The other witness was Mom’s hairdresser of thirty years, and she called me the day the subpoena came. She said she remembered that afternoon exactly, because my sister had arrived late and Mom had made her wait in the hallway until the papers were signed. She told me my sister had complained about the will before she ever saw the second page.
The hairdresser said Mom had asked both witnesses to confirm that she understood what she was signing. My sister had been standing beside the table when Mom answered every question herself. She had even corrected the lawyer about one of the names in the will. The hairdresser remembered it because Mom laughed afterward and said, “I may be old, but I’m not confused.”
I brought her statement to my attorney. He asked whether my sister had ever claimed Mom lacked capacity in 2019. She hadn’t. Her entire argument was that she had been told the document was something else. But the attorney found something I hadn’t noticed: the notary’s log showed my sister had initialed the page after Mom signed it. There was no room for her new version of events.
The next morning my sister’s attorney called mine and asked for a copy of the original. My attorney sent it without commentary. Two hours later, my sister withdrew the challenge. She had been hoping nobody still had the witness records. I drove home with Mom’s box still on the passenger seat, and for the first time since the funeral, I opened it. Inside was a note dated 2019 in Mom’s handwriting: “If she ever says she didn’t know what she witnessed, show her this.”
