Once we were back on the highway, she opened her purse and handed me a folded bank statement. Three withdrawals had been circled in red. Twelve thousand dollars. Eighteen thousand. Twenty-five thousand.
All taken within six weeks.
“Your father has power of attorney,” she explained. “Temporary. I signed it after my knee surgery because I trusted him.”
My stomach tightened.
“He told me I was starting to become forgetful. He said I needed help handling the bills.” She stared out the window. “Then yesterday, I found this.”
“Did you confront him?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“He said the money was being used to pay for my care.”
I glanced toward the lone suitcase sitting in the back seat.
Grandma let out a humorless laugh. “At lunch today, your mother told me we were stopping somewhere that had a lovely garden. They walked me into that facility, finished none of the paperwork, and vanished.”
My parents said to Grandma that they were taking her out to lunch. Three hours later, a nursing facility called me. Her suitcase was sitting in their lobby, and my parents were nowhere to be found.
