Three weeks later, the family trust held a formal hearing. My father arrived with an attorney of his own, a younger man who looked perpetually uncomfortable throughout the proceedings, as though he’d only just realized, somewhere between accepting the retainer and walking into that room, exactly what he’d agreed to represent. Aunt Monica arrived alone, her usual polish entirely absent, dressed simply in a way I’d never once seen from her. My mother didn’t come at all. My cousins sat quietly in the back row, sixteen and nineteen, old enough to understand most of what was happening, young enough that I still felt a pang of sympathy for them despite everything.
I sat beside Grandma.
The trustee reviewed the evidence methodically, item by item. The unauthorized transfers. The falsified medical expense descriptions. The credit card payments. The travel expenses. The forged expense explanations Aunt Monica had apparently submitted to justify several of the larger withdrawals. The emails. The airport incident itself, documented through the security footage the airline had provided. Everything, laid out plainly across nearly two hours.
