**Part 3 of 3**
I remained on the porch
until the light thinned.
My coffee was cold.
Inside, Nile’s photograph
stood on the mantel again.
I had returned it there
the same afternoon
I changed the locks.
Ruth waited while I went
to stand in front of it.
“He would be ashamed,” I whispered.
“Of Cullen?”
I touched the frame.
“Of what I almost allowed.”
Ruth was quiet
for a long moment.
“Loving your son
wasn’t a mistake, Elaine.”
“No.
But perhaps I stopped noticing
where love ended
and permission began.”
We ate toast in the kitchen
because neither of us
had remembered lunch.
At seven, Miles’s forwarded email arrived.
Ruth opened the attachment
on her laptop.
I saw my name
beneath a signature
that resembled mine.
Resembled.
Like a stranger wearing
a familiar coat.
The notary block carried
a seal and a date.
June eighteenth.
I had spent June eighteenth
at my sister’s house,
recovering from cataract surgery.
Ruth wrote that down.
Then another email arrived.
A second attachment.
A message from Miles:
He sent this when I asked
why you weren’t handling it yourself.
Ruth opened the file.
Her face changed.
“What is it?”
She did not answer immediately.
Then she turned the screen.
At the top of the page
were the words
DURABLE POWER OF ATTORNEY.
Below them was my name.
Below that, Cullen’s.
And beside a signature
I had never written,
someone had given my son
authority over nearly everything I owned.
