No mention of the two aging people whose tea mugs were still by the sink.
“That,” I said, carrying it back to the porch, “is what you call helping?”
Daniel looked at the binder, then at the ocean, then anywhere but my face. “It was temporary.”
The officer took the binder from me and added it to her notes.
Temporary is one of the favorite words of people trying to make theft sound managerial.
The officers stayed until the locksmith company confirmed by phone that Daniel had ordered the lock change that morning and represented himself as acting for the owners. They were not happy when they realized they’d taken his word at face value. The photographer emailed her appointment confirmation before she’d even left the neighborhood. Joanna sent a draft cease-and-desist within the hour.
My mother hated every second of it.
She hated the officers, the lawyer, the notes, the email chains, the idea that a family fracture had become official enough to generate paperwork. She kept saying, “I never wanted this,” as if wanting had anything to do with the line Daniel had crossed.
By late afternoon Daniel and Claire were gone.