At the door stood my elder-law attorney, Margaret Osei, and beside her a uniformed sheriff’s deputy I had asked to be present. Marlowe’s polished smile cracked at the edges. I set the gold pen down, untouched, on the signature line she had prepared so carefully. “Marlowe,” I said gently, “before I sign anything, I think you should meet my lawyer.” Gerald the notary went pale and quietly began closing his briefcase, sensing before Marlowe did that he had been brought into something he wanted no part of. Margaret stepped inside, set her own folder on the table beside Marlowe’s, and asked, in the calm voice of someone who does this for a living, whether she might review the documents first.

Marlowe stammered that it was nothing, just a simple transfer for my convenience. Margaret opened the papers and read them aloud, one line at a time, so the deputy could hear. A deed transfer. A power of attorney. A clause granting Marlowe and Nathaniel authority over all my assets, present and future. Every document I had spent the last two months preparing to defend against was sitting right there on my coffee table, exactly as I had predicted. I looked at my daughter-in-law over the rim of my husband’s good china and finally let myself stop pretending I hadn’t seen this coming.