The basement of the Maple Valley Savings Bank always smelled of old newsprint and vinegar from the vinegar-acid deterioration of the acetate slides. Martha Vance pulled the gray metal drawer of the cabinet marked nineteen ninety-eight. She adjusted her reading glasses, sliding the microfiber cloth over the lenses before she turned the crank on the microfiche reader.
“I have the nineteen ninety-eight charter filing on the screen now,” Martha said, her voice carrying that slow, dry northern Ohio drawl.
I leaned over her shoulder, looking at the glowing green glass. The resolution was poor, but the name at the bottom of the guarantor line was clear. It was my father’s signature, Arthur Carter, written in his heavy black ink.
“He was the guarantor on the original fifty thousand dollar corporate draft,” I said, pointing to the line.
Martha zoomed in on the document. The bank clerk who had authorized the transaction twenty-six years ago had written a secondary routing code next to the signature block, a detail that did not appear on the regular corporate tax filings I kept in my office.
