Chapter 6: What Dad Actually Signed
I didn't sleep.
Mom took my bed.
I told her it was because the guest room mattress was bad, which was true, but mostly I needed her to feel like she had the best thing in the house.
I sat at the kitchen table until past midnight with the envelope in front of me.
I didn't open it alone.
That felt important.
Whatever was inside, I didn't want to be the only one who'd seen it.
At seven in the morning I called Patricia Howe.
Patricia had been a family friend for twenty years before she became an estate attorney, and she was the kind of person who answered her cell on the first ring even on a Thursday morning.
"I need a favor," I said.
"Today if possible."
"Tell me."
I told her everything.
The brochure.
The envelope.
The word trustee coming out of Scott's mouth as he walked out the door.
There was a pause on the other end.
"Bring the document," she said.
"Eleven o'clock.
Don't open it before you get here."
Mom and I drove over together.
She wore her coat — mine, actually, since she hadn't brought hers — and held her purse in her lap the whole way.
I'd gone back to her house that morning for it while she slept.
The spare key was still under the same ceramic frog it had been under since 1987.
Patricia's office was on the second floor of a brick building downtown.
She met us at the door, shook Mom's hand first, and led us to a table by the window.
She put on her glasses and opened the envelope herself.
We watched her read.
She read it twice.
The second time more slowly.
"Okay," she said.
She set it down and looked at us over her glasses.
"First question.
Did your husband ever mention changing his will in the last year of his life?"
Mom shook her head.
"He told me the house was mine outright.
He was very clear."
"Did he seem confused in that period?
Cognitively?"
"No.
He was sharp until the last two months.
Even then it was physical, not mental."
Patricia tapped the document.
"This codicil is dated eight months before his death.
It was filed with Hargrove and Associates." She paused.
"I know that firm.
I know Gerald Hargrove personally."
"Is the document legitimate?" I asked.
"The formatting is consistent with their work.
The notarization looks correct on the surface." She paused again.
"But."
Mom leaned forward slightly.
"The signature," Patricia said, "doesn't match the signature on the original will.
I have a copy of the original here — your husband filed with two firms, which is unusual in itself.
Look."
She laid both documents side by side.
I looked.
The original will had Dad's signature the way I'd seen it my whole life.
Looping.
The capital R in Robert dropping low before it came back up.
The codicil signature was tighter.
Smaller.
The R didn't drop.
"That could be age," I said.
"His hands weren't great at the end."
"It could be," Patricia said.
"Or it could be something else.
I'd want a forensic document examiner to look at this before anyone treats it as binding." She took her glasses off.
"I'd also want to know who requested this codicil.
Who initiated the conversation with Hargrove.
Because your father didn't walk into that office alone at that stage of his illness."
The room was very quiet.
"Someone took him," Mom said.
It wasn't a question.
"Or someone went on his behalf.
With or without his full understanding of what was being signed." Patricia looked at me.
"Does your brother have any documentation showing he was involved with your father's legal affairs in that period?"
I thought about Scott's text.
*There's a lot you don't know.*
"I think," I said carefully, "that he might have been more involved than any of us realized."
Patricia nodded slowly.
She picked up a pen.
"I'm going to make some calls," she said.
"Don't agree to anything.
Don't sign anything.
And if your brother contacts you before I call you back—"
May you like
She looked at Mom.
"You don't have to answer."
