Squeaky Wheel

At the last possible moment my mom made the choice to go see a lawyer, in hopes it would save what was left of the house. If not, the state would take half of everything. Thousands of dollars later and some lawyer magic work, the house avoided being claimed by the state. One problem among the paperwork, though, was all the money gifted to Nancie, the tens of thousands of dollars that went toward her credit cards, lawyer fees, and in-hand cash fund. We now had all the checks, all the proof of where the money had gone. 

The next day I watched as my mom punched in the phone number for 27 Autumn Drive. I could almost hear the phone ringing throughout the old house, and my grandmother slowly making her way to the kitchen to pick it up. My mom quickly asked her about a check she had signed for Nancie. It was 1,753.00 dollars towards a Citi Card credit card bill from July of 2008.

"I don't know," I heard her voice echo softly from the phone receiver.

My Mom explained she had a copy of the check from the bank in front of her. My grandmother claimed that it wasn't her that singed it.

I watched as my mom's face grew disgusted again. "It's your signature at the bottom of the check, you signed it."

My grandmother said it wasn't for Nancie's credit cards. My mom read the 'for' part of the check. She looked down and read it articulately through the phone, "Citi Card, 5424 180…"

"I don't remember," my grandmother's voice said. "Let's talk about something else."

My mom's face went from disgusted to dumb-struck. I knew now what we were dealing with. 

In addition to this, on closer review of the old bank statements, more checks were written out for Nancie's credit card bills that month. Those consisted of $2,225.77, making a total of 3,978.77 in one month: just one sample of one month. In the past three years, thirty thousand dollars were given, in the last several years and prior, hundreds of thousands. The squeaky wheel was getting the oil; except in this case, it was the oil, the money that funded her drug and alcohol problem, that made her squeak. 

My grandparents and Aunt Steffie knew what they were doing, conscious zombies agreeing amongst each other, depositing their money, and signing the checks. Once that brainless cycle ended, they forgot what they did, put it out of their head until the next month, credit card bill, or sob story. 

"No wonder they got that reverse mortgage," My mom explained after we had gone over the paperwork. "They had to if they wanted to pay her bills."

It was the first time I heard they had taken a reverse mortgage on the house.