The date of my fall.
My son’s contact information.
My emergency preferences.
Most of it Daniel knew. Some of it Melissa could have found in the health folder I kept in a kitchen drawer for emergencies.
At the bottom sat the false signature.
I photographed every page.
Then I called the realtor Daniel had finally named before I left Rosewood.
Her name was Rebecca Sloan.
When I introduced myself, she went silent.
“Mrs. Parker,” she said carefully, “I was told your son had authorization to discuss the property.”
“What authorization?”
Another pause.
“A power of attorney.”
I sat down.
“I have never given my son power of attorney to sell my house.”
Rebecca did not argue.
She asked for my email address and sent me the document she had received two days earlier.
My name appeared at the top.
Daniel’s name appeared beneath it as agent.
The document claimed to authorize him to manage and sell real property on my behalf.
At the bottom was another version of my signature.
Better than the one on the Rosewood application.
Still not mine.
For several seconds, I could hear nothing but the hum of the refrigerator.
“Did you list my house?” I asked.
“No. We were waiting for title review and confirmation of authority.”
“Did you go inside?”
“No. Your daughter-in-law sent photographs and requested a pricing appointment, but we had not entered the property.”
I closed my eyes.
“Please do not do anything else.”
“Absolutely not.”
Rebecca sounded shaken. “I’m sending this to my broker and compliance office now.”
The document did not solve the mystery.
It widened it.
I called an attorney I had used years earlier for estate planning. He asked me to send the supposed power of attorney immediately.
Ten minutes later, he called back.
“It is not one I prepared,” he said.
“I know.”
“It is also missing formalities required for the authority it claims to give.”
Relief and rage arrived together.
“So they couldn’t have sold the house with this?”
“Not lawfully. But someone clearly intended another person to believe Daniel had authority.”
I looked again at the signature.
I had spent the morning defending my ability to make decisions.
Now I was looking at a document designed to remove the need for my decision entirely.
Daniel arrived at my door before dark.
I opened it but did not invite him inside.
He looked exhausted.
“Mom, I can explain.”
I held up my phone with the power-of-attorney document on the screen.
