Chapter 9: Power of Attorney

Gulf Coast Fiduciary was on the fourteenth floor of a glass tower downtown, and the lobby smelled like money and lemon polish.

I wore the only good blouse I owned, with a bakery stain on the cuff I had scrubbed at in the elevator.

Camila slept in the sling against my chest.

Emiliano walked beside me with his folder and said nothing, and I was grateful.

The woman at the front desk smiled at me until I gave her my name.

Then she stopped smiling and picked up a phone.

"One moment, Mrs. Aldama."

A man in a grey vest came out of a glass office.

He was the branch manager, and he did not offer his hand.

"Mrs. Aldama," he said. "We were told you might come."

"By whom?" Emiliano asked.

The manager looked at him, then at me, and chose to answer me.

"The trust you're asking about is managed under a power of attorney. The account's authorized representative is your mother-in-law."

"I didn't give anyone a power of attorney," I said.

"You signed it, ma'am. Thirty-one months ago."

He opened a folder and turned it toward me.

I saw my own signature at the bottom of a page of dense type.

It was my handwriting, from a day I remembered.

Soledad had brought a stack of papers to the bridal suite the morning of the wedding.

She had called them household forms, for the marriage license and the insurance.

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