That surprised me.
“She told me you needed support but said she would never agree to full financial guardianship.”
“Yet she sat beside you.”
“She wanted to hear exactly what I said under oath.”
That sounded like Vanessa too.
Daniel hesitated.
“I thought she was supporting me.”
“She let you think that?”
“She let me assume it.”
Despite myself, I smiled faintly.
Daniel noticed.
“So she’s still good at that.”
“The best.”
For a moment, we were brothers again.
Then the moment passed.
“Did you know the report submitted to court was missing a paragraph?” I asked.
“No.”
I believed him.
Not because I wanted to.
Because after sixty-two years, I knew how Daniel lied.
He overexplained.
This answer had contained nothing.
Rachel called the next morning.
The elder-care consulting firm had found the source of the missing paragraph.
It was not deliberate.
A case manager had created a two-page summary from a seven-page neurological report. When documents were later assembled for court, someone mistakenly labeled the summary “complete physician report.”
