He checked his watch again, the metal band catching the fluorescent light. “We have another appointment at three, honey. We should probably wrap this up.”
I signed the disclosure form, my signature looking small and thin against the heavy blue line of the bank document. Mr. Vance stamped the page with a heavy blue notary stamp, the sound sharp in the quiet office.
By six o’clock, the kitchen of our old apartment was dark except for the small yellow light over the stove. A pot of water was boiling, the steam coating the window that looked out over the alley.
Aaron sat at the small table, his phone face-down next to his plate. He had not eaten his dinner.
My phone buzzed on the counter. The screen showed my father’s home number.
I picked it up and held it to my ear, my shoulder tight against the receiver. “Dad?”
“The lawyer sent the document over to the bank,” my father said, his voice quiet and level. “It is sitting on Mr. Vance’s desk.”
“We were just there,” I said. “We signed the disclosures.”
“Not this one,” my father said. “The waiver is separate. Aaron has to go back to the bank tomorrow morning and sign it before the wire is released.”
I looked at Aaron, who was tracing a circle on the table with his fingernail. “I will tell him.”
“If he does not sign it, Clara, the money stays in my account,” my father said. “I love you, but I did not work sixty hours a week for thirty years to hand my life savings over to his father’s debts.”
The line went dead before I could reply. I set the phone back on the counter, the plastic clinking against the tile.
“What did he want?” Aaron asked.
“He spoke to Ms. Lane,” I said. “There is a postnuptial waiver. You have to sign it tomorrow morning before the bank transfers the down payment.”
Aaron stood up so quickly his chair scraped against the linoleum. “A waiver? For what?”
“To keep the house in my name,” I said. “It protects the eighty-two thousand dollars my dad is putting down.”
