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  The inside of the Social Security Administration Office looked just like any other government office. There were desks, wilted plants, and tired, frustrated-looking agents sitting at desks piled high with folders. Computers hummed, and fax machines whirred. Overhead, paddle fans buzzed. It was exceptionally cold for a government office. Myra shivered.

  What Myra loved was that there were no people sitting in the wooden chairs waiting to see an agent. Probably because it was lunchtime. A good thing. She stopped at a desk and pretended to rummage through her purse as Darlene stomped her way to where a rosy-cheeked, bespectacled grandmother type sat at her desk. It was all Myra could do not to laugh at Darlene’s appearance—pointy-toed six-inch stiletto heels, and stovepipe-tight jeans covering her skinny legs. A sleazy sleeveless muscle shirt completed her outfit.

  Myra hustled over to a desk directly across from the rosy-cheeked grandmother and sat down in front of a middle-aged man with a deeply receding hairline. She pretended to rummage in her purse again as the agent waited patiently. She was close enough to hear everything Darlene was saying. She listened and watched as Darlene slapped two Social Security cards down on the desk and went into her spiel. Myra thought she looked menacing. The rosy-cheeked agent started to type. She reached for the two cards and looked at them closely, then up at her computer. “Neither you nor your daughter are in the system, Ms. Wyatt, or whatever your name is. Come around here and look at the screen.”

  Darlene came around the desk, her beady, heavily made-up eyes narrowing to slits as she stared at the screen. “This is fucking bullshit,” she screamed. “Look at me. I’m standing here in front of you. I just gave you my Social Security card and my daughter’s card. You’ve been paying me for years. I pay into this goddamned system, so where are my records?”

  Myra did her best to pretend she wasn’t listening to the exchange going on around her. Her agent waited expectantly, then prodded her by asking how he could help her on such a bright summer day.

  Myra’s mind went blank. Annie was going to kill her. “Well . . . ah . . . I, what I want to do is . . . I want to give back my Social Security money. I don’t need it!” Ah, that should work. She had his attention now, which was what she didn’t want. Stupid. Myra fumbled for her billfold, where she kept her Social Security card, knowing full well she shouldn’t even be carrying it. “I know you need proof, and I have it, but it will just take me a minute,” she babbled. What kind of fool would give back her Social Security money? Then she remembered she hadn’t changed her name to Sutcliff when she married Charles. Even more stupid. Across from her, Darlene was going on a rant. She kicked at the rosy-cheeked agent’s desk and was shaking her fist. “I want answers, and I want them right now! Call someone over here who has a brain, because obviously you don’t have one!” she shrilled as she shook her clenched fist at the cowering little grandmotherly agent.

  Myra looked at the man across from her and said, “I think you need to do something and do it now! If you don’t, I will!” The agent, whose nameplate said he was Donald Jonas, took one look at Myra and knew she would act on his response or lack thereof.

  Darlene turned and looked at Myra. “Butt out, lady, this doesn’t concern you!”

  Donald Jonas got up and stepped over to the rosy-cheeked lady, careful to keep some distance between himself and Darlene. “You need to calm down, ma’am. Whatever your problem is, we’ll handle it. Now sit down, and I’ll call the manager.” He looked at the rosy-cheeked woman and said, “Take your break now, Frances.” The little lady scurried off.

  “Don’t tell me to sit down. According to that dim-witted woman, I don’t exist. If I don’t exist, that means I’m invisible,” Darlene snarled.

  Myra watched as three men came from three different directions. All of them wore suits with what Myra considered snappy ties. All three men looked determined. Myra had her cell phone in her hand and had already pressed 9-1-1. All she had to do was hit SEND if things got out of hand. She waited, hardly daring to breathe.

  Darlene went through her spiel again. The three men looked skeptical, but a portly man who seemed to be in charge started to type. He looked up at Darlene, his expression grim. “Listen to me very carefully, Ms. Whoever-You-Are. You-are-not-in-the-Social-Security-database. Noris-your-so-called-daughter. The numbers on these two cards belong, or did belong, to a father and daughter who are deceased as of twenty years ago. In other words, these cards are fraudulent.”

  Myra was so giddy, she felt light-headed as her agent returned to his desk and looked at her while he, too, tried to pay attention to what was going on at the next desk. “You were saying . . . Ms. . . .”

  “Martin. Mrs. Charles Martin. My name is Lynn.” Well, that part was true. Her middle name was Lynn, and Charles was named Martin.

  Off to the side, Darlene kicked one of her pointy-toed stilettos at the desk again. “Don’t give me that bullshit again. I’m forty-five years old. I’m a citizen, and if you even think I’m not, then think again. Now, find my goddamned records and be quick about it. Wait a minute. Plug in Larry Matthew Wyatt and see what comes up. I was married to him before he died. He was Olivia’s father. That should be all the proof you need.”

  The portly man did as instructed. “There is indeed a Larry Matthew Wyatt in the system. He pays into Social Security regularly. According to our records, he is alive and working somewhere that is none of your business. Can you prove you were married to him, ma’am?”

  “I don’t have my marriage license or his death certificate with me if that’s what you mean. No one carries stuff like that around with them. Type in the Bureau of Vital Statistics, and it should come up. We were married on August 3, 2001.”

  “Not according to these records. Larry Matthew Wyatt was married to a woman named Audrey Altman who died sometime I am not at liberty to reveal to you. He has not applied for a marriage license since then; nor has he remarried. According to our records, nor is he deceased.” There was such venom and hostility in the portly man’s voice, Myra found herself shivering. How did Abner do all that, she wondered.

  Myra’s index finger trembled over the SEND key on her cell phone. She jerked her head upright.

  “Did I understand you right when you said you wanted to give back your monthly Social Security monies?”

  “Well . . . ah, yes . . . I did say that, but considering what is going on with that . . . that person over there, I think I just changed my mind. You might decide to give my money to someone like her and, according to you people, she doesn’t exist. Explain that, please.”

  Darlene Wyatt wasn’t about to give up. “He’s dead! D-E-A-D! Okay, okay, call my mother-in-law. She’ll tell you I was married to her son. This is probably all that bitch’s fault anyway.” She rattled off Julie’s phone number. One of the taller men who flanked the portly man dialed the number. He turned away and spoke softly. When he turned back to Darlene, he said, “Mrs. Wyatt said she never heard of you. And she also said she does not care to discuss her personal business or her family members with strangers, which is her right.”

  “That lying bitch! Let me talk to her! She’s my goddamned mother-in-law, and she’s behind this. She paid you all off, I know it!”

  “Mrs. Wyatt hung up. Mrs. Wyatt said she is not your mother-in-law and that she never heard of you even though you claim to have the same last name as she does. Now, either you leave here, or I’ll be forced to call the police.”

  Darlene then went into such a tirade that Myra’s jittery finger hit SEND. She looked at the agent across from her, and said, “I think I’ll just keep my Social Security money and donate it to the SPCA.”

  Darlene went into threatening mode as she started pushing and shoving at the three men, who looked like they didn’t want to get their fancy suits wrinkled. The rosy-cheeked lady was peeping out from a cracked door in the back. Myra hustled as fast as her legs would carry her to the front door just as a police car and ambulance, sirens blaring, pulled into the parking lot. She walked se
dately toward the rental car as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Once inside, she hissed to Annie, who was now behind the wheel, “I think our work here is done. Burn rubber, Annie.”

  Annie burned rubber.

  Back on the highway, Myra repeated for Annie’s benefit everything that had gone on inside the office. “That woman is a slimeball weasel, Annie. Julie was right. And we need to give Mr. Tookus a raise. A BIG raise, Annie. In a million years, I will never understand how he was able to do all he did. There isn’t even a record that Darlene was ever married to Julie’s son or that Larry Wyatt is dead. That’s how detailed he was. No matter what that bitch threw out, Abner had it covered. I hope I did the right thing when I sent that nine-one-one call through. And then she had the nerve to demand they call Julie after all she’s done to her. What do you think will happen now, Annie?”

  Annie started to laugh and couldn’t stop. “Since she doesn’t exist, I have no clue. She can say whatever she wants, but if there’s no paperwork to back it up, what good is it? I think that about now, she’s starting to get the message.”

  “She had the message back in the office. She called Julie a bitch and said she was behind all this and that she had paid everyone off. Of course, those men didn’t believe a word she said. The best part was when Julie said she had never heard of her, and wasn’t her mother-in-law. I just loved that.”

  “I’m going to stop at that fast-food place up ahead. We can go through the drive-through and get some coffee, park in the lot, and call Julie. She’s probably beside herself by now. You seriously said you wanted to give back your Social Security money? That was so clever, Myra. I have to say, I don’t think I could have come up with that.”

  “My mind went totally blank, Annie. It was the only thing I could think of.”

  “You rock, Myra. Now, I need five bucks for the coffee.”

  Myra dug in her pocket for the money and handed it over.

  The next twenty minutes were spent laughing like lunatics on the phone with Julie, who, as Annie later said, was happier than a pig in a mudslide at what they had accomplished.

  “I have an idea,” Annie said as she prepared to drive out of the parking lot. “Call Julie back and tell her to come up with some excuse to go to the police station and hang out to see if they haul Darlene in there. Tell her to make sure Darlene doesn’t see her.”

  In a few minutes, Myra reported, “She said okay,” and powered down.

  “It’s all in the paperwork, Myra,” Annie said gleefully as she tooled along at a nice eighty miles an hour on the interstate. “As you said, a very BIG raise is going to go out to Mr. Tookus. ASAP.”

  “And we did it all by ourselves, Annie. We made this happen. How cool is that?”

  Annie laughed again. “I think we both rock, Myra.”

  “That we do, Annie, that we do. I think I’ll call Charles and give him an update.”

  “I called Fergus, and he’s doing fine, but he said he’s loaded with gas.”

  “Too much information, Annie.”

  Annie laughed again. “I’m having fun. Are you having fun, Myra?”

  “You know it,” Myra cackled, as Annie swerved to pass what she called a Sunday driver, who was only driving seventy-eight miles an hour.

  Darlene Wyatt roared into the driveway and skidded to a stop, her tires smoking. She bolted from the vehicle and slammed her way into the house. She saw it all at one glance, Adam drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette, his two derelict kids shoveling food into their mouths—food she paid for—the kitchen a mess. There was no sign of her adopted daughter. She asked where she was.

  “Where do you think the little snot is? She’s up in her room being punished because she wouldn’t clean off the table.”

  Darlene looked at the slovenly mess in the kitchen, then at her boyfriend, with the cigarette hanging out of his mouth. She closed her eyes for a second as she remembered how neat and tidy everything was when she lived here with Larry. This place was a pigsty, and she said so.

  “Then clean it up yourself,” Adam snarled.

  “That’s not going to happen. You kids, clean up this mess or get the hell out of my house. I hope you enjoyed the food, because there is no money to buy more. You should think about rejoining your mother, wherever she is, if she’ll have you. Let me be even more specific, and you, Adam, pay attention. Someone deleted my identity, wiped out every record there was of me in every database in the country. I think the same thing happened to you, so I’d get cracking on that right now. To you reject kids, that means no gas money, no beer money, no weed money, no food, PERIOD.”

  Adam’s chest puffed out, he slammed his beer bottle down on the counter, and he bellowed, “No, that’s not what it means. What it means is you take your sorry ass out and get a job, even if it means flipping burgers somewhere. I told you what I would do if you messed with me, and I mean it. I’m tired of paying for everything.”

  Darlene clenched her jaw. She thought about the Botox she’d paid for, the breast implants, the liposuction, all with Olivia’s money, and she felt sick to her stomach. “Do whatever the hell you want, Adam, but with no identity, how do you think I’m going to get any kind of job. I tried calling my old boss, and he won’t take my calls. The party is fucking over. What part of this aren’t you getting?”

  “The part where you have no money—I’m getting that. So now is when you make a deal with that bitch. Give her the snotty kid; that’s what this is all about. She’ll pay you for her. We’ll take the money and start over someplace. Without your kid. We’re in this mess because of her.”

  “Shut up, Adam. If Julie Wyatt was smart enough to pull something like this off, she’s smart enough to know I’ll want to barter, and I’m not giving up Olivia even for you. That’s two thousand bucks a month till she’s eighteen. Do the math, you bastard! Right now, I hate your guts and your kids’ guts. Get the hell out of my house. I mean it.”

  Adam laughed, an evil sound. “Whose house, Darlene? This is Olivia’s house, not yours. She’s just two thousand dollars a month to you. I’d like to see you try, and the key word here is try, to make me and my kids move out.”

  “Yeah,” the son said, “try and make us.” The daughter sneered, then laughed, the same evil sound as her father had made.

  Darlene was so full of rage, she couldn’t think straight. She opened the refrigerator and saw there was no more beer. In fact, with the exception of condiments, there was no food at all in the refrigerator, not even cheese. Tomorrow was grocery-shopping day, when they loaded up because Adam got paid every two weeks and tomorrow was the day his paycheck found its way to his bank account. An account the bank said he no longer had. She had thirty-seven cents in her pocket, not even enough to buy a White Castle burger. She slammed the refrigerator door shut and looked in the cabinet. Even the Ramen Noodles were gone, and she always bought a case on grocery-shopping day. Flour, sugar, brown sugar, dry oatmeal; but there was no milk. The cupboard was bare. Jesus. What the hell was she supposed to do now?

  Once upon a time, the refrigerator was always full, and so was the freezer. The pantry had held enough food for an army, because Larry used her money to buy groceries, and they didn’t have to wait for his clients to pay him. And, back then, there weren’t two extra mouths to feed and support.

  Darlene started to pace the kitchen. She looked into the laundry room, where three giant stacks of dirty clothes were piled up. Adam followed her gaze. He shrugged. “We ran out of soap.” She couldn’t remember ever running out of detergent back in the day. Who the hell ran out of detergent?

  So now she didn’t even have any clean clothes. Son of a bitch! She whirled around. “Did you do what I said? Did you check your identity, your bank account, Adam?”

  Darlene started to cry, the heavy mascara running down her cheeks. She looked like a skinny, ugly raccoon. Adam said so. She hauled off and whacked him, and they went at it, with the two kids getting into it, too. “I’m calling the police,” the daughte
r shouted. “I’ll have your ass in jail in two minutes. I’ll say you molested me,” she screamed at her father. “And I’ll say you helped him, Darlene!”

  Adam reached for the cell phone in the girl’s hand and slammed it down on the tile floor. He stomped on it. The girl attacked him. He shrugged her off his shoulders just as the boy came at him full bore. He stiff-armed the young punk, then banged the kid’s head on the kitchen table. “Now get your shit and get out of this house. NOW!”

  The two kids looked at their father to see if he meant what he said. Whatever they saw in his eyes, they headed for the door.

  “Go on, do what he says; he’s crazy. Go to your mother’s and do not say one word about what goes on in this house. And do not ever come back here. Do you hear me?”

  The doorbell rang. Darlene stopped crying long enough to run to the window. “Oh, my God! They’re stealing our cars! Adam, do something!”

  Adam flopped down at the table and dropped his head into his hands. “They aren’t stealing our cars, they’re repossessing them. I don’t fucking believe this. That bitch didn’t miss a trick.”

  “Do something!” Darlene screamed at the top of her lungs.

  “How in the damn hell are we supposed to get to Mom’s house if they take all our cars?” the boy bellowed.

  “Try walking,” Adam bellowed in return. Both kids slammed out of the house, every dirty word they knew spewing from their mouths.

  “You happy now that you drove the kids out of the house!”

  “Yes!” Darlene snarled.

  Darlene raised her hand to lash out, but Adam grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back. “I want you to shut up right now. Do not say one more word. In fact, get out of my sight immediately. Otherwise, I will hurt you.”