Instead of answering, I lifted the first three pages and turned them toward her.

At the top was a copy of my birth certificate, paired with a notarized power of attorney dated eight years ago—the year I turned twenty-five. Attached to it were three bank account applications, all opened at a mid-tier commercial bank upstate.

My mother’s eyes traveled down the page. The sun-kissed glow on her face curdled.

“Ethan spent the last four months of his life pulling tax transcripts and corporate filings,” I said, as clinical as a coroner reading an autopsy. “He found out that when I was twenty-five, you took a copy of my signature from an old college loan authorization and used it to draft a fraudulent power of attorney.

You used my name, my clean credit, and my identity to establish three shell corporations.”

My father’s head snapped toward my mother. “Eleanor. What is she talking about?”