I almost admired the confidence it took to say that inside my own house.
“Seventy-two,” I repeated.
“Not dead.”
“No one said you were dead,” Rebecca snapped.
“No.
Apparently you only needed me declared incapable.”
Her expression softened suddenly.
“Mom, listen to me.
We were worried.”
“About what?”
“You forget things.”
“Name one.”
She hesitated.
“You ask the same questions sometimes.”
“Which questions?”
Another hesitation.
Philip intervened.
“This is exactly the problem.
You’re getting defensive instead of recognizing that people are trying to help you.”
Martin removed one page from the folder.
“Would helping include reproducing Eleanor’s signature?”
Philip went still.
Rebecca looked at the page.
“That’s ridiculous.”
Martin laid it on the table.
The signature was close enough to fool someone who had not seen me sign my name thousands of times.
But the final stroke of the E turned inward.
Mine always turned out.
I had learned to sign my name that way when I was seventeen.
Rebecca knew that.
She had watched me write birthday checks, school forms, wedding papers, mortgage gifts.
She also knew most strangers would never notice.
“I didn’t sign that,” I said.
Rebecca’s mouth tightened.
“You probably did and forgot.”
The room became completely quiet.
Martin looked at her.
Philip closed his eyes briefly.
Rebecca had overplayed it.
She realized it a second too late.
“You probably did and forgot,” I repeated.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Yes, it is.”
I walked to the table and placed my real signature beside the questionable one.
“For months, every time I disagreed with you, you called it stress.
Every time I asked why you needed a document, you called it simplifying.
Every time I refused to combine accounts, Philip told me I shouldn’t carry so much responsibility.”
“We were concerned,” Rebecca said again.
“And now I know what your concern was for.”
Philip crossed his arms.
“Even if someone prepared documents, nothing happened.
No money was taken.”
Martin’s expression changed.
“That is not the defense you think it is.”
Philip looked away.
Rebecca turned on him.
