She rotated the laptop toward him.
The transfer form appeared on the screen beside the hospital admission record. The date of the supposed signature was clearly visible. So was the hospital’s documentation that Eleanor had been sedated following emergency surgery that morning.
Daniel glanced at the papers and then looked away.
“She signed it before she went to the hospital.”
“The document says otherwise,” Claire replied.
“It was an administrative error.”
“And the signature you copied from her insurance form?”
He froze.
Claire had found the email.
She opened it.
Daniel’s own words appeared on the screen, accompanied by the original attachment he had sent to his associate. The file properties showed when the document had been created, and the message contained a copy of Eleanor’s signature taken from an unrelated form.
His face changed.
“You went through my email?”
“It’s on the shared computer Mom gave you access to.”
“You don’t understand context.”
“Then give us some.”
He opened his mouth but produced nothing.
For the first time, Daniel seemed unable to assemble the confident explanation he had always used to end difficult conversations.
His mother stood beside Claire, trembling but upright.
“Did you forge my signature?” she asked.
He looked at her.
“Mom, I did what I had to do.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“You don’t know what was happening with the company.”
“Did you forge it?”
His eyes hardened.
“You were never going to agree.”
The room went silent.
Daniel seemed to hear his own words only after they had left his mouth. He looked at the table, at the laptop, at the envelopes that had kept the two women apart for more than a decade.
Then he tried to recover.
