Chapter 2 - Her Signature
I grabbed the envelope before Nathan could.
Pages slid across the table and onto the floor.
“Emily, stop.”
I kicked his hand away when he reached down with me.
“Don’t touch anything.”
His face tightened.
“You’re making this look worse than it is.”
“Then make it look better.”
I held up the power of attorney.
“Explain this.”
He looked at Charles.
Not me.
That answer hurt worse than Victoria’s slap.
Charles bent and collected the remaining pages.
“There are four credit lines, two investment authorizations, one amended beneficiary form, and this.”
He handed me another document.
The heading made my stomach twist.
CERTIFICATION OF TEMPORARY INCAPACITY.
It wasn’t signed yet.
Two blank physician lines waited at the bottom.
I looked up.
“Why does this exist?”
Nathan exhaled through his nose. “It’s standard estate planning.”
Charles barked a humorless laugh.
“No, it isn’t.”
Victoria pushed her chair in.
“This has gone far enough.”
She turned toward the doorway.
Charles’s voice stopped her.
“Sit down.”
She froze.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said sit down.”
I had never heard him speak to her that way.
Neither had Nathan.
Victoria sat.
Slowly.
I flipped through the documents.
The same phrase appeared again and again.
Temporary incapacity.
Temporary incapacity.
Temporary incapacity.
My thumb stuck to the edge of one page because soup had dried on my skin.
The burn flared.
I sucked in air.
Nathan’s expression softened instantly.
“Let me see your hand.”
“No.”
“Emily, come on.”
“You watched your mother hit me.”
His hand stopped halfway across the table.
“You told me to learn how to behave.”
“I was angry.”
“You were comfortable.”
That landed.
His jaw shifted.
Charles pulled out his phone.
“I’ve already called my attorney.”
Nathan stood again. “You called a lawyer before talking to me?”
“I talked to you six months ago when I found out about your gambling debt.”
I turned toward Nathan.
“What gambling debt?”
He stared at Charles.
Charles’s eyes flicked to me.
He knew immediately that he had said too much.
“How much?” I asked.
Nathan lowered his voice. “It’s handled.”
“How much?”
“Emily.”
“How much?”
Charles answered.
“Almost seven hundred thousand when I found it.”
The room tilted.
I had paid Nathan two hundred eighty thousand dollars eighteen months earlier.
He told me it cleared everything.
He had cried in our kitchen.
He had put his head against my stomach before there was a baby there and promised me he would never gamble again.
“Seven hundred?”
Nathan stepped closer. “Dad doesn’t know the full picture.”
I shoved the chair between us.
“I paid you.”
His eyes dropped.
“I gave you almost three hundred thousand dollars.”
Victoria whispered, “You what?”
For the first time that night, her surprise looked real.
Nathan glared at me. “You said you wouldn’t tell anyone.”
I stared at him.
“That’s what you care about?”
My phone buzzed inside my bag.
I almost ignored it.
Then it buzzed again.
Unknown caller.
I pulled it out.
No message.
Just a missed call.
Charles was still talking.
“Emily, these authorizations use your inherited accounts as collateral.”
“My father’s accounts?”
“Yes.”
Nathan cut in. “Temporarily.”
I looked at him.
The word hit differently now.
Temporary.
Just like incapacity.
Just like the document waiting for two doctors.
Charles handed me the loan dated August fourteenth.
I held it next to a birthday card I had signed for his secretary two weeks earlier.
Perfect match.
Too perfect.
“Who had samples of my signature?”
Nathan shrugged. “Everyone. You sign checks. Cards. Contracts.”
“Your mother’s friend notarized this.”
Victoria snapped, “Linda notarizes half the county.”
“Without seeing me?”
Her lips pressed together.
A glass broke in the kitchen.
Everyone jumped.
One of the caterers poked his head in, apologized, disappeared.
Nathan used the distraction to move toward the stack.
I caught his wrist.
His pulse hammered against my fingers.
“Why are you so desperate to touch these papers?”
He yanked free.
“I’m trying to protect my family.”
“From me?”
“From this.”
He pointed around the room.
“This spectacle.”
Charles’s attorney called.
Charles put the phone on speaker.
A woman’s voice filled the room.
“Charles, I found the filing.”
Nathan’s face changed.
The attorney continued.
“The power of attorney was recorded three weeks ago. There’s also a physician declaration packet prepared under Emily’s name.”
My stomach tightened.
“Prepared for what?”
“Loss of decision-making capacity.”
I put one hand against my belly.
The baby moved.
Hard.
The attorney said, “Emily, have you recently been diagnosed with any condition affecting cognition, memory, judgment, or mental stability?”
“No.”
Nathan spoke too quickly.
“She’s had episodes.”
I turned.
“What episodes?”
He hesitated.
“Dizziness. Confusion. Mood swings.”
Victoria looked down at the table.
I saw it.
A tiny movement.
Almost nothing.
But she wouldn’t look at me.
I gripped the back of a chair.
My bag slipped from my shoulder.
Victoria’s eyes went straight to it again.
Straight to the side pocket.
And suddenly I knew I was not going home with Nathan.
I picked up my coat.
“I’m going to the hospital.”
May you like
Nathan stepped in front of the door.
“No, you’re not.”
