My Mother Told Me At Dinner I Was Not Half The Woman My Sister Is

By sunrise, I had nineteen missed calls. Mom, Dad, Sabrina, Dad, then Mom again. I ignored all of them, made coffee, and sat on my tiny balcony watching the city wake up. For the first time in four years, nobody’s emergency was mine.

Then, at 8:14, my title company called. It was Gloria, the agent who had handled my purchase. Her voice was tight. “Jenna, did you sign a quitclaim deed yesterday afternoon?” I set my mug down. “No. I was at work all afternoon.” There was a long pause on the line. “Then you need to come down here right now,” she said. “Because someone filed one at 4:52 p.m., transferring your house to Sabrina. And it has your notarized signature on it.”

Adrian Vale
Adrian Vale studied English literature. He is a novelist. He writes atmospheric literary fiction, quiet, character-driven stories about people who drift out of their own lives and the strange, lingering things that find them afterward.

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