Caroline’s expression softened only slightly.
“She still visits?”
“Because she wants to,” I said. “Not because she’s keeping score.”
For the next hour we worked.
Revocations. New authorizations. Trust language. Contingencies. Specific instructions regarding incapacity, medical representation, estate management, and asset transfer. Caroline moved through it all with the kind of efficiency that makes you realize how many other people have sat in her office trying to untangle family from damage.
When the last document was signed, she stacked the pages neatly, tapped them square, and looked at me over the top of her glasses.
“You’ve taken back control, Helen,” she said.
It struck me that this was not a thing I had realized I’d lost until I felt it return.
Outside, the Georgia sky was impossibly blue.
I stood on the sidewalk with my purse over one arm and let the sunlight hit my face. Cars passed. Someone laughed across the street. A dog barked from inside a parked truck.
