Chapter 3 - "It Doesn't Belong to Her Anymore"Outside, I finally called my father. Grandma made no attempt to stop me. He answered on the second ring.
"Marcus, where is she?"
The question caught me completely off guard. "You left her at a nursing facility."
"That wasn't supposed to happen."
"Then what was supposed to happen, Dad?"
Silence. Then I heard my mother's voice faintly in the background. "Tell him she needs supervision."
Dad lowered his voice. "Your grandmother has been making questionable decisions. We were trying to place her somewhere safe."
"She passed a cognitive evaluation two months ago."
Another pause. I hadn't known about the evaluation. Grandma had.
He switched approaches. "You don't understand what's happening financially."
"I understand that eighty-three thousand dollars is unaccounted for."
He went silent for half a second. Grandma watched my expression and immediately understood.
"Marcus," Dad said, "do not bring her back to that house."
"Why?"
"Because it doesn't belong to her anymore."
Grandma reached toward the phone. I gave it to her.
"Warren," she said, "you signed my name without my permission."
"You signed documents," he answered immediately.
"I signed a temporary power of attorney after my surgery. I never signed away my home."
"You said you wanted to support the family."
"I said I would help when I could. I never gave you permission to take what belonged to me."
My mother took the phone. "Corinne, stop turning this into something bigger than it is. Warren was trying to protect the property. His business is struggling. We planned to repay everything."
"So you brought me to a nursing home?"
"You need additional care."
"No. You needed me somewhere I couldn't challenge what you were doing."
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Then my mother said something I knew I would never forget. "You're eighty-one years old. What exactly are you keeping that house for?"
Grandma ended the call.
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