“You can’t just—”
“I want you to pack the suitcases you brought yesterday. I want my robe left in my bedroom. And I want you to leave.”
Marcus spoke before she could answer. “We can discuss any claim you believe you have through counsel. Eleanor is withdrawing her permission for this visit. I strongly suggest you leave voluntarily.”
Harper looked toward Caleb. “Say something.”
He stood beside the table with both hands resting on the chair back.
“Pack,” he said.
She put her mimosa in the sink so hard the stem broke.
For the next twenty minutes, everyone moved around me. Lorraine gathered the breakfast dishes until I asked her to leave them. Dennis made a phone call in the hallway. Harper shut the bedroom door, then opened it to demand that Caleb find her charger.
I sat with my wedding photograph on my lap.
When they finally rolled their luggage toward the door, Harper stopped.
“You’ll regret making this public.”
“I haven’t made anything public.”
“You brought a lawyer.”
“Yes,” I said. “I did.”
Caleb lingered after the others entered the hallway.
“Mom—”
“Not now.”
He nodded without lifting his head.
I closed the door myself.
Marcus waited while I walked through the condo.
It was astonishing how thoroughly four people could disturb a home in one night. My nightgown was under a box. Thomas’s reading glasses, which I kept beside his photograph because I couldn’t bear putting them away, had been dropped into a bowl with loose change. The little stack of recipes I used every week was gone from beside the stove.
On the refrigerator, Harper had taped a list.
MASTER CLOSET
NEW DINING WALL
GUEST ROOM = OFFICE
SELL ELEANOR’S OLD FURNITURE
I took it down carefully.
The furniture was not valuable in the way Harper understood value. The dining table had a pale mark where Caleb once left a hot casserole dish. Thomas had repaired one chair twice. I could have replaced everything when I moved, but I had wanted some familiar things around me.
They had looked at those things and seen an obstacle.
Marcus was studying the photographs I had taken the previous morning.
“This was a good decision,” he said.
“I felt foolish doing it.”
“You weren’t.”
We checked the jewelry box first. My earrings were there. So was my mother’s ring. Thomas’s gold watch was missing.
I opened the desk drawer where I kept a small fireproof document envelope. It held copies of identification, tax returns, and records I sometimes needed when dealing with the bank. The drawer was empty. I checked it twice, then the drawer below it.
Marcus watched without speaking.
Finally, I looked at him. “They took my papers.”
“Let’s make a report.”
My first instinct was to call Caleb. It was so automatic that I had his name open on my phone before I stopped myself. I wanted to give him a chance to bring everything back. I wanted to hear that someone had packed the wrong bag.
Marcus didn’t hurry me.
“What happens if I report it?” I asked.
“We tell the truth about what’s missing and what you found. We don’t decide the outcome this morning.”
I looked at Thomas’s photograph. Then I made the call.
That afternoon, I changed the building access permissions and arranged to have the lock rekeyed. I began the miserable work of protecting accounts and replacing documents. Marcus contacted the lender named in the papers, identified himself as my attorney, and told them I disputed every signature attributed to me.
He made no promises about a quick resolution.
“A forged document doesn’t become genuine because a lender accepted it,” he said. “But we need to find out exactly what was submitted and what they did with it.”
“Could they take my home?”
“We are going to challenge this properly, Eleanor. Today, I can promise you that much.”
I appreciated him more for refusing to offer comfort he couldn’t yet support.
That night, I made toast because cooking seemed impossible. I ate it standing at the counter beneath the place where Harper’s list had been.
Caleb returned alone the next evening. Through the peephole, I saw him lift his hand toward the bell and lower it again.
I opened the door before he tried a second time.