Our neighbour forged my dead mother's signature to steal 1.5 metres of our land

The police didn't even get out of the car. They rolled down the window, asked if I was the woman from number 12, and when I said yes, they told me to stay off the neighbour's property. I said I was just looking at the tree—the big gum that's been there since I was a kid, the one with the scar from when my brother fell out of it. They said it didn't matter. Trespass was trespass. Graham stood on his porch, arms crossed, watching.

I went inside and poured tea I didn't drink. Mum's tea. The kettle's still in the same spot she kept it.

That was two weeks ago. Now there's a letter from VCAT. Graham has filed a claim for a boundary adjustment. He says Mum signed an agreement in 2019, giving him an extra 1.5 metres of our land. The one with the tree. The one with the veggie patch she planted after Dad died.

The letter is polite. Official. It says I have fourteen days to respond.

I call Teresa Nguyen, the VCAT registrar. She's brisk, efficient, clearly overworked. "Do you have a copy of the agreement?" she asks. I say no. She says I should request one from Mr Walsh. I do. Graham's wife drops it in my mailbox that evening. She doesn't meet my eyes.

When I open it, I almost laugh. The signature is Mum's, sort of—the loops are right, the slant is close—but the date stamp says "Shop 4, 42-44 Smith Street." That shop closed in 2018. I know because Mum and I used to buy birthday cards there. And the date? 12 December 2019. Mum was in palliative care by then. She couldn't hold a pen. She couldn't hold my hand.

I take the document to Teresa. She looks at it for a long time. "I'm ordering a handwriting expert report," she says. "And I'm giving Mr Walsh an ultimatum—produce the original or withdraw."

Graham doesn't withdraw. He shows up to the hearing with the original, which looks even worse in person—the paper is too white, the ink too fresh. The expert takes one look and says it's a forgery. "The signature was traced," she says. "See how the pen lifts here? That's not natural."

Graham's face goes red. He says he must have been mistaken. He withdraws the claim. The tribunal orders him to pay my costs—about three thousand dollars.

I walk out of the building and into the car park. Graham is there, loading his car. He doesn't look at me. I don't say anything. There's nothing to say.

That night, I sit in Mum's veggie patch. The tomatoes are coming up. I water them. I think about the tree, the one with the scar. About how Graham wanted to cut it down, how Mum said no. About how she always knew what was hers.

The street is quiet. Our street. The one where Graham's wife won't meet my eyes, where the other neighbours pretend not to notice. The one where I'll stay, because this is my home. Because Mum's signature—even a forgery of it—can't change that.

I pick a tomato. It's still green. I'll leave it on the sill to ripen. Mum always said patience was the hard part.