The tax bill for the house arrived at my mailbox on a Tuesday. It was addressed to my brother, David, though the county had somehow used my old forwarding address from when I lived in town before moving out to the farm.

I figured it was just a simple mistake at the clerk’s office. I mean, we had always talked about how the house would be split between us once Mama passed.

That was the agreement we made way back in 1998. It was a simple handshake deal. We were supposed to share everything fifty-fifty.

I opened the envelope because I thought maybe there was a clerical error that I needed to fix for him. I didn’t want him getting hit with a late fee or anything. I looked at the owner line at the top of the form. It didn’t say both our names.

It just said David.

My heart didn’t stop or shatter or any of that dramatic stuff. It just kind of went quiet. I felt a cold, dull weight settle right in the middle of my chest. I sat down at my kitchen table and just stared at that paper for a long time.

I went online to the county website. I pulled the deed history for the old homestead. There it was in black and white. A quitclaim transfer had been filed back in 2021. The house had been moved into his name alone.

Mama’s signature was on that transfer.

I had to put the phone down then. My hands were shaking too hard to keep looking at the screen. I kept thinking about 2021. That was the year Mama’s mind finally slipped away from us for good. She was in Shady Oaks by then.

I visited her every single Sunday. I remember how she’d look at me sometimes and not have any idea who I was.

She couldn’t feed herself anymore. She couldn’t even hold a pen to sign a birthday card for her grandkids.

I have every single medical record from that year. They are all stacked in a binder in my guest room. The doctors wrote down that she was in a state of advanced decline. There is no way on this earth she was signing any legal documents.

I called my attorney, Sarah, that afternoon. She’s handled our family stuff for years. She pulled the filing while I was on the line.

She went quiet for a minute. Then she let out a long breath.

“The notarization is problematic,” she said.

“What does that mean,” I asked her. My voice sounded thin to my own ears.

“It means the notary claims she was there in person,” Sarah said.

I knew then what had happened. David had used his power of attorney. He’d probably walked into a bank or a lawyer’s office with that paper and acted like he was doing it for her benefit. He acted like he was protecting her.