I practiced on a scrap piece of paper first.

My hand was steady now, the cold forgotten in the focus of the work.

I held the steel-nibbed pen at a forty-five-degree angle.

I drew the letters slowly, mimicking the flow of an old man’s hand.

An art restorer must be a chameleon.

I had spent years mimicking the brushstrokes of long-dead Dutch masters.

Mimicking a corporate lawyer’s handwriting was simple by comparison.

I wrote out the legal language of the amendment.

The clause was precise.

It stated that any heir who misrepresented their identity or entered into a marriage under false pretenses would forfeit all voting shares immediately to the co-trustee.

That co-trustee was Alexander.

I signed his grandfather’s name, Arthur Whitmore.

The ink flowed smoothly, leaving a slight feathering at the edges of the dry paper.

I needed to replicate the blue ink of the notary’s ballpoint pen from 1994.

Ballpoint ink from that era used a specific dye called copper phthalocyanine.

I had a small tube of vintage blue pigment in my bag, which I mixed with a drop of synthetic resin to mimic the sticky, oil-based paste of early pens.