“Then we get her evaluated. She’s seventy-one, Michael. One bad day, one doctor’s note, and the court appoints someone to manage her. Me, if I’m the family member who stepped up.”
I did not blink.
Michael’s voice was very small.
“Put back what, Amanda?”
“What?”
“You said we’d fix it. Put back what?”
“The money! Before your lawyer starts digging—”
She stopped.
The line went silent for one breath.
“Digging for what?” Michael asked.
“Nothing! I meant—you’re being dramatic.”
“Where is the money?”
“Your mother can afford it. She can afford it a hundred times over.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“Michael, stop—”
A man’s voice sounded faintly in the background.
“Babe, who’s on the phone?”
Michael stopped breathing.
Amanda hissed, “Not now, Derek!”
The line went dead.
Nobody at the table moved.
Paul slowly pressed a button on his laptop.
“I recorded all of it,” he said.
Michael stared at the phone as if it had burned him.
“Derek,” he said.
“Pruitt,” said Margaret, who had slipped into the booth without anyone seeing. She had been in the next booth for ten minutes, my idea, her insistence. “Co-owner of Harbor Crest. Notary on the forged power of attorney. Titleholder of a condo in Newport.”
Michael looked at her.
“She’s been living a second life.”
“It appears so.”
Michael laughed, a terrible thin sound.
Then he put his head down on his arms in a Denny’s booth, and cried the way he had as a boy.
I moved to his side of the table.
I put my hand on the back of his head.
“I’m here,” I said.
He cried harder.
“I’m so sorry, Mom.”
“I know.”
“I carried her suitcases to your door.”
“I know.”
“I let her put her hand on you.”
“You did.”
He looked up.
“Why aren’t you screaming at me?”
“Because I think you’re already doing it.”
He wiped his face.
“What do I do?”
“You tell the truth,” Margaret said. “All of it. To the right people.”
Mediation was set for the following Wednesday at Margaret’s office.
Amanda arrived ten minutes late in a cream blazer, with a lawyer I had never seen before, a nervous man named Philip Garrity who clutched his briefcase like a life jacket.
She did not look at Michael.
She looked at me and smiled.
“Dorothy. I hope we can put this unpleasantness behind us.”
“I hope so too.”
We sat around a long oak table.
Margaret at the head. Paul Okafor beside Michael. Me at the corner, hands folded.
Garrity cleared his throat.
“My client believes this is a family misunderstanding that has been escalated by overzealous attorneys.”
“Your client,” Margaret said, “walked into Bay State Savings on October third with a forged power of attorney.”
Amanda’s smile did not move.
“That document was signed by Dorothy.”
“No,” I said.
“You were confused.”
“I was at the grocery store on October third. I have a receipt.”
“You forget things.”
“Which things?”
“Many things.”
“Name one.”
Amanda blinked.
“This is absurd.”
“Name one,” I said again.
She turned to Garrity.
“Are you going to let her talk to me like this?”
“Mrs.,” Garrity began.
Margaret opened her folder.
“Let’s begin with the bank records.”
She spread them across the table like cards.
“Fourteen transfers following the sale of Michael and Amanda’s house. Total: four hundred twelve thousand dollars. Destination: accounts tied to Harbor Crest Holdings, controlled by Amanda and Derek Pruitt.”
“Those were business investments,” Amanda said.
“Three transfer authorizations carry Michael’s signature.”
“He signed them.”
“Michael?” Margaret said.
“I didn’t,” Michael answered. His voice was steady. “I was at work. Badge records.”
“He’s lying!”
“Our handwriting examiner,” Paul said, “disagrees.”
Amanda’s composure slid by a quarter inch.
“Michael would sign anything. He’s hopeless with paperwork. He doesn’t even read what I put in front of him.”
Silence.
Michael slowly turned his head.
“Say that again?”
“I said you don’t read.”
“No. Before that.”
Amanda’s face twitched.
“I said you’re an idiot who would sign anything.”
Her lawyer closed his eyes.
“Amanda,” Garrity whispered.
“No! I’m tired of it! I carried this marriage! I carried him! Do you know what it is to be married to a man who can’t even log into his own bank account?”
“It sounds,” I said softly, “as though you made sure he couldn’t.”
“Shut up, Dorothy!”
“Mrs.,” Garrity said, “I need to speak with my client privately.”
“She’s a crazy old woman who—”
Margaret pressed a button on a small speaker.
Amanda’s own voice filled the room.
“Then we get her evaluated. She’s seventy-one, Michael. One bad day, one doctor’s note, and the court appoints someone to manage her.”
Amanda went white.
“That’s illegal. That’s a recording without consent.”
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