The Farm They Nearly Signed Away
The confrontation
I did not ambush them. I want to be clear about that too. I am not built for ambushes and Earl asked me not to make a war of it. “They’re still my children,” he said. “I don’t want them ruined. I just want them stopped.” That sentence has stayed with me. A better heart than mine, in that vinyl chair.
So Marge sent a letter. A plain, cold, professional letter, on her letterhead, to Dale and to Sharon, stating that she represented Earl Merrick, that Mr. Merrick had undergone a full cognitive evaluation by his physician of thirty years, that the evaluation found no basis for any determination of incapacity, that Mr. Merrick had not executed and would not be executing the durable power of attorney presented to him, that he was revoking any prior authority and directing that the real estate listing agreement bearing his property be withdrawn immediately, and that any attempt to encumber or convey his property would be met with the full record, which was extensive, and which she enclosed a summary of.
She enclosed a summary of the ledger.
Dale called me the day the letter landed. First time my ex-husband had called me on purpose in eleven years. He did not say hello.
“What do you think you’re doing, Diane. This is not your family anymore.”
And I found I was very calm. “Your father put me back in the family himself, Dale. Eleven years ago. In my kitchen. With a casserole. You want to argue about who’s in this family, you take it up with him. He’s at Prairie Rose. Room 114. He’s been there six months. When did you last sit with him longer than it takes to get a signature?”
He was quiet.
“I’m going to tell you the only thing that matters,” I said. “He’s fine, Dale. His mind is fine. Doc Pruitt says so on paper and Doc Pruitt would say so in a courtroom. There is no confused old man here. There is just your father, who knows exactly what you tried to do, and who is asking me, right now, not to let it ruin you. That’s the mercy you’re getting, and it’s his, not mine. If it were mine you’d have gotten a different letter.”