…living in a nursing home two hours away. Under the name Ruth Miller.”
The attorney, Mr. Hale, explained. My grandmother, Edith, had an identical twin, Ruth. In 1962, Ruth ran away from home after a fight with their father and never came back. The family assumed she’d died. Edith searched for years and never found her.
My aunt, Sharon, had found Ruth last year through a DNA website. Ruth was ninety-seven, living in a nursing home with advanced dementia. She had no family. She didn’t know who she was most days.
Sharon visited her once. Then she brought a camera.
In the video, Ruth was signing a document that Sharon claimed was a “new will” in which my grandmother had left everything to Sharon. With an identical face and a confused, smiling woman holding a pen, Sharon hoped to convince the court that my grandmother had changed her will before she died.
“She used a vulnerable, sick woman to commit fraud,” Mr. Hale said. “And she didn’t even tell anyone she’d found her.”
Mr. Hale filed a complaint with the court and reported Sharon to adult protective services. The court rejected the fake will. My grandmother’s original will, dividing everything equally among her grandchildren, was upheld. Sharon was charged with fraud and elder abuse.
Then I drove to the nursing home. Ruth was sitting by a window. When I walked in, she looked up and said, “Edie?” She thought I was her sister.
I held her hand and told her about Edith: her garden, her five children, how she’d never stopped looking for her. Ruth didn’t understand most of it. But she smiled the whole time. I visit her every Sunday now. All of my cousins do. She’s not alone anymore.
