Out of the sedan stepped a silver-haired woman in a long wool coat. Judge Cornelia Avery had retired from the county probate court three years earlier, and years before that, as a young attorney, she had drawn up my grandparents’ trust herself. Mom’s face went white the moment she recognized her. Judge Avery walked up the steps, nodded to me, and held out her hand to the man in the suit. “May I see those debt documents?”

He handed them over without a word. She flipped through them slowly, then turned to my father. “These loans weren’t your parents’ debts, George,” she said. “They were yours. Your failed hardware store, guaranteed with your parents’ forged signatures.” The attorney stiffened. “He told me these were notarized.” Judge Avery nodded. “They were. By a notary who died six years ago.”