Chapter 2 - What They Did While He Was Gone
Sophie's temperature was 96.4 when the paramedics arrived.
Hypothermia threshold was 95. She had been forty-five minutes from it.
Jacob sat in the ambulance beside Emily and watched a paramedic named Torres work on his daughter with the focused efficiency of someone who had done this before, and he held Emily's hand and did not speak and did not think about the marble floors or his parents' expressions or the suitcases in the snow because there was nothing useful in any of that yet.
There would be time for it later.
Emily told him in the hospital, in pieces, over the course of two hours while Sophie slept in a warming unit and the blizzard continued outside.
His parents had been managing his finances while he deployed.
This had been his father's suggestion — you don't want Emily worrying about the accounts while she's pregnant, we'll handle the household expenses, standard arrangement, I've done it for your uncle and your cousin, it's nothing — and Jacob had agreed because eighteen months felt manageable and his parents had always been competent with money even if they had not always been warm and he had trusted the wrong quality in them.
The joint account held $340,000 when he deployed.
His Army salary continued depositing throughout his service.
By October — two months before his return — the account held $4,200.
Emily had discovered this when Sophie's pediatric bill came back declined.
She had confronted Jacob's mother.
Rebecca Hayes had told her, calmly and without any particular heat, that the expenses of the household — a household Emily had been living in, after all, with her child, using the utilities and the food and the space — had been considerable, and that the family had decided Jacob's salary was most sensibly applied to offsetting those costs, and that if Emily had concerns she was welcome to raise them with Jacob when he returned.
Emily had asked for documentation.
The documentation, Rebecca said, was handled through Richard's accountant and was not Emily's concern.
Emily had then gone to Richard's study.
She had not found documentation.
She had found a property deed.
The house — the house Jacob had purchased five years ago, before the marriage, with money from his grandmother's estate — was no longer in Jacob's name.
The transfer had occurred in March.
Seven months into his deployment.
The signature on the transfer document was Jacob's.
It was not Jacob's signature.
"I tried to call you," Emily said. Her voice was steady in the way voices were steady when the emotion had been processed too many times to come out raw anymore. "Every number I had for your unit. The calls went through but nobody — I couldn't reach you. And when I finally got a message to your commanding officer his office said you'd been briefed and were aware of the property arrangement."
"I was never briefed," Jacob said.
"I know that now."
"Who told them I'd been briefed?"
Emily looked at him.
"Your father called the unit directly," she said. "He told them he was your legal representative and that all family matters were being handled."
Jacob looked at the wall above Sophie's warming unit.
His father had called his commanding officer.
His father had impersonated his legal representative.
His father had forged his signature on a property transfer and called his military unit and managed the story of what was happening from the inside while Jacob was too far away to know there was a story being managed.
"When did they put you out?" Jacob said.
"Tuesday," Emily said. "Three days ago. Your mother said the house needed to be available for a family matter and that Emily Carter and her child were guests and guests left when the hospitality ended."
"Where have you been for three days?"
Emily's jaw tightened.
"A shelter," she said. "Until the blizzard closed the roads. Then I came back. I thought—" She stopped. "Sophie needed warmth. I thought maybe they would let us wait inside until the roads cleared."
"They left you on the porch."
"Your mother offered to call a cab." A pause. "During the blizzard."
Jacob stood up.
"I need to make a call," he said.
"Jacob—"
"Stay with Sophie," he said. "I'll be back in twenty minutes."
He was back in fourteen.
"Who did you call?" Emily said.
"A lawyer," Jacob said. "And my commanding officer."
"What did your CO say?"
Jacob sat down beside her.
"He said my father called the unit in April. He said the call was logged as a welfare check from a family member and the officer who took it noted that the soldier's family affairs were being managed appropriately." A pause. "He also said that call was recorded. Standard protocol."
Emily looked at him.
"Your father is on tape impersonating your legal representative," Jacob said. "To a United States Army installation."
May you like
"That's a federal—"
"Yes," Jacob said. "It is."
