Forgot She’d Put the Cabin in a Trust

“And yesterday morning, a private lender received a commercial loan application using this cabin as the collateral.”

“How much,” I said, “are they trying to borrow against my house?”

“Three hundred and twenty thousand dollars.”

For a long moment the only sound was the lake slapping against the wooden pilings under our feet, the same sound Faye and I had fallen asleep to for thirty summers.

Three hundred and twenty thousand dollars.

Someone had looked at the place where my wife watched the morning mist come off the water, and seen a number, and decided to borrow against it in the dark.

That was the thing I could not get my mind around, standing on the dock with the loan figure hanging in the cold air.