“Just paperwork.”
“What kind of paperwork?”
“Nothing you need to worry about tonight.”
I reached across the table.
Brooke snatched the folder away.
David stood.
“Mom, enough.”
And suddenly, everything made sense.
The dog bowl.
The recording.
The humiliating remarks.
They were trying to provoke me.
If I screamed, cried, threw something, or lost control, Brooke would have footage showing an elderly woman behaving irrationally.
Footage she could present as evidence that I was no longer capable of making decisions for myself.
They weren’t simply humiliating me.
They were trying to take my home.
I looked at Brooke’s phone.
It was still recording.
Then I did something neither of them expected.
I smiled.
“Keep filming, sweetheart.”
Brooke blinked.
“What?”
“Make sure you get everything.”
I pushed the dog bowl away.
Then I stood.
“You’ve made one very serious mistake.”
David folded his arms.
“Oh, really?”
I reached into my handbag and removed a small blue envelope.
