She—”

“Shut your mouth, Brenda,” I said, and something in my voice stopped her cold.

I took the folder out of my jacket — the folder I had spent the dawn assembling — and I set it down on the counter beside my mother’s power of attorney, and I opened it, and the bank statements and the wire transfers and my wife’s medical records spilled across the granite.

“I spent last night going through this house,” I said.

“Your desk.

Your accounts.