When he spoke again, his voice was lower. “I see.”
“I would suggest you make your next calls carefully.”
At 12:23, my phone buzzed again.
Michelle.
I let it ring twice before answering.
“Hello.”
“What did you do?”
Her voice was sharp, panicked, stripped completely of Thanksgiving polish.
I turned my chair away from the office door. “Good afternoon, Michelle.”
“Do not good-afternoon me. There are people at my house asking questions. Official people. They have documents. They’re saying the closing has been frozen and that I need to come downtown and answer questions about your condo.”
“That sounds stressful.”
“Stressful?” Her voice rose, then dropped quickly, as if someone nearby had looked at her. “Brad is on the phone with Stevens. Mom is calling me every five seconds. The buyers are furious. And some woman in a gray suit just asked me if I knowingly signed your name on property documents.”
I looked down at the legal pad on my desk. My notes from the morning meeting sat in neat black lines, calm and orderly.
“Did you tell her yes?”
Michelle made a sound halfway between a laugh and a gasp. “Are you insane?”
“I’m asking what you told her.”
“I told her this is a family matter.”
“It isn’t.”
“It is. Sarah, stop doing this. You know I was trying to help you.”
“By signing my name.”
“You were going to ruin everything by hesitating. I know you. You make simple things impossible.”
“And you made an impossible thing look simple.”
Silence.
For once, Michelle had no immediate answer.
Then, quieter, “What is that supposed to mean?”
I let the question sit.
Through the glass wall of my office, I saw Paula pass with a file tucked under one arm, laughing softly at something someone said down the hall. Ordinary Friday sounds carried around me: phones ringing, a printer humming, distant footsteps, the low murmur of people paid to notice details.
Michelle hated details unless they served her.
“The property wasn’t available for you to sell,” I said.
“Of course it was. It’s a condo, Sarah.”
“It is my home.”
“Yes, and I was helping you move on from it.”
“No. You were moving paperwork through a system you didn’t understand.”
She laughed once, too loudly. “You work in a cubicle doing financial paperwork. Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid.”
“I didn’t.”
But for the first time, I think she heard what I did not say.
Her breathing changed.
“What is going on?” she asked.
There it was.
Not accusation now.
Fear.
I could hear another voice in the background, female, calm and firm. Michelle covered the phone badly and said something muffled. When she came back, her voice was smaller.
“They want me to go with them.”