Account number. Property address. Past due amount. Late fees. A neat breakdown of what I “owed” and when they planned to take “my” home if I didn’t pay up.
Only one problem.
I didn’t own a home.
Not that one. Not any one. I rented a second-floor apartment with thin walls and a twelve-year-old car that made a sad little wheeze when I turned the key on cold mornings. My biggest luxury purchase this year had been a decent mattress because my back had started sounding like bubble wrap.
My hands started shaking so hard I had to sit down at the kitchen table. The paper trembled between my fingers.
My name was there.
My Social Security number was there, partially masked but still enough to confirm the impossible.
My signature was there too. Or something that looked like it—my letters, my loops, my slant. Except I had never written them. Not for this.
I stared at the signature for a long time, my mind doing that slippery thing it does when reality refuses to cooperate. My first thought was absurd: Maybe they sent the wrong letter.
My second thought was worse: Maybe I bought a house and forgot.