That afternoon, Philippe from the travel agency sent another attachment.
A supplier agreement with a Paris-based tour company. Six pages. On the last page, Talia had signed as Guest Relations Director.
Beneath her name, there was a second signature. Mine. Or something pretending to be mine. It sat under a paragraph that said I personally guaranteed payment of all outstanding balances owed by Volkov Escapes, up to €60,000.
A financial guarantee. With my name on it.
Leena called me as soon as she saw it.
“Nina, I need you to think. Does your family have access to anything with your actual signature on it? Anything recent?”
I spent an hour going through my files. Old tax documents where I’d signed an authorization for Dad’s accountant. A delivery form. An insurance letter from when I’d helped Mom with a Medicare claim after her knee surgery.
Then I found it.
The payment authorization I had signed for the original vacation package. Back in June. I’d signed it, scanned it, and emailed it to the agency. And I had copied Dad on the email, because I wanted him to be able to check the travel dates and hotel details.
I put the two pages side by side on my screen.
The same slant. The same loop on the V. The same tiny mark I always make under the last letter, a habit I picked up in high school and never broke.
It was the same signature. Lifted straight off the page.
I had signed a gift for my parents’ anniversary. They had used it to back a business.
I sent both versions to Leena.
Then I turned off the laptop, turned off the lights, and sat in my dark living room for a long time.
On the fourth evening, I asked Sasha to come over.
Sasha and I met in our first week of college, in a dorm laundry room where we both put red socks in with white sheets. We’ve been best friends for fifteen years. She works as an ER nurse at Northwestern and has seen everything at least twice.
She showed up with two containers of pad see ew from the Thai place on Clark Street and two oranges in her coat pocket.
She didn’t ask me to tell her the story from the beginning. She didn’t ask me anything at all. We just sat on the sofa and ate noodles out of the containers.
After a while, she looked over at my suitcase, still sitting by the door where I’d left it four days ago.
“Have you unpacked?”
“No.”
“Do you want help?”
I thought about it for a long time.
Then I shook my head.
“I still want to go somewhere,” I said. “Someday. Somewhere.”
“Then leave it packed,” she said.
It was the first thing anybody had said to me in four days that didn’t need me to fix something.
I slept almost seven hours that night. The first real sleep since the driveway.
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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