Chapter 5 - The Gathering Clouds
The peace of the cabin lasted exactly three weeks before the legal storm hit.
Helen and Jessica were not the type of women to accept defeat gracefully, especially when it meant a sudden, terrifying cutoff from their endless supply of cash. They hired a vicious, high-profile divorce attorney known in the city for dragging out proceedings until the opposition capitulated out of sheer exhaustion.
The first salvo came in the form of a thick manila envelope delivered to the cabin. I opened it while David was down by the water, helping Jacob skip stones.
It was a petition for an emergency conservatorship. Helen was claiming that David was suffering from early-onset dementia and paranoia. The petition alleged that I, the "estranged and manipulative daughter," was isolating him at the cabin, poisoning his mind against his wife and other daughter, and coercing him into changing his estate plans.
They were asking the court to freeze all his assets, nullify the trust he had set up for Jacob and me, and give Helen total medical and financial control over him.
My hands shook so badly I dropped the papers on the porch. If they won this, David would be trapped. They would lock him away in some facility, drain his accounts, and take the cabin. They would erase everything he had worked for.
I ran down to the water, clutching the petition. "Dad! Dad, look at this!"
David took the papers from my hand. I watched his eyes scan the legal jargon. I expected him to look afraid, or at least angry. Instead, a slow, grim smile spread across his face.
"Dementia," he mused, tapping the paper. "They’re claiming I lack the mental capacity to manage my own affairs."
"Dad, this is serious," I panicked. "They have a judge’s signature for a preliminary hearing next week. They want to freeze the bank accounts tomorrow!"
David handed the papers back to me and ruffled Jacob's hair as the boy successfully skipped a stone three times across the surface.
"Sarah," he said, turning to me with that same engineer's look. "Do you know what happens when you try to build a skyscraper on a swamp?"
I stared at him, bewildered. "It sinks?"
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"It sinks," he agreed. "Unless you drive steel pilings so deep into the bedrock that nothing can move them. Helen and Jessica think they are attacking an old man in a cabin. They don't realize I’ve been driving steel pilings into the bedrock for the last five years."
He pulled out his phone. "Let them try to freeze the accounts. There’s nothing in them to freeze."
