“Nothing,” I said quietly, “that you didn’t sign your name to five years ago, Mom.” I watched the color drain out of the inch of face I could see.

And I turned, and walked to the elevator, and did not look back, and let the sentence do its work in the silence behind me.

Chapter 12 — Cognitive Decline

The following morning, Adrian obtained a certified copy of the original deed from the county clerk and drafted the formal notice to quit.

And then an unexpected hurdle arose.

My mother called Adrian’s office, screaming, and her defense, invented on the spot, was this: that she was going to sue to revoke the gift, on the grounds that my father “had no idea what he was signing” five years ago, due to cognitive decline.

She had also learned, and seized upon, the fact that the notary who had executed the original deed had recently been hospitalized after a heart attack, which made verifying the old records slower and more complicated.