Chapter 3 - The Credit Card With My Name
I stared at the bank statement until the numbers blurred.
$1,275.
$1,275.
$1,275.
Six months.
Nearly eight thousand dollars.
I called the bank again because part of me hoped I had misunderstood.
Maybe it was insurance.
Maybe a home repair.
Maybe some automatic payment I had forgotten.
At sixty-eight, people sometimes assume forgetting is normal.
But I remembered my money.
I had spent too many years counting pennies not to.
The representative verified my identity.
Then she said:
“Mrs. Higgins, the payments are going to a Platinum Horizon credit account ending in 4418.”
“I don't have a Platinum Horizon card.”
A pause.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“When did you open it?”
“I didn't.”
The woman became careful.
Professional.
“Mrs. Higgins, I need to transfer you to our fraud department.”
My stomach turned.
Fraud.
Such an ugly word.
I looked toward the ceiling.
Jessica's bedroom was upstairs.
She had gone out with Brittany after our argument.
Suddenly, I remembered packages.
Boxes arriving almost every week.
Shoes.
Clothes.
Electronics.
Once, a new laptop.
Jessica always said she had gotten a bonus or found a sale.
I wanted to believe her.
Parents are excellent at helping their children lie when the truth hurts too much.
Not deliberately.
We just call the lies hope.
The fraud specialist asked questions.
Had I shared my Social Security number?
Not intentionally.
Did anyone have access to my mail?
Jessica did.
Had I authorized another person to apply for credit on my behalf?
No.
Did I recognize the email attached to the account?
The representative read it.
My chest tightened.
It was Jessica's old email address.
I hung up twenty minutes later with a fraud case number and instructions not to confront anyone until I had secured my accounts.
That was difficult.
I wanted to march upstairs.
I wanted to throw every shopping bag into the yard.
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I made tea.
Not for Jessica.
For myself.
Then I called someone I had not spoken to in nearly three years.
My younger sister, Linda.
She lived forty minutes away.
We had drifted apart after an argument about Jessica.
Linda had told me I was enabling her.
I told Linda she had never had children and couldn't understand.
It was cruel.
And unfair.
When she answered, her voice was cautious.
“Martha?”
“Hello, Linda.”
“Is everything okay?”
No.
Nothing was okay.
But hearing her voice made me realize how lonely I had become.
“I need help.”
She arrived forty-five minutes later.
When I told her everything, she didn't say I told you so.
That made it worse.
She just took my hand.
“Martha, we need to protect you.”
“She's my daughter.”
“I know.”
“What if she didn't understand what she was doing?”
Linda stared at me.
“She opened a credit card in your name.”
I looked away.
“Martha.”
“I know.”
“Say it.”
“What?”
“Say what happened.”
I hated her for asking.
Then I whispered:
“My daughter stole from me.”
The words broke something open.
I cried.
Not politely.
Not quietly.
I cried like a mother mourning someone who was still alive.
Linda sat beside me until I stopped.
Then we worked.
Changed banking passwords.
Froze my credit.
Reviewed accounts.
Canceled access Jessica should never have had.
And found more.
A streaming subscription.
A gym membership.
Two store cards.
One utility bill.
All being paid from accounts connected to me.
The total was staggering.
“How did I not see this?” I whispered.
Linda answered gently.
“Because you trusted her.”
At 6:20 p.m., Jessica came home.
She stopped when she saw Linda.
“Oh. Great.”
Linda stood.
“Hello, Jessica.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Visiting my sister.”
Jessica looked at me.
“You called Aunt Linda about our business?”
“Our business?”
“Yes. The car.”
“This is not about the car.”
Her confidence faded.
I placed the Platinum Horizon statement on the table.
Jessica looked down.
Then back at me.
I saw the answer before she spoke.
She knew.
“Explain.”
“Mom—”
“Explain.”
“It isn't what you think.”
“Then help me understand.”
She sat.
Brittany wasn't with her now.
No audience.
No performance.
Just us.
“I needed credit.”
“So you used mine?”
“I was going to pay it.”
“With money from my bank account?”
She looked down.
“I was between bonuses.”
“For six months?”
“Things have been hard.”
“So you stole my identity.”
“Don't say it like that.”
“How should I say it?”
“I didn't steal your identity! You're my mother.”
I actually stared at her.
As if motherhood made theft impossible.
“You used my Social Security number.”
“You gave it to me when we did the car paperwork.”
“For the car.”
“I thought you wouldn't mind.”
“You thought I wouldn't mind you opening a credit card in my name?”
“You always help me.”
There it was.
The entire problem in four words.
You always help me.
My generosity had become permission.
My sacrifices had become expectation.
My love had become an account she believed had no withdrawal limit.
“How much do you owe?”
She hesitated.
“Jessica.”
“About fourteen thousand.”
Linda inhaled sharply.
I felt dizzy.
“Fourteen?”
“I can pay it.”
“With what?”
“My salary.”
“How much savings do you have?”
Silence.
“Jessica?”
“Not much.”
“How much?”
“Three hundred.”
I closed my eyes.
She earned more than I had ever earned.
Yet she had three hundred dollars.
“Where did it go?”
“Life is expensive.”
“No. Where?”
“Clothes. Food. Things.”
“Brittany?”
Her face hardened.
“Don't bring her into this.”
“You spent nearly five hundred dollars at the mall yesterday.”
“It was my money.”
“No, Jessica.”
I pushed the statement toward her.
“It was mine.”
Her eyes filled.
For one second, I saw my little girl.
And my heart weakened.
Then she said:
“You're really going to destroy my life over fourteen thousand dollars?”
My heart hardened again.
“I didn't open the card.”
She stood.
“You're my mother!”
“And you are my daughter.”
“Then act like it!”
Linda stood so quickly the chair scraped.
“Martha has acted like your mother every day of your life.”
Jessica glared at her.
“Stay out of this.”
“No.”
Linda pointed toward me.
“That woman worked until her fingers swelled to give you opportunities she never had.”
“You don't know anything about us.”
“I know she paid your college deposit when she needed dental work.”
“Linda,” I whispered.
“No, Martha.”
Linda's eyes filled.
“I know she sold Dad's watch to cover your first apartment.”
Jessica looked at me.
“What?”
I had never told her.
My father's watch had been one of the few things he left me.
Jessica's first apartment required a deposit she didn't have.
I sold it.
She thought I'd found the money in savings.
“Mom?”
“It doesn't matter now.”
“Yes, it does.”
“No.”
I stood.
“What matters is what happens next.”
She looked frightened.
“What are you doing?”
“I froze my credit.”
Her face changed.
“You what?”
“I removed your access to my checking account.”
“Mom, my phone bill—”
“Will become your phone bill.”
“My insurance?”
“Yours.”
“The car?”
“We will discuss it tomorrow.”
She started crying.
Real tears.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
I couldn't believe she still saw herself as the victim.
“I am not doing something to you.”
I spoke slowly.
“I am stopping you from doing something to me.”
That silenced the room.
Jessica grabbed her purse.
“Fine.”
“Where are you going?”
“Anywhere but here.”
She stormed toward the door.
Then stopped.
Turned.
And said the cruelest thing she could think of.
“Dad would be ashamed of you.”
My husband, Robert, had been dead for twelve years.
Jessica knew exactly where to put the knife.
For a moment, I couldn't breathe.
Then Linda stepped toward her.
But I raised my hand.
“No.”
I looked at my daughter.
“Your father spent thirty-four years loving me.”
My voice shook.
“He would never ask me to let someone steal from me to prove I loved them.”
Jessica's face changed.
She left.
The door slammed.
I stood there shaking.
Then something slipped from Jessica's purse as she left.
A folded envelope.
Linda picked it up.
Jessica's name was printed on the front.
So was the logo of a mortgage company.
I frowned.
“Mortgage?”
Jessica didn't own a house.
Linda opened it only after I noticed something else.
My address was printed beneath Jessica's name.
My house.
Inside was a notice regarding a home equity loan application.
Borrower:
Jessica Higgins.
Co-borrower:
Martha Higgins.
And beneath my name was a signature.
May you like
My signature.
Except I had never signed it.
