She can barely hold a pen right now. I watched her try to sign a birthday card for my cousin last month. It took her three tries and she apologized about it afterward and that was genuinely one of the harder things I’ve watched happen in recent years.

The idea that she walked into an insurance office three weeks ago and competently signed a legal document and answered security questions is not something I can make fit in my brain no matter how I try.

I called a lawyer that same evening. I’d actually gotten a referral from a friend who’d dealt with a financial elder abuse situation with her own father, so I had a name ready, which I guess is lucky even though nothing about this feels lucky. The lawyer, his name is Mark, he was very straightforward with me. He said the 30-day contestation window had already started from the date the policy change was processed. I had 22 days left when we spoke. He said if I wanted to challenge the validity of the signature and argue incapacity, I needed to move fast. He said I also needed to understand something before I decided how hard to push.

Gerald’s wife, her name is Pamela, she’s worked at that insurance company for eleven years. Mark asked me which branch processed the change. I told him. He was quiet for a second. Then he asked me if I knew who the supervising agent at that branch was. I said I didn’t. He said, “you might want to find out before we file anything.”

I found out the next day. The supervising agent who signed off on the policy change, the person whose authorization made it official, is Pamela’s direct supervisor. Who is also, and I have to just say this plainly because there’s no elegant way to put it, my cousin.

My mom’s sister’s son. He’s been at that company almost as long as Pamela has. I don’t know if they planned it together or if Pamela just knew who to put the paperwork in front of and he just approved it without looking too hard. I don’t know which version is worse.

I haven’t talked to Gerald yet. I know I have to. Mark says there’s a point in this process where I’m going to have to, or at least where his people are going to have to. But right now I’m still in this strange place where I keep thinking about that birthday dinner three weeks ago. The cheap grocery store flowers. The long hug. How he called her Mom and she called him Dad and we all just kept eating. I keep trying to figure out if he felt anything during that dinner, or if he’d already done it by then and just sat there with us anyway.