Chapter 1

When I was five, my father's mistress pushed my mother down a flight of stairs and left her paralyzed.

My father signed a settlement waiver behind our backs, then turned around and accused my mother of cheating.

Not only did she walk away with nothing, she was also saddled with five million dollars in bizarre joint marital debt.

Eighteen years later, I went to the bank to make a payment on that debt for her.

And I finally learned where the five million had come from. The transfer records spelled it out, plain as day:

Forged marriage certificate and record-filing fees: two hundred thousand.

IVF and child support: two million eight hundred thousand.

Egg donor: Deborah Whitney.

I stared at that name for a long time.

Then I called the legal aid hotline.

"Attorney, if the guilty party in an affair and the mistress forge five million in debt, what's the maximum sentence?"

"Is the evidence solid?"

"Airtight."

The line went quiet for five seconds. Then, firmly:

"Ten years, to start."

1

My name is Cordelia James.

Twenty-three, fresh out of college, currently doing a student-teacher placement at a local high school, teaching English.

The biggest wish of my life was to pay off my mother's loan, then take her and my grandmother on a trip to Miami.

But in that moment, that wish changed.

No more loan payments.

I was going to put my own father and his current wife behind bars, both of them.

My mother had to pay the bank eight thousand dollars every month.

Afraid a failed withdrawal would wreck her credit, we always kept the money loaded onto a savings card well ahead of time. Never once had there been a problem.

But last night the bank suddenly called, saying the funds on the card carried a money-laundering risk.

They'd already frozen it. We'd have to come into the branch to handle it.

I took a half day off from the head of my department.

First I manually deposited the eight thousand at the counter to cover this month's payment.

Then, receipt in hand, I asked the teller why the card had triggered an anti-money-laundering alert.

She answered fast.

"It's not a problem with the money you deposited. The receiving party on the other end has multiple cross-bank transfers, so they've been flagged for special review."

"For the details, you can go print out a statement."

Following her directions, I looked over at the self-service machine a little ways off.

Ten minutes later, a stack of transaction records, a full finger thick, sat warm in my hands.

I opened to the first page and froze.

Recipient: Fairview Hospital fertility department.

Amount: eight thousand.

Description: cross-bank transfer.

I skimmed the page.

One year, twelve installments, ninety-six thousand dollars.

All of it to Fairview Hospital's fertility department.

My fingertips had gone a little cold, but I couldn't stop turning the pages.

After the fertility department was paid off at half a million, the recipients turned into a mixed crowd.

To a luxury-goods retailer.

To a tutoring center.

To… Deborah Whitney.

Deborah Whitney. The mistress who'd pushed my mother down the stairs all those years ago.

The so-called five million in joint marital debt was what the mistress had racked up shopping for luxury goods and raising a secret child.

Eighteen years. One million seven hundred twenty-eight thousand.

A full million of it spent on the mistress.

To pay off the loan, my grandmother sold the family home.

It wasn't enough.

So she went out collecting scrap, growing vegetables, and putting her welfare check toward it.

Still not enough.

So my mother poured in her own welfare and disability payments.

The lobby air conditioning was set to seventy-eight, but I felt like I was standing in a field of snow, shaking all over and unable to stop.

Twenty minutes later, I got calm.

I pulled out my phone and dialed the legal aid hotline.

"Hello, I'd like to ask something. For forging joint marital debt, what's the maximum sentence?"

"Tell me exactly what kind of dispute this is."

"My parents divorced. The joint marital debt my mother pays every month goes, without fail, to Fairview Hospital's fertility department, and there are multiple payments to a mistress's personal account."

The other end went silent for a few seconds.

"Is your evidence sufficient?"

"I have the itemized bank records. And my father and the mistress's son now is an IVF baby, done at Fairview Hospital's fertility department."

Something stirred on the line. I heard several people breathing.

"The IVF, was that done before the marriage or after?"

My tears fell without warning.

"The second month after my mother's divorce, the child was born."

Back then my mother was lying in the ICU, and the doctors had issued a critical-condition notice.

My father posted on social media.

【Blessed with a son. New life, new beginning!】

I was five that year.

I even liked the post, hoping to please my father.

Something was lodged in my throat like a pebble, aching, bitter.

"Can you take the case?"

"However long it takes, however much it costs, I'm going to press charges."