“She can’t,” I said. “But she thinks she can do something.”
“Like what?”
Outside, a camp jay landed on the suet feeder near the porch railing. It cocked its head toward us, bold as a guest who had paid for the week.
“I don’t know yet.”
Cody left around four, after checking the water line to Cabin Three and pretending that was why he had stayed so long.
I drove into town and parked outside the office of Gordon Fairweather, the lawyer who had handled my father’s estate and most of my legal matters ever since. His office sat above a bakery, up a narrow staircase that smelled like old paper and cinnamon.
Gordon was in his early sixties, the kind of lawyer who still kept paper files and sharpened pencils with a hand crank mounted to the wall. He listened without interrupting. That is why I trusted him.
When I finished, he leaned back and steepedled his fingers.
“Your will still splits the lodge equally between Renata and Cody,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And she has not pressured you to change that in her favor?”
“Not directly.”
“Has she ever had you sign documents related to your affairs? Medical directives, estate updates, property management, anything of that nature?”
I thought about it then.
Two years earlier, I had spent two nights in a hospital in Duluth after a minor cardiac scare. Nothing dramatic in the end, but enough to frighten everyone for a few days.
Renata had come up from Minneapolis, organized my discharge papers, spoke with doctors, brought me soup I barely ate, and set several documents in front of me while I was tired, embarrassed, and grateful to have a daughter who seemed to know what needed doing.
“She had me sign some things after the hospital,” I said slowly. “She told me they were standard health directives.”
Gordon’s expression did not change, but something behind his eyes did.
“Do you have copies?”
“She handled the filing.”
“All right,” he said. “With your permission, I’m going to search property records and state filings for any planning documents connected to your name. If she registered authority over your property, we will find it.”
My mouth went dry. “You think she did?”
“I think we should not assume she didn’t.”
I drove home with the radio off.
There is a point in October when the nights come in fast, like a door closing. By the time I pulled into the lodge driveway, the sky was nearly black, and the cabins were just darker shapes against the pines.
I sat on the porch until I could no longer see the dock, only hear the lake pushing against it. My father used to sit there in silence when hard weather was coming, watching clouds gather over the water as if the lake might tell him what kind of storm it intended to be.
Gordon called at eight-thirty the next morning. I was on my first coffee.
“Warren,” he said, “Renata registered a durable power of attorney over your property fourteen months ago.”
I sat down. The kitchen chair scraped loudly against the pine floor.
“She what?”
“Your signature is on it. It would have been one of the documents signed after your hospital stay.”
“I thought those were medical papers.”
“I believe you.”
“What does it allow her to do?”