The Transfer Carried A Signature From A Different Day

I opened the transfer on Amara's laptop and kept my hands flat on the table.

It said I had sold all rights to the patterns listed in an attached schedule. Forty-three designs. The price was $100. The buyer was Lattice House Design LLC.

The date was March 14.

"I didn't sign this," I told Nora the next morning.

"Tell me what you remember about that day."

I remembered blue tape on a fitting stand. Rain outside the clinic. A client who wanted the seam moved because it caught the hem of his work pants.

Amara checked her appointment records. I had been at her clinic from ten until after noon. The transfer said it had been signed online at 11:08.

"That alone doesn't prove you couldn't sign something online," Nora said.

"I know. But I didn't."

"Then we'll keep going."

She printed the last page. My signature had a small gap in the downstroke of the T.

I knew that gap.

In February, my pen had run dry while I signed a client's photo consent form. I had scribbled in the margin to get the ink moving again.

I found the form behind order 207. February 9. Rosa's first fitting.

There was the gap. There was the same odd flat end on the final stroke.

The form had two signatures: Rosa's permission to use a picture of her cover, and my promise to follow her choice. She had checked the box for the cover alone. No face. No name.

Below that was a plain sentence I had added when I began taking orders: Buying a cover did not transfer my original artwork rights.

"He said these forms were fussy," I said.

Nora held the papers apart by their edges.

"Keep both originals safe. We'll have someone compare the files and request the signing history. Don't write on either one."

I had imagined showing a judge the two signatures and walking straight out with my life back. Instead, there were requests, sworn statements, and dates to wait for.

That afternoon, another problem arrived.

A client named Dani Holt sent me a picture from a sales packet. Her cover design filled half the page. Her face filled the other half.

The caption called her brave.

"I told him no face," she wrote.

Her attached form proved she had.

I called her, though I wanted to hide behind a careful email.

She answered from a break room. A microwave beeped behind her. I could hear how hard she worked to keep her voice low, and I hated that this had followed her into a place where she was trying to do her job.

"You're right," I said. "That use wasn't allowed."

"Did you know?"

"No. I should have had a way to check what went out under my name. I'm getting help to stop it."

"He told me you wanted the picture."

I closed my eyes.

"I didn't. Will you send the packet to my lawyer? Only if you're willing."

She agreed, but she didn't forgive me. I didn't ask her to.

Lucian had sold me to strangers as a young woman who turned scraps into hope. I had never worn a prosthesis. The hope belonged to his sales pitch. My job was to make the thing the client chose, including something plain that nobody noticed.

Nora called the company named on the packet, Juniper Step Works. It planned to license the patterns for a line of ready-made covers.

Its owner sent back a draft agreement. Lattice House would receive a $42,000 advance when it showed clear ownership of the designs.

The payment had not gone through.

"Can they just keep using them?" I asked.

"We've given them notice that ownership is disputed. They've agreed to pause while they check. We also need a court order that binds Lucian."

Her office prepared the filing. I signed my statement after reading every line aloud.

The fee agreement frightened me. Nora let me pay $400 now and arranged a written payment plan for the next stage. Amara loaned me that $400, with a note between us.

"You don't need to do this," I told her.

"Then pay it back when you can. What I won't do is call it nothing."

On Friday, I sent the promised client update. I said there was a money review, a dispute over design rights, and no new payment link yet. I gave each open order its own status.

Four clients asked for refunds.

Two asked whether I could still finish.

I wrote both answers in the book, on fresh pages, with the date.

That evening, someone knocked at Amara's door.

Lucian stood on the porch holding my pattern tube.

"Tell her," he said to Amara, "that I brought the rest of what she signed."