My In-Laws Toasted Me at Dad's Seventy-Fifth Birthday and Handed Me the Care Schedule, So Dad's Tablet Read Out Every Email They Never Opened novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Welfare Check

A township officer arrives after Tressa's report, Gene answers him in his own flat voice, Tressa's forty-one unread emails come out on her phone, and her power of attorney turns out to be revoked; on the porch Rob lets slip that something closes December thirtieth.

The man on the porch was a township officer who looked about twelve.

He had a flashlight, a notepad, and the tired politeness of someone who had been called away from a sandwich.

"Evening, ma'am. We got a report that a seventy-five-year-old man with a disability was taken from a party tonight against his will."

I looked past him.

At the curb sat a silver minivan with its engine running, and I knew it was Tressa's before the passenger door opened.

Rob had followed us the whole way from the VFW with his hazards on.

"He's in the kitchen," I said. "He's having toast."

The officer followed me down the hall.

Gene sat at the yellow table with a plate in front of him and the tablet propped against the sugar bowl.

I had found half a loaf in the freezer, and the freezer turned out to be stocked.

I had not yet decided how I felt about that.

"Sir," the officer said. "I'm told you were removed from your birthday party. Are you here of your own free will?"

Gene chewed, swallowed, and tapped.

"I am seventy-five. I removed myself. Ask the lady who drove."

The officer's mouth twitched.

"Do you know where you are, sir?"

"In a house my children do not know I own."

"Do you want to be here?"

"Yes. Write it down."

He wrote it down.

By then Tressa was in the doorway behind us, with her cranberry blazer buttoned wrong.

Rob stood a step behind her.

"Officer, I'm his daughter. I hold his power of attorney."

She held up her phone with a photograph of a document on it.

"He had a stroke. He isn't capable of deciding where he lives. I make those decisions. He's coming home with me tonight."

The officer squinted at her screen.

"Ma'am, is that paperwork current?"

"Of course it's current."

Gene tapped, and the voice came out of the sugar bowl.

"Tressa. Open your email."

Tressa went pale.

"I am not going to do that in front of a stranger."

"You told seventy people you were in constant touch," the voice said.

The officer cleared his throat and looked at the ceiling.

Tressa opened her phone with her thumb.

I saw the screen from where I stood.

Her inbox was a long column of bold black type, and every line said Dad.

Forty-one of them.

The first was twenty-six months old.

"That's a lot of unread, ma'am," the officer said, to the ceiling.

"They go to a different folder," said Tressa. "I have a lot of folders."

"Revoked," said Gene's voice.

Tressa's head came up.

"What?"

Gene did not look at her. He looked at the officer and tapped, one finger, slow and clean.

"March third. Your power of attorney. Revoked. My lawyer has the original, and a letter from my doctor that says I know my own mind."

The kitchen was very quiet.

I could hear the new boiler ticking somewhere in the walls.

"You went to a lawyer," Tressa said.

"Behind everyone's back," the voice said. "Nobody was looking."

Rob made a sound, and I could not tell if it was a laugh or his lunch.

Tressa straightened her blazer, and I watched her put herself back together one button at a time.

"Fine," she said. "Fine. Then on Monday I'll tell a judge that my father doesn't know what he's signing."

"And we'll see who he's choosing to believe, Jenna."

She said my name.

"Ma'am," the officer said carefully, "if you're planning to say that to a judge, I'd say it to a lawyer first."

He closed his notepad.

"Mr. Wagner, I'm glad you're safe. Happy birthday."

Gene lifted two fingers off the table, which is as near as he gets to a salute.

I walked the officer to the porch, and Tressa and Rob came behind us.

On the top step Rob bent toward his sister and dropped his voice.

"Tressa. If he isn't at the farm, we can't do the walk-through, and the closing is December thirtieth."

Tressa's heel came down on his foot, very hard.

I had heard it anyway.

"Closing on what?" I said.

Neither of them answered me.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend