My Husband’s Other Wife Was My Maid of Honor Chapter 06

My Husband’s Other Wife Was My Maid of Honor Chapter 06 Both Signatures

Renata Cho’s office had a view of a parking garage and a box of tissues on every surface, which told me everything about her business.

She read my spreadsheet without speaking for eleven minutes.

Then she took off her glasses and said, “Mrs. Whitaker, when did you last see the deed to your grandmother’s

house?”

The house is the only thing I brought into the marriage. My grandmother left it to me when was twenty-four. It’s small, it’s on two acres, it has a crooked porch and a plum tree, and it is the one place on earth where I have ever felt completely safe. We rented it out after we married. Grant handled the paperwork, because Grant handles paperwork, because I let him.

“Four years ago?” I said. “Five?”

She turned her monitor around.

The house was owned by an LLC. Whitaker Holdings, formed three years ago. Sole managing member: Grant

Whitaker.
“There’s a quitclaim deed on file,” she said. “Transferring the property from you to the LLC. Recorded twenty-two months ago.”

“I never signed that.”

“Someone signed it.” She zoomed in.

–

It was my name. It was not my handwriting. It wasn’t even close my N doesn’t loop like that, it never has, and there it was, notarized by a notary in Ridgefield.

“And on Friday,” Renata said, “that LLC is closing on the sale of your grandmother’s house. Four hundred and

ten thousand dollars.”

I couldn’t speak.

“There’s also a home equity line,” she said gently, “taken against your marital residence. A hundred and sixty thousand drawn. Same signature style.”

“For what?”

“Well.” She scrolled. “About sixty went into the Ridgefield property. The rest is sitting in an account with a

co-signer.” She looked up. “M. Reyes.”

I put my face in my hands.

Mrs. Whitaker, I want to be very clear with you about what you’re holding.” Renata leaned forward. “This isn’t a sad story about a cheating husband. Forged deeds and forged loan documents are fraud. A second legal márriage while the first is intact is bigamy – in this state, a felony. You are not in a fight over feelings. You are sitting on a criminal case, and every single one of those documents has your name forged on it, which makes you the victim and not a party.”

“He said he wants a baby with me,” I said. “Four nights ago.”

“Yes,” she said. “Because a pregnant wife doesn’t audit anything.”

I have never heard a sentence hit me harder.

We stopped the sale. That is the part I’m proudest of not the yelling, not what came later. On Wednesday morning Renata filed an emergency motion and a lis pendens, which is a fancy way of saying nobody sells this house without a judge, and by Wednesday afternoon a very confused title company in Ridgefield knew my

name.

Thursday night, Grant came home at nine and went straight to the garage.

I stood on the other side of the door in my socks and listened to him pace.

-no, I heard you, I’m asking how.” A long pause. “There’s no way she filed anything, she doesn’t even know the house is-” Another pause. “Then it’s a clerical error. Fix it. Push the closing to next week.”

Silence.

Then, quieter, in the voice he uses for me when I cry: “Baby, listen. Listen. Nothing’s changed. Saturday’s still Saturday. After the dinner I sign the partnership papers and then it’s done, and we go, all three of us – no. No, she doesn’t know anything. She’s been baking, for God’s sake.”

I stood in the dark hallway with a dish towel in my hands.

She’s been baking, for God’s sake.

“Six years, Mar. I’m not blowing it in the last week.”

The garage door handle turned.

I made it to the sink and had the water running by the time he came in. He kissed my neck and said the Halvorsen model was killing him and did I remember Saturday was the partner dinner and would I please wear

the red dress, because he wanted to walk in with the most beautiful woman in the room.

“Of course,” I said.

And that’s when I decided how this was going to end.