I’m the only one who looks after my seventy-nine-year-old mother, Joyce. After a bad fall I placed her in a nursing home so she would be safe while I worked. I never abandoned her. Every weekend I brought fresh muffins, painted her nails, and filled her room with photos. Last Saturday I walked in with banana bread and a cardigan only to be told she was no longer there. A woman named Kinsey had discharged her using paperwork that claimed I had authorized it.

The signature next to my name was forged. Someone had even spoofed my phone number to confirm the release. Kinsey is my cousin, someone I had not spoken to in years and who had always lived by schemes. I called the police, searched her last known contacts, and finally found them at a run-down Budget Inn. My mother sat in her robe, dazed and dehydrated. Kinsey claimed she had only been “helping” because Mom was miserable. Mom whispered that she had simply said she missed sunlight.