Exit Strategies

by Catherine Todd

  “I don’t think so,” I told him. “It wouldn’t be appropriate.” Boy, did I enjoy saying that.

  “You’re angry, aren’t you?”

  No duh, as Allie used to say at a particularly inarticulate juncture of her life. “Look, Taylor,” I said, with what I hoped was professional hauteur, “you are my employer. That places certain constraints on whatever emotions I might feel in my dealings with you.”

  It was a perfectly judicious reminder, and he knew it. “You are angry.” He sighed. “You’re overreacting.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?”

  Like what? Jump off the Coronado Bridge? Run naked down Prospect?

  “Becky?”

  Bring him up before the bar ethics committee for failing to disclose a monumental conflict of interest? Ah, I had it. Like quit, and take Bobbie Crystol with me. As if. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to let him think it possible.

  “I’m sorry, Taylor,” I said with exquisite politeness, “I really have to go. I have a client waiting.”

  “Eight o’clock tomorrow morning,” he said. “My office. Be there.”

  Dunewood, my mother’s new home, was used to dealing with the difficult transitions that lead to the end of life.

  “We’re so pleased to have you here, Mrs. Weston,” said Mrs. Fay, the residence administrator. We were sitting in the reception area, a pleasant tiled room full of potted plants and mock-Impressionist paintings. I was pleased to see that the administrator did not use my mother’s first name uninvited. “We all hope you’ll be very happy here,” she added.

  My mother’s expression said she found that an unlikely prospect, but Mrs. Fay was used to doubters. “Let me show you to your room. Your daughter has already approved it, and I think you’ll find it very attractive.”

  My mother’s arms folded over her chest. She set her face mulishly. She sat in her wheelchair, which the nursing home had provided for the trip between facilities, but in Dunewood she would have to make her own way around. “We provide a safety net,” Mrs. Fay had explained to me when I interviewed her (or she interviewed me) regarding my mother’s placement. “We try to give people the highest level of independence they can handle. But we aren’t set up to provide more than a certain level of care. Your mother will have to meet certain standards of mobility and autonomy in order to stay.”

  “And when she can’t?” I’d asked her.

  “We keep an eye on them,” she said, meeting my gaze. “When they need more help than we can provide, the next step is a skilled nursing facility.”

  I suppressed a shudder. “Like the one my mother’s in now.”

  “We can assist you in finding a facility your mother will like.”

  “I doubt that,” I said.

  She smiled. “You’d be surprised.”

  Although she herself had never been one for sentimental mementos, I had put framed family pictures around my mother’s room, Still, it was far from homey. I was struck by how few things she had, other than her clothes, and by how bare her life had been, living with me. I felt guilty. Maybe I had been too wrapped up in my own problems to realize she’d never made a life of her own after she’d come to my house.

  “Look, Mother, isn’t this nice?” I asked, using the same tone I’d employed taking Alicia to her first day of school. My hearty cheer hadn’t convinced my daughter either. She’d hung back and clung to my hand as if that tenacious grip would keep her from being swept away from me, into the future.

  “Very lovely,” said my mother without enthusiasm. She looked pointedly at a teddy bear that was sitting on the bed. “And where did that come from?”

  Mrs. Fay beamed. “It’s a gift from all of us here. We always like to welcome our new residents that way. I think you’ll find us a very friendly community. We care about each other, and we try to show it.”

  “Sweet,” said my mother.

  “Now I’m going to leave you to get settled, and after your daughter has left, I’ll come back to take you to the dining room and to introduce you to the activities director. Do you play cards?”

  “No,” Mother said.

  “Garden? Golf? Quilt?”

  “No.”

  “Well, never mind,” Mrs. Fay said gamely. “I guarantee we’ll find something you like to do.”

  When the door had closed behind her, my mother looked at me with bleak despair. Her misery was the worst kind of rebuke.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her.

  “Take me home,” she said.

  “I can’t, you know that.”

  She looked at me. “Take me home, and I promise I’ll die within two weeks. Three weeks at the outside.”

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Oh, Mother,” I said, despairing. I didn’t have the strength to fight her; I was no match for all her needs.

  “How can you just walk away from here and leave me like this?” she demanded.

  I sat down on the bed and took her hand. “I’ll do what I can to make things better for you, but this isn’t something I can control. This situation can’t be cured, it can only be managed.” As I said that, I felt the kind of relief you feel when you realize that you have somehow stumbled onto the truth. I’d been trying too hard to control a lot of things that couldn’t be controlled. Sometimes you just had to adapt.

  “Don’t you care if I’m happy or not? I won’t be, I can tell.”

  “Of course I care. I love you. I want you to be happy and dignified and proud of the life you’ve made. But I can’t make that happen for you. Only you can do that.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” she said. “You don’t have to stay here.” She sighed. “Do you know that your father made coffee for me every single morning of our married life? He brought it to me in bed.”

  I smiled. “I remember that,” I said.

  “He always took good care of me,” she said.

  “I miss him too, Mom,” I told her.

  “Now I have to do this all alone.” She looked sadly at the stuffed animal on her bed. “I hate being old.”

  “I know,” I told her helplessly. “I understand.”

  “No, you don’t,” she said. “But you will.”

  Mark Lawrence called me almost the instant I walked through the door of my house. “How did it go?” he asked.

  “Okay,” I said. “I feel like I just dropped someone off at camp. Everything’s cheery and upbeat, and the adults keep talking about all the fun activities. But underneath, you know the campers are homesick.” I stopped. “How did you know?”

  “You told me, remember? After you finalized the arrangements.”

  “Oh. Yes. Of course.” I’d almost forgotten that he was the one who’d recommended Dunewood in the first place. “I’m sorry. It’s not that it isn’t a very nice place. I’m sure it is. It’s just hard to leave her there when she’s so determined not to be happy.”

  “Ah,” he said.

  “You sound like a therapist,” I told him.

  “Why is that?” He didn’t sound flattered.

  “Because you listen and don’t talk. Most people jump in with advice or anecdotes when you tell them something personal.”

  He laughed, but then I heard a change in his voice, a kind of withdrawal, a distancing. “Do you want me to sound like a therapist?”

  I knew what he meant. He meant, did I want to start seeing him professionally again?

  I considered. “No,” I told him finally. “Definitely not.”

  “Good, because then I can tell you all about what happened when my great-aunt died in her own house in the small town where she’d grown up and lived all her life.”

  “Anecdotes,” I said.

  “Anecdotes,” he agreed.

  “Okay, I’m game. What happened?”

  “The caregiver my family had hired forged a check for twenty-five thousand dollars on my aunt’s account and ran off with a boyfriend. The townspeople came in after my aun
t was dead and stripped the house of valuables, right down to the wedding ring off of her finger. Do you remember the scene like that in Zorba the Greek?”

  “Jesus,” I said.

  “The point is, there are no perfect solutions. Your mother will be well cared for at Dunewood. That may be the best you can do.”

  I let out a relieved breath. “Actually, I’d sort of come to that conclusion myself. It’s very frustrating that I can’t make her happy. But I can’t change the way things are. Even if I gave up everything—my whole life—to take care of her, to be with her every day, I still couldn’t change the facts. Even that might not be enough.” I was breathing harder, suddenly serious and urgent. “The truth is, I don’t want to give up everything to take care of her, even if they’d let me. Do you think that’s really, really selfish?”

  “Becky—”

  “No, don’t answer that,” I said. “It’s not a fair question. You’re not my therapist anymore.” I laughed. “Not that you would have answered it anyway. I have to let go of this myself.”

  He said nothing.

  “I want to age like Georgia O’Keeffe,” I told him. “I don’t want to end up frightened and unhappy.”

  “You want to end up with some handsome, much younger man who’ll take care of all your needs?” he asked. I could hear his smile through the phone.

  “It sounds heartless, doesn’t it?” I asked.

  “You’re not heartless,” he said kindly.

  “There is one thing I wanted to ask,” I said, after a moment. “Not about my mother.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You remember the other night?”

  He laughed.

  “Dumb question,” I told him. “Of course you do. By the way, thank you again for taking me home. And for lending me your coat. I hope it didn’t ruin your evening.” It might not have ruined his, but it certainly didn’t thrill Dr. Oblomova, who had obviously entertained more interesting hopes.

  “No problem,” he said. “I’m just sorry I didn’t come equipped with safety pins. Did Lyman go back to Texas?”

  “I guess so,” I told him. “He sent me an E-mail this morning. He’s already heard from the hotel’s attorney, the charity, and the waiter. Apparently the waiter didn’t know the nuts were in the mousse either. Nobody told him. He felt terrible.”

  “I hope nobody’s suing,” Mark said. “Or is that a terrible thing to say to a lawyer?”

  “Oh, Mark, not you too! Give me a break.”

  He laughed. “You wouldn’t care to make any bets about it, would you?”

  “Actually, no,” I confessed. “Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to ask you about.”

  “Chicken,” he said. “What’s up?”

  “Do you know Dorothy Beekman?”

  “Not very well,” he said.

  “Do you have any idea what’s wrong with her?”

  “Excuse me?”

  I sighed. “Sorry. I put that badly.” I explained what I’d heard about Dorothy Beekman and Bobbie Crystol from Mrs. Sefton.

  “Why do you want to know?” Mark asked me.

  I started to explain all over again, thinking I had not made myself clear.

  “Yes, but why?” he said, interrupting. “What would you do with this information if you found out something to the detriment of Dr. Crystol?”

  “I don’t know,” I told him. “I just want to know. It’s been sort of nagging at me since Mrs. Sefton brought it up.”

  He was silent. I was beginning to appreciate the eloquence of his silences, which were neither critical nor demanding. Patient is probably the closest word to describe them.

  “I’m not sure why,” I added truthfully.

  “And I’m not sure I can help you. You know that if I’d learned anything about her medical condition through the hospital, it wouldn’t be ethical to tell you. But the truth is, I don’t know anything. I thought she looked unwell and rather tired, but that’s as much a social opinion as a medical one.”

  “Well, let me ask you this. Do you think it could be possible for someone to get sick from anti-aging treatments? Just generally, I mean?”

  “Becky, it’s possible to get sick from Tylenol or aspirin. Anything you put in your body can do you harm. Look at poor Lyman. One reason the medical establishment worries about alternative remedies is that these things haven’t been through rigorous FDA testing because they aren’t officially classified as drugs. People have no idea what the effects will be over the long term. There are all kinds of dangerous substances masquerading as cures. So sure, it’s possible. It depends on what you mean by treatments.”

  “Maybe I should talk to her,” I said.

  “Excuse me for saying so, but I seem to remember that the last time we had this conversation you were a little defensive about criticism of Dr. Crystol.”

  “Yes, and you told me to watch myself,” I replied. “Maybe that’s why when Mrs. Sefton started her little story an alarm bell went off.”

  “That wasn’t an alarm bell. Those were the sirens, coming for Lyman.”

  “I’m serious,” I said.

  “Hmm,” he said noncommittally. “Just don’t jump to conclusions. Even if Dorothy Beekman drank Crystol Potion Number Nine and fell swooning to the floor, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. After doesn’t equal because of in the scientific world. And anyway, patients are notoriously unreliable about cause and effect.”

  “Mark?”

  “Yes?”

  “If I do find out anything, could I run it by you?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Should I ask, why me?”

  “Because you’re a skeptic, but you’re a fair skeptic.”

  “Thanks, I think.”

  Also because he had seen, and kept seeing, all the very worst things about me and hadn’t blanched. But I wasn’t about to mention that. “Mark?”

  He laughed. “What?”

  “Do you think I should just forget about it?”

  “That depends,” he said, after a moment.

  “I hate that answer,” I told him.

  “Okay, try this one,” he said. “Remember Pandora?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  I surprised Taylor in his office at a quarter to eight, before he was ready for me. “I’m here,” I said, standing at the door.

  He’d been bending over one of his paper piles with his back turned. He jumped, although he tried to cover up the fact that he was startled by bustling around with some folders.

  So far, so good.

  He straightened a stack of papers on his desk deliberately. “Please sit down,” he said formally.

  “I think I’d rather stand if you don’t mind,” I told him.

  “Whatever you like,” he said, making me feel as if he was humoring some childish whim. Score one for Taylor.

  I moved a book off the client chair and sat.

  “I’m sorry you’re upset,” he said.

  I waited. I had to be careful until I knew all the facts. Until I decided what to do.

  “I probably should have told you as soon as I realized, but frankly, I didn’t see the point,” he said.

  Take big slow breaths, I told myself. Don’t be rash. “You didn’t see the point of explaining, when I came to you for advice about my children’s trust fund, that you were dating the trustee?”

  His face hardened. “My personal life is my own business,” he said.

  “You didn’t think there might be a conflict of interest in telling me to forget about trying to do anything about it?”

  “I know it might seem that way to you,” he said calmly, “but try to look at it from my point of view. You’re a lawyer; try to separate yourself from the emotion and look at the facts.”

  “Which are what?” I said deliberately, lawyerlike.

  “I have a duty to Carole, as well as to you.” I bet he did. “Not to reveal what I know about her business affairs,” he added. “Which, let me assure you, is not all that much.”

  “Fine
, but couldn’t you just have said, ‘I’m not able to advise you’ or something like that? Did you have to go out of your way to discourage me?”

  “Are you suggesting that I told you what I did because of some loyalty to Carole?” He seemed shocked at the very idea.

  “I’m suggesting that you had a legal and ethical duty to inform a client that you were not in a position to give an objective opinion,” I told him. “The bar ethics courses are very clear about this kind of situation.”

  He stared at me, taking in the implied threat. “And I, if you will remember, made it equally clear that you were not a client when I gave you advice.”

  I flushed with anger, remembering what I should have remembered already—his insistence that we were having an “informal chat” between colleagues. Finally I understood it. He’d been protecting himself even then.

  “Very good advice, I might add,” he continued. “Look, Becky. I did you a favor. I gave you my opinion about what you should do. Check with any trust and estates attorney; he’ll tell you the same thing I did. I could have avoided saying anything, just as you suggested, but I felt I owed it to you to be honest. The fact that I’ve been seeing Carole socially doesn’t—didn’t—affect my opinion at all.” He folded his hands on the desk in front of him. “I can imagine that you see this as some big conspiracy against you on the part of Carole and myself, but I promise you that’s not the case. I didn’t even make the connection between Carole and you until I looked at the trust documents. It’s not as if you use your ex-husband’s name, and I didn’t realize…”

  I stared at him. The man had no scruples at all.

  “What about the investments?” I asked him.

  “The investments?”

  “The offshore investments. The ones that lost all that money for the trust.”

  “What about them?” Taylor had suddenly become uncharacteristically obtuse.

  “Did you have anything to do with them?” I demanded.

  He looked at me. “Of course not. I would have said something. Really, Becky, I’m scarcely involved in this at all. Also…”

  “Also?”

  He looked down at the desktop. “Naturally, I’m very reluctant to get involved in your business because I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I want you to know I’ve tried to intercede with Carole on your behalf.”