The signature on the power of attorney was shaky in a way my father’s had never been — the signature of a man whose hand was being guided, or who was signing under duress.

The physician’s license number on the incompetency letter was real, but it did not belong to any physician who would have examined my father; it traced, I would confirm within the hour, to a retired dermatologist two states away who had never met him.

And the notary stamp on the power of attorney belonged to a woman named Sarah Jenkins — who had, according to the date on the document, notarized my father’s signature nearly a year after she died.

They had forged all of it.