The Appointment I Never Made
Chapter 04 - The Appointment I Never Made
I stood in the foyer reading the appointment letter while Harrison offered one excuse after another. Sloan had merely been worried about me. She wanted to help. Lots of families scheduled memory evaluations for older relatives. There was nothing sinister about being careful.
"Then why didn't anyone tell me?" I asked.
He stared at the polished floor.
"And why does a medical office have your wife's number but not mine?"
"Mom, you're making this into something it's not."
I showed him the name of the clinic and told him that any medical evaluation would be decided by me with my own doctor. He said I was being stubborn. I said stubbornness had helped me teach middle-school orchestra through decades of impossible concert rehearsals, and it would help me now.
Marian Price listened the next morning without interrupting. I brought bank records, the letter, and the scorched trust fragment inside a plastic folder. She examined the trust document first.
"Evelyn, do you remember signing an amendment after Daniel died?"
"No."
"This fragment appears to be from a draft petition relating to authority over your property. It isn't enough to establish what was filed or by whom. We'll obtain the actual records."
My stomach tightened. "Can Harrison take my house?"
"Not simply by wanting it," she said. "But we need to look at what anyone may have signed or represented to others. And I want you to keep copies of everything."
She explained that concerns about capacity required proper evidence and process; a relative's accusation didn't settle anything. Her calm professionalism steadied me.
"I keep thinking I'm exaggerating," I admitted.
"People who are being pressured often do. Let's investigate what happened without deciding the outcome ahead of the evidence."
On our way out, June bought us both coffee. She said I looked as though I hadn't eaten, and she was right.
Back home, Sloan was staging another kindness. She had set the dining table with flowers and brought home soup from my favorite café. "We were worried about you," she announced.
I sat down but didn't taste it.
"I've retained a lawyer."
Sloan's spoon struck her bowl. "For what?"
"To review the trust."
Harrison closed his eyes. Sloan smiled brightly, though her fingers gripped the table edge.
"You always were dramatic, Evelyn."
I looked at her. "My name is on those accounts. Drama won't change the bank records."
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That night, I moved Daniel's files into a locked cabinet and changed my online passwords. At midnight someone tried three times to log into my email from a device I didn't recognize. The security alert woke me.
For the first time, I did not dismiss the fear in my stomach as an old woman's nerves.
