It was an absurd sentence, and because it was absurd I understood the message under it. He was trying, clumsily, to acknowledge what had happened without triggering Vanessa into immediate performance.
“You’re visiting,” I said, equally carefully.
Vanessa looked up from her wine. “Daniel, don’t start. We just got here.”
He did not reply.
Neither did I.
That became the rhythm.
Outwardly, I yielded space. Inwardly, I built a file.
Adrien moved fast. So did the people he trusted. Within a week, the forensic document examiner produced a preliminary opinion that the signature on the Del Mar property transfer deed was almost certainly not my father’s natural hand. There were tremor patterns inconsistent with age and medication, stroke sequences unlike his historical samples, and a hesitation on the D that suggested imitation rather than authorship. The home-equity line had been opened through digital verification routed to an email account my father rarely used and Vanessa had managed during his recovery. The retirement withdrawals were masked as “rebalancing movements” but funded donor accounts and luxury expenditures in neat alternating layers.