I flew home from London to surprise my mother on her 70th birthday and walked into a wedding reception in her backyard. The groom was my 26-year-old brother, who has Down syndrome.

PART 2

I folded the ticket and put it in my pocket.

“Hey, Petey,” I said. “How about a brothers’ night tonight? Just you and me. Pizza and the Braves replay at my hotel.”

His face lit up. Then he looked at Rhiannon.


PART 2 I folded the ticket and put it in my pocket. “Hey, Petey,” I said. “How about a brothers’…

“No,” she snapped. “He’s my husband. He stays with me.”

“Petey can decide for himself,” I said. “That’s what you told me, right? He’s an adult.”

She didn’t have an answer for that in front of forty guests.


Petey picked pizza. Of course he did.

At the hotel, while he watched baseball, I called my father’s estate attorney, Mr. Whitcomb. Then I called the police.

By eight the next morning, Mr. Whitcomb had an emergency hearing in probate court. A judge reviewed the guardianship order and signed a temporary order. Petey could not leave the state. Any document he’d signed without his guardians’ approval was frozen.

Two detectives went to my mother’s house with a warrant for Rhiannon’s purse.