The room around us continued with its ordinary restaurant noise, but our table had become so quiet I could hear a server setting glasses two tables away.
Andrew looked at his brother. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“Maybe. That’s why we’re asking questions instead of signing.”
I reached for the papers Andrew had placed in front of Judith but did not touch them.
“Judith, do you want to sign these tonight?”
She stared at the pen.
“No.”
That should have ended it.
Andrew tried anyway.
“Mom, this is exactly what we talked about. You’re letting people frighten you over routine paperwork.”
Her shoulders drew inward.
I recognized that too.
Not proof. Not a diagnosis. Just a familiar human reaction to being told that your discomfort was evidence you were incompetent.
“Then routine paperwork can wait until she has independent advice,” I said.
Andrew’s eyes snapped toward me. “You spend your life moving boxes for the Army. Stay in your lane.”
Sabrina gave a small nervous laugh.
Mark stood.
“No.”
Andrew blinked.
“No what?”
“No more jokes about Claire. No more telling Mom she doesn’t understand her own accounts. And no signatures tonight.”
Judith looked at Mark as if she had been waiting seven years to hear him say something like that.
Andrew gathered the papers.
Eleanor covered them with one hand.
“You brought them for Judith,” she said. “She can keep a copy.”
He pulled back.
For a moment, I thought he might cause a scene.
Instead, he smiled.
It was the coldest expression I had seen from him all night.
“Fine.”
