Chapter 6 - THE OPTION ON MY HOME
I read my own address on the business filing three times.
The numbers did not change.
My apartment building.
My floor.
My unit.
My home.
For forty-one years, I had lived there.
I had raised Alexander there after his father died.
I had painted the kitchen twice.
I had replaced the balcony tiles with money saved from night shifts.
I had watched my son leave for university from that doorway.
And now a company I had never heard of claimed some kind of option connected to it.
Alexander looked physically ill.
"Mom, I swear to you, I don't know what this is."
"I believe you don't know."
He flinched at the careful wording.
"That is not the same as believing I had nothing to do with it."
"No."
He turned away.
Marta raised one hand.
"Stop."
"Neither of you knows what the filing means yet."
"An option can mean several things."
"We need the underlying document."
The public registry listed a filing service.
Marta contacted them the next morning with Alexander present.
Because he was named as managing member, he could request company records after verifying his identity.
The filing service sent a packet within an hour.
The first page contained the company's formation documents.
Alexander's electronic signature appeared at the bottom.
The date was a Tuesday eighteen months earlier.
He searched his calendar.
That Tuesday, he had been in Munich at a project conference.
Bianca had been home.
"I could have signed electronically from Munich," he said.
"Do you remember doing it?" Marta asked.
"No."
The next page authorized Bianca to act as administrator.
The next authorized Ewald Consulting Services to advise the company.
Then came the residential property option.
I stopped breathing when Marta opened it.
The document did not transfer my apartment.
It purported to give Morgen Household Holdings a future right to purchase the apartment if I became unable or unwilling to maintain independent residence.
My signature appeared at the bottom.
I stared at it.
"That is not mine."
Alexander leaned closer.
It looked like mine.
Not perfectly.
But enough to make my stomach turn.
The loops were copied.
The slant was copied.
Even the shaky final stroke was there.
Marta asked me to sign my name on a blank sheet.
I did.
She placed the two side by side.
"Similar," she said.
"Not identical."
I pointed at the fake.
"I never signed that."
"I believe you."
"Can we prove it?"
"We try."
The option had supposedly been signed six months earlier.
I checked my old calendar.
The date was familiar.
I had been at a medical appointment that morning and spent the afternoon with Frau Keller.
Bianca had visited two days later.
That visit mattered because she had brought a Mother's Day photograph from the previous year for me to frame.
I remembered signing the back of it for Alexander.
Love, Mom.
Marta asked whether Bianca had taken the photograph away again.
I closed my eyes.
Yes.
She had said the frame did not fit.
She would replace it.
I never saw the photograph again.
Alexander sat down heavily.
"She had a fresh signature sample."
Marta did not answer.
She did not need to.
The option document contained another problem.
The witness signature belonged to Lydia.
Bianca's mother had certified that she watched me sign.
I laughed when I saw it.
"Lydia has not been inside my apartment in six years."
Alexander whispered, "Then she lied too."
"If this document was submitted as genuine, yes," Marta said.
The option price was the next insult.
My apartment had recently been valued at approximately two hundred eighty thousand euros.
The option price was one hundred forty-five thousand.
Half its approximate value.
The payment terms allowed the company to offset "care management costs" against the purchase price.
In other words, if they could control where I lived and claim expenses for my care, they could reduce what they paid for my home.
I felt something inside me turn cold.
"They wanted to put me in a facility and charge me for arranging it."
Marta corrected me gently.
"That is one possible interpretation."
"The documents are consistent with that possibility."
"But we still need to know what they actually intended."
I looked at her.
"Sometimes being a lawyer sounds exhausting."
For the first time in two days, she smiled.
"It is."
Alexander did not smile.
He was reading the company bank records included in the packet.
Morgen Household Holdings had received money from their joint account.
Then it paid Ewald Consulting Services.
It also paid a property valuation company.
The valuation company had inspected my building from public areas three months earlier.
That explained the stranger I remembered seeing in the lobby taking photographs.
At the time, I assumed he was there for another unit.
The company also paid a care-placement consultant.
The payment date was one week before Bianca first brought me the financial authorization.
Everything was connected.
Not perfectly.
Not yet.
But enough to stop calling the pieces coincidences.
Alexander suddenly stood.
"I'm going to the police."
Marta nodded.
"Now we have something concrete regarding Helga's signature."
"We should report it."
We went together.
I brought identification, the genuine deed to my apartment, copies of the option document, my calendar, and the earlier authorization Bianca had asked me to sign.
The officer who took the report listened carefully.
He did not gasp.
He did not promise arrests.
He asked dates.
He asked who had access to signature samples.
He asked how we obtained the company records.
He asked whether I had ever given Bianca power of attorney.
I said no.
He asked whether I had ever discussed selling my apartment.
I said no.
Then he asked Alexander whether he knew the company existed.
Alexander said no.
The officer looked at the formation papers bearing Alexander's signature.
"You understand that may need to be investigated too."
"Yes."
Alexander's voice was steady.
"Investigate it."
That answer made me proud of him.
Not because he was fearless.
Because he was afraid and did not ask the facts to spare him.
The report was forwarded for review.
Marta also contacted a property lawyer to place a formal notice with relevant records that I disputed any document claiming authority over my apartment.
By late afternoon, the immediate risk to my home felt smaller.
The emotional damage felt larger.
Then Bianca called Alexander.
He did not answer.
She sent a voice message instead.
"Alex, your mother is going too far."
"Dad says people are asking questions about his company."
"You need to stop this before everyone gets hurt."
"Come home tonight."
"I will explain everything."
Alexander listened twice.
Then he said, "I want to hear her explanation."
Marta advised against meeting privately.
So Alexander proposed a public cafe.
Bianca refused.
He proposed Marta's office.
Bianca refused again.
Finally, Bianca proposed their house with Jonas present.
Marta considered it.
"If you are determined to go, take Jonas, keep the meeting short, and do not sign anything."
Alexander nodded.
I stayed away.
I had become the center of Bianca's story, and my presence would only feed it.
At seven-thirty, Alexander entered the house with Jonas.
Bianca was alone.
At least that was what she said.
She had cooked dinner.
Candles were lit.
Their wedding song was playing softly from a speaker.
Alexander later told me that was the moment he almost broke.
For a few seconds, he saw the woman he married instead of the woman in the documents.
Bianca hugged him.
He did not hug her back.
She started crying.
"I was scared."
"Of what?"
"Of losing you."
"So you took my mother's apartment?"
"I didn't take anything."
"Her signature is on a document she says she never signed."
Bianca wiped her eyes.
"Your mother forgets things."
Alexander went still.
"Be careful."
"I'm serious."
"She forgets appointments."
"She repeats stories."
"She gets confused about money."
Jonas spoke from the doorway.
"Helga beat me at chess last week."
Bianca snapped, "Stay out of this."
Alexander asked, "Did you watch Mom sign the option?"
"Yes."
He stared at her.
"Where?"
Bianca hesitated.
"At her apartment."
"When?"
"I don't remember the exact time."
"Mom says you were not there that day."
"Of course she does."
"Lydia is listed as witness."
Bianca's face changed.
Only slightly.
But Alexander saw it.
"Was your mother there?"
"Yes."
"Mom says Lydia hasn't been inside her apartment in six years."
"Your mother lies."
"Then why did Frau Keller tell me the same thing?"
Bianca stood.
"Because your mother has recruited the whole building into her little war."
Alexander looked at the candles.
Then at the dinner.
Then at his wife.
"Why is my name on a company I never knew existed?"
Bianca's crying stopped.
"You did know."
"No."
"You signed it."
"I signed pages you put in front of me."
"That is not my fault."
"What does the company own?"
"Nothing yet."
"Why was it paying your father?"
"Consulting."
"For what?"
"Planning."
"Planning what?"
Bianca stared at him.
"Our future."
Alexander whispered, "Your future."
She slapped the table.
"I carried this family while you worked and your mother drained you."
"I handled every bill."
"I handled every crisis."
"I made sure we had something to build on."
"And yes, my father helped."
"You should be thanking him."
Alexander asked the question that mattered most.
"Where is the twenty-five thousand?"
Bianca looked away.
"Dad has it."
"Why?"
"He needed to cover something."
"What?"
"A deadline."
"What deadline?"
She did not answer.
Alexander stepped closer.
"Bianca, what happens if your father does not get money?"
Her eyes filled again.
This time the fear looked real.
"You don't understand."
"Then make me understand."
She whispered, "He loses everything."
"What is everything?"
Bianca looked toward the dark hallway behind the kitchen.
Jonas followed her gaze.
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Alexander turned.
"Who is here?"
Bianca said nothing.
Another creak.
Then Ewald appeared at the top of the stairs.
He was holding the missing fireproof safe.
And beside him stood a man Alexander had never seen before.
May you like
The stranger wore a gray suit and carried a folder with the logo of Alexander's employer.
