“Signed by the vice president.

Not some clerk.”

I read the second page standing up.

My father’s company was mentioned once, in the third paragraph, and only so the bank could clear it.

Every dollar of the nine hundred ninety thousand sat on the far side of a line with Julian’s handwriting above it and nothing of mine.

I read it a second time before I sat down.

“Three copies,” Ruth said, before I had asked for any.