Chapter 16: The Pen

The lawyer's office was on the third floor of a stone building on Court Street.

The waiting room had a fern and a bowl of mints.

Camilla had come ahead of us, and she sat in a navy coat with her hands in her lap.

"Moral support," she said, and squeezed my arm.

I let her.

Mitchell kept a hand on the small of my back all the way down the hall.

The lawyer was a gray man in a gray vest, and he laid a thick folder on the table and uncapped a fountain pen.

"Just initials at the flags, Mrs. Bannister," he said. "And a signature on the last page."

I opened the folder.

I read the first page, and the second, and I turned to the fourth.

Mitchell had said co-trustee.

The fourth page was a power of attorney.

It gave my husband the right to make every medical and financial decision for me if I were ever, in the document's words, unable to act.

"This isn't what you told me," I said.

"It's the standard package, sweetheart." Mitchell's voice was warm. "It's the same paper every married couple signs."

"Co-trustee, you said."

"And that's in there."

"Then I want my own lawyer to read the rest."

The lawyer cleared his throat and looked at his pen.

Mitchell's hand tightened on my shoulder.

"Mara," he said quietly. "We talked about this last night. You said you would sign."

"I said I was tired."

"Sign it."

I looked up into his face.

It was a kind face. It had been kind to me for six years, and he asked in his everyday voice.

"No," I said.

The room was quiet enough that I heard Camilla's chair creak.

"No," I said again. "Not today, and not until a lawyer I choose has read every page."

His thumb dug into the muscle above my collarbone.