I smoothed the white paper flat on the bedspread under the lamplight.

Line eight of the affidavit named me as an incapacitated person in need of immediate residential placement in a structured care facility.

Daniel’s signature was at the bottom of page three, sharp and dark in blue ballpoint.

He hadn’t merely asked for my car title or my modest savings.

He had drawn up legal papers to strip away my right to choose where I slept, where I walked, and how I lived out the years I had left.

He thought I had forty-eight thousand dollars left over from a little desert house, and he was willing to lock me away to get his share of it.