Vivian had told him the papers needed to be complete and that I was expected to agree.

He had never seen me sign.

I had never appeared before him or the named notary.

The space for my signature remained empty.

I looked at that blank line when the reference image appeared.

For weeks, I had imagined someone looking at the page and deciding that a stamp outweighed my voice.

Now the missing signature was being treated as what it was: something that had not happened, regardless of what the printed paragraph asserted.

Martin’s position was that he had not made the family decision.