Edward Miller, Grandma Ruth’s estate lawyer for the past nineteen years, sat on the front bench wiping his wire rims with a handkerchief.

He nodded to me once.

I sat with my back straight and my cap flat on the table, and my thumb found Grandma’s brass key in my pocket and rested on it.

Robert’s lawyer laid a folder on the lectern and opened with my grandmother’s age, her checkbook, and the word confused.

He said Ruth Hayward had signed a deed in her final year without understanding what she was signing.

He said an absent granddaughter had come home on military leave and moved into a sick woman’s house with a single suitcase.