At the gas station down the road, diesel on my hands and my heart pounding so hard it blurred my vision, I called the number on the contractor’s clipboard. The “lawyer” they’d hired sounded confident until I asked him to spell my name as it appeared on the power of attorney. He got it wrong. Twice. By the time I reached his office, my parents’ plan was unraveling in his manila folder: my forged signature, a backdated notary stamp, a transfer of title scheduled for Friday. He tried to stall. I took photos. I recorded everything. When I shut down the construction, his face went the color of printer paper. Back at the bungalow, my parents had staged the living room like a courtroom—one chair in the center, facing them, my brother and his pregnant wife flanking like a jury. They expected me to sit. Instead, I stayed standing, laid out the photos, the forged documents, the contractor’s statement, then slid the eviction notice across the table so slowly they had to watch every inch of it cross the wood between us. My mother’s hand flew to her chest. My father’s chair scraped back. Marcus opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. I told them they had thirty days to leav… Continues…