“If I do not sign it, Dr. Paulson will bar me from his room,” I said.
“Let him try,” Gary said. “We have the court deadline on November fifteenth, which is only twelve days away.”
I stared at the black ink line where my signature was supposed to go.
“If I sign it, does the bank transfer the funds immediately?” I asked.
“Within two hours,” Gary said.
He stood up, sliding his yellow pad into his leather briefcase.
“Do not do it, Clara,” he said.
He walked out, leaving the front door lock to click behind him.
I sat alone at my kitchen table, staring at the unsigned power of attorney form.
I slid the blank form across the wide oak desk at nine o’clock the next morning.
Gary, my estate attorney, did not pick it up. He merely looked at the clean signature line, then up at me, pausing between his words for emphasis.
“You did not sign it,” he said.
“I could not do it, Gary,” I said, clearing my throat before speaking. I twisted my silver wedding band, feeling the cool metal slip against my skin.
A ceramic mug of diner coffee costing two dollars and fifty cents sat cold on the edge of the green leather blotter, untouched since I had walked into the office.
Gary took off his glasses and began cleaning them with the wide end of his blue silk tie. Without his lenses, his eyes looked smaller, tired from a long career of looking at other people’s ruined plans.
“If you had signed that transfer,” Gary said, “the eighty-five thousand dollars would have been in his name by noon.”
“But he needs the treatment,” I said, though the words felt heavy and thin in my own mouth. “He says Dr. Paulson has a clinic in Costa Rica in mind.”
Gary put his glasses back on, hooking the wire frames behind his ears. He reached into his drawer and pulled out a fresh sheet of paper, sliding it toward me with a blue ballpoint pen.
“We are going to do this another way,” Gary said. “This is a limited power of attorney, giving me legal authority to investigate his existing accounts.”
I hesitated, the pen heavy in my fingers. Signing this meant looking into Ben’s private life, turning our thirty years of trust into a legal case file.
“Will he find out?” I asked.
“Not until I start knocking on the doors of his banks,” Gary said.
I wrote my name on the bottom line, the ink drying quickly under the bright fluorescent lights of the office.
“We need to know what he is planning,” Gary said, blowing steam from a fresh cup of tea.
“I will go to the bank first,” I said.
I drove my faded blue Buick LeSabre to the Oak Creek Bank, its squeaking brakes echoing off the brick wall of the drive-up lane.
The bank lobby smelled of old carpet and copper coins. I sat across from Mr. Vance, the manager, who had handled my father’s savings account for twenty years.
He held my copy of the limited power of attorney, his eyes scanning the notary’s gold seal. Then he looked at his computer screen and frowned.
“Clara,” Mr. Vance said, “I am glad you came in today.”
