Exit Strategies

by Catherine Todd

  She smiled broadly, by which I knew she found me as irritating as I did her. “So…no exercise?”

  “Not much,” I admitted.

  “Friends?”

  “Not many,” I conceded.

  “Hobbies?

  This was definitely not going well. “None I can think of,” I said.

  She sighed and sat back in her chair.

  “Rebecca—may I call you Rebecca?” she said, consulting the papers on her desk. “Don’t you think it would be better for your mother to spend some time with people her own age?”

  I sighed. “She says she doesn’t like old people.” I knew how that would sound, but it was perfectly true.

  “Sometimes people say that as a defense because they’re lonely and they don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings,” she suggested.

  I refrained from remarking that that had scarcely been my mother’s modus operandi. It was pointless. What I did say was, “I agree with you that it would be good for her to be more socially involved. In fact, I’ve tried to interest her in women’s groups, the church, the senior center, anything. She always resists me.”

  “And you haven’t forced the issue?”

  “I can’t make my mother do anything she doesn’t want to do,” I said with transparent annoyance.

  “Ah.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that “Ah.” I waited.

  She shuffled the papers on her desk. “Well, under the circumstances, I think it’s best that we make alternative arrangements for your mother.”

  “Define alternative arrangements,” I said.

  “Well, ahem, for a few days I think she should be admitted to a nursing home, probably at the subacute level. Just so you know, Medicare will take care of that. After that…”

  “After that?” I was doing the parrot trick again. I couldn’t seem to help myself.

  “After that, I’m going to recommend that she go into some kind of residential facility where she can live independently but still have her needs provided for.” She handed me a manila envelope stuffed with papers, obviously pre-prepared. “Here are some brochures and a list of assisted living facilities in this area. You might also wish to speak with one of our financial consultants, who can help you come up with a strategy for meeting the payments.” She shook her head sadly. “I’m afraid Medicare doesn’t cover this kind of care.”

  “Assisted living?” I asked. My mouth felt very dry.

  She frowned, as if I were a little slow. “Yes, I’m sure you’re familiar with that kind of facility. The residents have their own rooms or apartments, or they might even share. There is a common dining room and all meals are provided. Also, laundry service and cleaning. And there are lots of activities. Bingo, exercise groups, Spanish classes, macramé, all sorts of things. I think it will be just the thing for your mother,” she added brightly.

  Bingo? “I doubt if I’ll ever get her to agree to it,” I said. Even if I could afford it. “I’m afraid she’ll insist on coming home.”

  She leaned forward again and patted my hand. “Rebecca, she may not have that option.”

  I jerked it away. “What do you mean, she may not have that option?”

  She said, very softly, “I thought you understood. I can’t recommend that she return to your home under the existing circumstances, at least for the foreseeable future. If she gets stronger, we can reevaluate her then, but I have to tell you, I don’t think that will happen. You need to make alternative arrangements, as I told you. You could arrange for someone to stay with her while you’re working, but I must warn you, that can be very expensive. And it would keep her isolated and bored. I’m sure you can see the advantages of assisted living.” She gave me a toothy smile. “This will all work out for the best, I’m sure you can see that.”

  “You can do that? You can impose conditions on somebody because you think you know what’s best for them?”

  She looked at me sympathetically. “Not personally, no,” she said. “But Protective Services can, if they feel your mother is in danger. That’s a long and unpleasant process. I’m sure we don’t want it to come to that, do we?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Taylor was gracious about my need to take a few days off. “It must be difficult for you,” he murmured sympathetically. “I’ll get Miss—er, Melissa—to cover for you here. Don’t worry about a thing.”

  Ha, but I appreciated the sentiment. Sort of.

  Isabel left a message on my voice mail. “Call me,” she said. “Let me help.”

  My mother said, turning her face away from me so I could scarcely hear her, “I just want you to know one thing. No matter what happens, I’m not ever going to be happy again.”

  The nursing home in which my mother found herself recuperating was a surefire antidote to life-extension wannabes more interested in longevity than quality of life. It smelled; of what, specifically, I’m sure it isn’t necessary to say. A buzzer rang in the nurses’ station every time a patient pressed the call button, and continued to sound until it was answered. It rang incessantly, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, at intervals approximately thirty seconds apart. After ten minutes, I was ready to strangle anyone I could get my hands on. Fortunately, or unfortunately, there was no one there.

  “Please,” said the woman in the bed next to my mother’s, who was incontinent following a stroke. “Please. I need changing. Please.”

  “I’ll try to find someone,” I told her when no one answered the bell after she’d pushed it for the third or fourth time.

  I stepped out into the hall. A woman in a wheelchair with unkempt hair and vacant eyes grabbed my hand. “Please help me to get up,” she said.

  “I can’t,” I said. “I don’t know if it’s allowed.”

  “I want to go home,” she said.

  I let go of her hand and patted her shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “So sorry.” I clutched at a passing person who might have been a nurse. “Please,” I said, “there’s a person who needs changing in room three-oh-three.”

  He hesitated. “I’m just going on my break. I’m sure someone will be there in a few minutes.”

  “But I can’t find anyone. How do I get someone to come?”

  He looked at the big clock on the wall. “Shift change,” he said.

  “Shift change?”

  “Sure. You know: the old shift goes out, the new one comes in. Someone will take care of it as soon as the new shift’s signed in. You know how it is.”

  “How long will that be?” I asked, as desperately as if I needed changing myself.

  “A few minutes. Ten or fifteen at the outside. Gotta go, bye.”

  “Get me out of this hellhole,” said my mother when I reentered the room.

  When I got home, two envelopes were lying on the floor underneath the mail chute. I picked them up gingerly. I was feeling fragile and pessimistic. The house was very quiet. It was the first time I’d come home in a long time, daytime or evening, when the TV wasn’t on.

  I slit open the first one, which looked like a formal invitation, using the Victorian silver letter opener that had been a wedding present from an old friend. It seemed baroquely luxurious and superannuated in my reinvented life, and it required polishing, but I loved it. I read:

  DR. BOBBIE CRYSTOL AND CRYSTOL ENTERPRISES

  request the honor of your presence

  Opening Weekend

  Casa Alegría, Alegre, B.C.

  At the bottom she had written, “Please come for our opening weekend program! I think you’ll really enjoy it.”

  I set it aside for later. I could not deal with it just then.

  The other, more ominous envelope lay in my hand. I think I knew what was in it before I even opened it. It gave off bad vibes, as we used to say. It didn’t help matters that Carole’s return address was on the outside.

  They haven’t invented a word for the combination of anger and despair I felt when I read the enclosed letter, although if they had, the word would probably have been Germa
n. Carole was giving me notice of a reduction in the trust’s contribution to David’s tuition payments, effective the following school year. Rising costs…Diminishing principal in the trust…I collapsed into a chair, feeling the adrenaline pumping through my veins, preparing me for fight or flight. I wanted to do both. In my pumped-up state I might have been able to lift the couch with one hand, but what good was that going to do? Civilization had complicated everything. It was pointless to act on my instincts, which at that moment called for a combination of throttling the life out of Carole with my bare hands and packing my bags for some beach resort on Kauai. Both options had their drawbacks, so I was left to stew in my chair, wondering what to do.

  Think. I went to the drawer and pulled out the trust documents. Other than the annual accounting statement, I hadn’t had occasion to look at them in some time. The name of the accountant—Carole’s presumably—was on the envelope. I looked up the number and dialed.

  The trust accountant was unexpectedly helpful when I told her what I wanted.

  “You don’t want that,” she said. “A full accounting will spell out every transaction of the trust in detail. Every original holding, every change in investment, every collection of dividends and interest, every distribution to beneficiaries, every payment of expenses and fees.”

  “That’s it. That’s what I want,” I told her.

  “No, you don’t,” she insisted. “Are you thinking about trying to remove the trustee?”

  It had occurred to me. “I’m just looking for clarification,” I said.

  “Well, look,” she said calmly, “we handle many, many trust investment statements, and I can tell you that generally it’s the trustee who asks for the accounting when he or she has been challenged. It’s quite involved, really, so many issues can come up—are the investments appropriate, are the fees and expenses justified, that sort of thing. Lawyers”—she said the word with mild distaste—“have to have their say on each side of every issue, and then the court decides each and every point in dispute. Even if there are no complaints, the necessary presentation takes a very long time. And that, I can tell you, is very, very expensive.”

  “So am I stuck, then? I have to accept whatever the trustee tells me?”

  “Not at all. We stand by our accounting of our clients’ investments. If all you are looking for is an advance on the information that will appear on the beneficiaries’ next statement, we can provide that. We will have to charge a fee, of course.”

  Of course. She promised to call me back as soon as possible with the information. I felt a little calmer. It sounded like a reputable accounting firm, and if Carole was lying about bad investments diminishing the income of the trust, I thought they would tell me the truth.

  The phone rang almost as soon as I hung up, so I answered it. I was still hyperventilating, and my hello came out as a sort of gasp.

  “Becky?” inquired Isabel. “Is that you? Your voice sounds all funny.”

  “I’m hyperventilating,” I told her.

  “Oh. Did I interrupt something interesting?”

  Never answer the phone when your glandular system is in the driver’s seat. I started to laugh, and the laugh turned into something hysterical, a cackle that was halfway to a sob. The more I tried to stop it, the worse it got. “I thought I was calmer,” I said, gulping.

  “I’ll be right over,” said Isabel.

  Isabel arrived with a very large bottle of Sauvignon Blanc—what we often drank together, since she didn’t like Chardonnay.

  “Thanks,” I said simply, opening the door for her.

  “Storm over?”

  “For the moment. I’m too stressed out to make any predictions.”

  She nodded. “I’ll pour you a big glass. We’ll take it from there.”

  She did, and I did, and the whole story, or stories, came tumbling out.

  “So that’s it,” I concluded. “It’s been a seriously bad day. I’ve got to find my mother someplace to live before she goes crazy in that terrible place. I’ve got to find a way to pay for it after I’ve found it. I’ve got to find some way to come up with David’s tuition money next year if I can’t persuade Carole to change her mind—”

  “Ha,” she said.

  “Ha,” I agreed. “Or if the accountant doesn’t come up with something fast. Anyway, I’m not even sure where to start. I was seriously contemplating mayhem when you called. I haven’t gotten round to anything more productive than the phone call.”

  “Drink up,” she said, holding the bottle poised to refill my glass.

  I took a big swallow. “I shouldn’t have any more. I don’t want to be sloshed when Allie gets home.”

  “You’re not sloshed,” Isabel said firmly. “You’ve had one glass of wine. I don’t think Alicia will be shocked.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” I muttered, but I extended my glass.

  I sighed gustily. No matter what Isabel said, I wasn’t used to drinking in the afternoon, and I could feel emotion rising in me like a maudlin tide. “You should have seen that nursing home, Isabel,” I said. “I’ve got to get her out of there. You should have heard her. She said she wouldn’t be happy anywhere, no matter what.”

  “So you told me,” said Isabel with some asperity. “It seems to me that your mother isn’t helping matters much.”

  I looked at her with surprise. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d been there.”

  “I’ve seen nursing homes,” she said. “There are good ones and bad ones. Of course you don’t want to be there before you have to be. But we’re talking about something a lot better than that after she’s discharged. She could try to be more open-minded.”

  “She’s afraid,” I said.

  “Sure she is. Weren’t you afraid when you went off to college? This is just like going off to live in the dorm with a bunch of people you don’t know.”

  “A dorm without the sex and the drinking,” I observed.

  She laughed. “Not necessarily. Anyway, I’ve had a passing acquaintance with your mother all the time we’ve known each other. I hate to say this, Becky, but she keeps you tied up in knots with guilt.”

  “All mothers keep their kids tied up in knots with guilt,” I pointed out. “I do it myself.”

  She smiled ruefully. “True. Still, couldn’t she try to make a life for herself outside of you and the kids?”

  “That might be partly my fault,” I said. “I needed her to help me. I haven’t really focused on what she needed.”

  Isabel shook her head. “Not everything that happens is your fault. Or your responsibility either. Don’t be so goddamn fair all the time.” She waved her glass around, gesturing dramatically. “Anyway,” she said, “what were we talking about?”

  “Dorms,” I said.

  She nodded sagely. “Oh, yeah. Well, have you ever considered it might be really good for her to live someplace where she’ll be forced to have some kind of social life? Where there are classes and activities and things to stimulate her mind other than TV?”

  “You sound like the patient advocate,” I told her.

  “I’m your advocate,” she said mistily. “Somebody has to be.”

  “What if she stays in her room all the time and won’t come out?”

  “Then they’ll force-feed her peanut butter and jelly through a tube. Come on, Becky, they have staff psychologists at these places. There will be all kinds of people paying attention to her. She’s not going to starve or go catatonic or anything like that. Anyway, you don’t have a choice. She needs to try, and so do you. She’ll have to be brave.”

  “Bravery requires options,” I said.

  She shook her head. “I know there’s an answer to that, but I can’t think what it is,” she said.

  “Isabel, you are a perfect human being,” I told her sincerely.

  She studied me through narrowed eyes. “Maybe we are just a little bit sloshed,” she said. “Before it’s too late, we should tackle these problems one at a time. Have y
ou got a pad of paper? Pen?”

  I handed them to her. I could see that a military upbringing might have its advantages. Isabel could have reduced D-Day to a “to-do” list.

  “What shall we start with?” she asked.

  “Carole?”

  She shook her head. “Too nasty. Wait till the accountant calls back. Let’s pick something easier, like finding an assisted living residence for your mother.” She scribbled something at the top of the pad. “Okay, number one: leads?”

  I waved the sheaf of papers Nancy March had given me. “Here’s a list of all the places in the metropolitan area.”

  Isabel looked at it and frowned. “God, look at all of them. It shows you the wave of the future.” She sighed. “I suppose we could visit them one by one to check them out, but I think it would be a lot easier to network. Do you still have any doctor friends?”

  “That’s rich,” I said with a fruity chuckle.

  Isabel raised her eyebrows. “You sound like a P. G. Wodehouse character. Concentrate. Don’t you know anyone at the hospital who could recommend someplace?”

  I had a thought. “I could ask Mark,” I told her.

  “Mark?”

  “Dr. Lawrence. He was—”

  “Your shrink.” She smiled. “I remember.”

  “Why are you smiling?” I demanded.

  “Why are you blushing?”

  “I’m not,” I said, annoyed. Because I had been.

  “Becky, it’s no big deal. You used to talk about him all the time when you had therapy. It’s natural.”

  “Isabel, stop hinting at some big transference thing, okay?” I tried to scowl at her, but I’d sort of lost control of my face.

  “Okay,” she said, smiling again. “Anyway, why don’t you ask him to recommend a few places? When you have some names, I’ll check out their background. Then we can do some visiting.” She scribbled some notes on the pad. “What’s next?”

  “Paying for it,” I said soberly.

  She tapped her lip with the end of the pen. “Doesn’t your mother have any money?”

  “Well, she has Social Security. And my father left her about forty thousand dollars in life insurance. It’s invested in growth and income funds, so she’s made some money on that. But that’s it.”