“I need to go to the bank today and to the lawyer, too. But first, I need you to help me review all the papers I’ve signed lately.”
We went back to my house and sat at the dining room table. I took out all the folders, all the documents I had saved without fully understanding them. Helen has better eyesight than me, and she knows how to read the fine print.
“Margaret,” she said after an hour of reviewing, her voice trembling. “These papers you signed last month, they give David the power to sell properties in your name.”
My world swayed. I had signed my own death sentence without knowing it.
“And this other one, this one gives him full access to all your bank accounts. Margaret, with these papers, they can do whatever they want with you.”
I cried for the first time in years. I cried like a child. I cried for my naivity, for my blind trust, for having raised a son capable of betraying me like this.
But the tears dried up quickly. In their place came something I hadn’t felt in a long time. rage. A clean, clear rage that filled me with an energy I thought I had lost.
We went to the bank together. There they explained everything David had tried to do over the last two months, loan applications using the farm as collateral, attempts to change the authorized signatures, requests for copies of all my bank statements.
“Mrs. Margaret,” the manager, a young woman with a concerned voice, told me, “Luckily, you had given us specific instructions years ago not to authorize anything without your physical presence. Your son seemed very upset when we told him we needed to speak with you first.”
