Forbidden Guest House novel · Chapter 11 of 32

Chapter 11: The Hearing

"Fraud by the borrower," I repeated.

Leif stopped walking.

"The borrower is me," I said. "She's calling me the fraud."

"The hearing's Thursday," Gran's lawyer said. "Grand Rapids, nine a.m."

"Can you come?"

He sighed down the line.

"Kari, I'm ninety. I haven't stood up in a courtroom since 1998. A real litigator wants a fifteen-thousand-dollar retainer."

"I have eleven hundred dollars."

"Then you'd better bring your grandmother's ledger."

On Thursday I wore Gran's navy funeral dress, because it was the only thing I owned that wasn't jeans.

Hedy wore her church cardigan.

Leif wore a collared shirt he'd driven to Walmart for.

"You look like a deacon," Hedy told him.

"I feel like a deacon."

The Itasca County courthouse had a high ceiling and a fan that ticked.

The bank's side of the room had two lawyers in gray suits, Erik in a navy blazer, and Marlys in her pearls.

My side had me, a cardboard file box, and a tote bag with a thermos in it.

Behind me, the benches were filling up.

The two church ladies from the bank lobby. The old woman from table six. The man in the feed cap from the marina.

The judge was a gray-haired woman with half-glasses.

"Ms. Solberg. You're representing yourself?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"Brave."

"Broke, Your Honor."

A few people in the benches laughed.

The bank's lawyer went first.

He said I had signed a binding purchase agreement and then tried to back out of it.

He said I had canceled the property's insurance myself and let the collateral burn.

Then he called Marlys.

She walked to the witness chair.

"Mrs. Moen, did Ms. Solberg sign this agreement?"

"She did. In my office. I watched her."

"Has she been honest with the bank?"

Marlys looked at me with her soft, sorry eyes.

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