On the bedside table, beside two cold coffee cups, there had been a legal folder, left carelessly open, and I had done the thing ten years of trauma work trains you to do in a crisis: I had taken it in fast, completely, without letting the shock stop me, and I had photographed every page with my phone before I left.

The folder held property transfer drafts for the house my grandfather, Walter, had left to me — the house that was mine, my inheritance, my children’s security.

It held documents I did not fully understand yet but understood enough to be frightened by: papers naming Danielle as a secondary legal caregiver for my three daughters, Fiona and her older sisters, Hazel and Kelly.

My brother, Ivan, had warned me six months earlier.