by Bill Rowe
“That’s right,” muttered Mom sulkily. “Father, stepfather—big frigging deal.”
The nurse took Mom’s hand and went down on one knee in front of her to look up into her face, murmuring soothing words, calling her “Head Nurse” from years ago. Then she drew Dad and me aside and said that Mom had a tendency to get agitated more quickly these days. The doctor would be talking to us soon about increasing her medication.
Ten feet away, Mom was embracing Rosie and saying, “Oh, Rosie, I’m so glad I ran into you here. I’ve been meaning to tell you: That was the proper thing you did to that bastard, that perverted freak of bloody nature. And I’m profoundly sorry Joe and I…” She struggled and then said, angry and fast, “We never should have sent Tom over to—we—for God’s sake! You and Tom should still be…” She never completed the thought aloud, but with a triumphant look, as if she had achieved a great end at last, she stepped away again and strode resolutely, aimlessly, down the corridor.
Dad went over to Rosie. “Did I hear Gladys actually call you by name just then?”
Rosie was motionless, dazed. Her eyes were moist. It took her a second to answer. “I think so, Uncle Joe.”
“That is amazing. Meeting you again after so many years must have fanned a spark from long ago.”
We said goodbye to him, and on the way to the door Rosie murmured to me, “There seems to be a good few sparks still alive from long ago.” I said nothing and squeezed her arm.
As I punched in the numbers to open the door out of the secure area, a slim, petite old woman in a cocktail dress and brocaded flat shoes danced towards us, swirling, glissading, and curtsying, ending with a tiny, six-inch grand jeté. Smiling broadly, she introduced herself with her usual, “I’m a real party girl.” Then noticing my hand on the handle and the door partly open, she said, “Oh,” in a small voice, “you’re leaving.” Her tone changed immediately to a loud and harsh, “You’re not even inmates of this godforsaken place.”
I said, “We’ve got to go now, Gertie, but I’ll be back to party with you in a couple of days.” Appeased, Gertie took hold of the sides of her dress, spread it wide, and twisted coquettishly from side to side, before curtsying deep.
Outside in the car, Rose settled back with a big sigh, and I asked, “Harrowing enough for ya?”
“Uh huh,” said Rosie. “Did you hear what your mother said?”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t worry about that. No one would pay any attention to that. They know she has dementia.”
Rosie looked at me. “No, not about killing fathers and stepfathers. I mean about you and me—sending you over to England—you and I should still be together…”
“Oh yes. It’s not the first time I’ve heard the sentiment.”
“Jesus,” breathed Rosie.
Those were our last words till I was pulling the car into my driveway. Then Rosie said, “You must wonder sometimes why you go at all. She doesn’t even know you’re there. How often do you visit, twice a week?”
“About. I used to drop in every day when she still knew me. Don’t tell anyone this or I might lose my reputation as an old softie. But the only reason I go these days is so the staff will always be aware that there is someone who is jealously watching out for her.”
“But your father is there every day.”
“Oh, right.”
“You are an old softie.” She punched me in the arm.
“I know, and if it was your mother, even after everything that happened, you’d be going down there every single day.”
Rosie didn’t answer immediately. She breathed in deeply and I expected another big sigh, but none came. Instead, she said with a chuckle, “Yeah, but you know me—the dutiful daughter, the little woman.”
I parked the car in my driveway and we walked into the house. “Can I get you something while we talk?”
“Have you got any white wine in the fridge? I noticed that the sun is over the yardarm, so I wouldn’t mind taking the edge off things a little.”
“Now your synapses are perkin’ good. How about some champagne in honour of the occasion? I just happen to have a Veuve Clicquot in the fridge left over from New Year’s Eve, when things didn’t go according to plan with my then dearly beloved.”
“You’ve had a bottle of champagne sitting there in the fridge for over six months? Honest to God, Tommy, we’ve got to get you a life.”
“This has not been a delightful year for me.”
With a pat on my hand, Rosie said, “Me neither. Maybe we can find some silver linings in those clouds.”
I brought out the extra-slender flutes for the champagne, a reliable panty-dropping combo in my more libidinous past. But today, of course, there was no thought of that. I just felt an urge to impress Rosie with how classy I was.
Having poured our champagne, I was sitting down opposite her in the living room when I saw that her glass was already empty. She had tossed the bubbly back like her morning orange juice. I’d better watch what I got involved in again with my darling Rosie. Perhaps there was an echo in her of her father’s and mother’s alcohol and substance abuse. “A little more?” I asked.
“What are you trying to do—get me to wrestle you to the floor and have my way with your pink little body or something?”
“No,” I said in a cracked falsetto, eyes innocently wide, as if she’d caught me in a nefarious plot.
“I’ll wait awhile, Tom. I downed that too quick. I don’t even know how to drink anymore. I don’t suppose I’ve had five drinks in the last ten years. But I liked the feel of that. I’m getting nice and relaxed.”
I, I, I… six, maybe seven I’s out of her in ten seconds. Well, if she was a self-obsessed narcissist, at least she wasn’t a falling-down drunk one. “That champers ought to do the trick,” I said. “The stuff goes straight from stomach to bloodstream.” Her left foot was on the floor and her right leg was resting on her left thigh. This afforded me a good view of four inches of the inside of her svelte right ankle between shoe and hem of jeans and the joinder of ankle with the instep and arch of her perfectly proportioned foot. Jesus Christ Almighty, that was one beautiful piece of architecture. “And it’s making me feel more like myself already,” I observed. “Well, your ladyship, what’s going on?”
“I’ll give you the bare bones and you jump in any time with questions.”
“Will do. Go.”
“Okay.” She smiled, drew a breath, and burst into tears. I had only seen Rosie cry like that a couple of times in my life, always under pretty ghastly circumstances. I stayed in my chair, taken aback for a moment before I could move. Then I got up and sat beside her on the sofa, passed her my handkerchief, and put my arm around her shoulders. She dabbed her eyes, now in control of herself again. “That was stupid,” she said. She blew her nose. “Sorry, Tom. Brent is dying with cancer.”
“Dying? My God. I mean, how bad is it, Rosie? Cancer can be treated and managed for years these days. He can get the very best treatment in the States, Sloan-Kettering or somewhere. Surely the old man will spring loose the money for—”
“It’s too fast-paced. It started in his liver and has metastasized. It’s in his pancreas and lungs and the radiologists now say it has reached his brain and heart. The cells in his liver, lungs, and pancreas are growing and spreading so fast the doctors estimate he has about three months.”
“He needs to get a second opinion on that, to see if treatment is really out of the question.”
“We got that, and a third. We were supposed to be here a month ago but delayed for that. We had to tell his father we ran into a little trouble clewing up our affairs.”
“So the old man doesn’t know.”
“No. Nobody knows except the doctors down there, and me, and now you. One of the reasons I delayed awhile before coming to see you was that we were waiting for the very last test results.”
“Any reason why you’re keeping it secret from everyone? Three months is not a long time. Why not tell the old man?”
/>
“Because of his father’s will. Here’s my husband dying and he’s worried about his frigging old father’s will. He calls it an unmitigated disaster.”
The likely problem was coming to me: “He’s afraid he’s going to die before the old man does?”
“That’s it exactly.”
“Have you seen the will?”
“Yes. We have a copy.”
I made an educated guess. “And it says Brent gets the bulk of his father’s money provided he survives the old guy, and if not, the money goes to the grandchildren.”
“That’s right. How did you know?”
“Standard clause in many wills. You personally are not in the will, I take it.”
“No.”
“Well, we’ll have to figure something out. Otherwise you’re out in the cold. How much money does the old man have, anyway? Do you know?”
“Over eighteen million dollars. Some of it still tied up in business, but most of it is in government bonds and guaranteed investment certificates. He wasn’t hurt at all by the recession or the collapse of the stock market like the rest of us.”
“Crafty old codger. You and Brent were hurt too? My registered retirement savings fund was nearly cut in half. I’ll still be practising law after I’ve moved in with Mom at the nursing home.”
Rosie laughed and shook her head. “Join the club. We feel your pain. And by the way, we’re aware of that negligence claim against you on account of your partner.”
“Well, as you will remember, Rosie, there are few secrets back here.” Knowing that my impending disaster was shortly ahead of me, why had they come to me for legal advice? Perhaps it wasn’t legal expertise they wanted after all. “Who else does he leave his money to in the will?”
“A million to his wife’s sister, and—”
“The one he was supposed to be, ah, servicing, long before his wife died.”
“That’s the vulgar rumour. The noble and exalted sentiment, as expressed in his last will and testament, is that it’s in memory of his beloved wife as represented by her loving sister. Take your pick. And then a million to each of his two grandsons and a million to their mother.”
“That’s four million, and all the rest and residue goes to your husband if he survives the testator? He’d get about thirteen million after expenses. That’s a lot of money to slip through anyone’s fingers. We’ll have to stop that from happening. How come you have a copy of the will?”
“It was part of Brent’s deal with him.”
“For you two to come down here and see to his needs and look out for him?”
“That was their big idea. They became reconciled more or less over the past ten years. The old man visited us two or three times a year until he was diagnosed. He would even invite us to come back here and visit him, but we never came—I didn’t want to—but he loved to come to New Mexico and drive around the Southwest and visit the grandsons.”
“Your stepsons. How are they? They must be in their twenties by now.”
“Twenty-four and twenty-three. The last time I saw them in person they were teenagers. That’s when they told me they wanted nothing else to do with me. I think their mother brought them up on fairy tales about evil stepmothers. Plus, of course, I was the slut who stole their daddy away from their darling mommy. You’d know how silly that notion is, Tom. Physically, they’re okay, I hear. Mentally? That’s a whole other story. Brent says they inherited the worst side of their grandfather without any of his brains or work ethic or money-making ability. They both dropped out of college in their freshman year and now seem to spend their time hobnobbing with some fringe criminal types in Las Vegas, living this lavish lifestyle hand-to-mouth—the big cars, fancy girls—from God knows what source, plus what they can cadge from Gramps. Two big lugs, basically. Or thugs, more likely. Brent says he wouldn’t be surprised if they break legs, or worse, for the mafia.”
“Good God. I wonder how much they’ll like it when they find out after Gramps dies that we somehow screwed them out of the extra six or seven million each of them should have gotten? Does he still send them money from here?”
“Some. But I’m told it’s not the same as when they’re in his presence and can turn on the devoted grandson charm. I’m expecting them to land on his doorstep here any day now. I know he has invited them. Brent thought it was a healthy sign last week when his father complained that they were never satisfied, and called them ungrateful young buggers. But then he backed off and said we had to remember that they’re the last of his family to bear his name and his last hope for posterity. That was the only important thing to the old fu—”
Rosie stood abruptly, took two steps to the ice bucket, and grabbed the bottle of champagne. “I need some more of this.” She poured too much into her flute, causing the foam to overflow and run down her hand and arm. “Pephyka,” she said, smiling at me.
“What?”
“A little classical Greek. You don’t want to know.”
“Yes I do. What does it mean?”
“‘Fucked.’ It’s what happens when a mere girl tries to do men’s work.” She flicked some of the champagne off her hand and picked up my hanky from the coffee table and sat back down again to wipe.
I said, “I don’t think it’s gender-specific. Because I think I know now what the Greek gods and furies have been doing to me all these years.”
She laughed. “And they’re really good at it.”
“Yeah. Back to the current peph… whatever. Do the boys know how much money Gramps really has in the vault?”
“No, I’m certain they don’t. He has always kept his money matters close to his chest. Brent had no real idea himself until his father was diagnosed and decided to stay back here for good, and wanted us to come. It was only then that he told his own son. The boys probably think he’s got a million or two that they’ll get a piece of—not bad, in their minds, but nothing to jump up and down about.”
“What’s Gramps doing holed up back here anyway? If he wants a lung transplant, he should be ensconced close to the action, in a big city, ready to move when the call comes. With his money, he could be in the middle of the continent with a private jet on standby, revved up and ready to take off in any direction when a lung becomes available somewhere.”
“He talked about that with the medicos. But they told him there’s no enthusiasm in the medical community to give an old man a lung that might save a child. And after he found out the condition was so progressive and relentless and was going to kill him in two years, tops, all he wanted to do was stay home here and never leave again and clew up his affairs. Also, he wanted to spend his time among friends and family, he said. But I haven’t seen any evidence of friends, and his family here consists of a brother who doesn’t speak to him. He says he’s fatalistic about it all. But I think he’s really scared. The father-and-son reconciliation means a lot to him—just having someone around he can trust and confide in. Every now and then he will ask us to make sure, when it looks like his suffering will become unbearable, to have him euthanized. ‘Put down mercifully like a beloved old dog, ’ he says.”
“Unfortunately, no doctor is going to do that around here. Or anywhere else, for that matter, outside of the Netherlands or Switzerland.”
“Oregon has some kind of a Death With Dignity law.”
“With more hoops to jump through than the Barnum and Bailey circus. In any event, before any of that arises, there’s a couple of things about the will itself that I need to get straight. First of all, you know, Rosie, a will only takes effect on the death of the person who made it. Right up to that time, he can change the beneficiaries to anyone he likes. Everything we’re talking about now could become irrelevant at any time.”
“We got the lawyers to work on that. They drew up a contract, a trust deed, I think, in which, in return for our support and contribution, he agreed not to change his will. The lawyers said that the document even curbs the risk that he might decide to spend all his money on wild
women before his death. Brent has signing powers on amounts over fifty thousand.”
“Okay, first I’ll look at all that to see if it conforms with our laws here. Second. How do you know he has the eighteen million he says he has? I can’t help but remember him from when I first started practising law with a firm downtown, and he wanted me to act for him on a transaction because of my long friendship with his son. But what he really wanted was the most naive and callow lawyer in the firm to help him con the income tax department. He’s a slippery bastard, and he didn’t care who he screwed, including me, his son’s best friend at the time.”
“Yes, Brent told me about that. It was one of the reasons he left the business. So we insisted on an audited statement from his accounting firm. And we are sure he has the money, the whole eighteen million. Our own accountants said everything is accurate and copper-fastened. But now, here we are with my dying husband berating himself for being, he says, such a stupid ass.”
“For leaving you in this pickle?”
“Yeh. But I have to say that he’s more worried about it than I am. I was looking forward to a life of ease and contemplation, of course—who wouldn’t be? But honestly, I wouldn’t be up here at all if it wasn’t for Brent. I left my position at the University of New Mexico at his urging. We remortgaged the house to get priority treatment on his medical tests. We’ve never had a lot of money, and we have less now. What we had for a while was his prospects, which are now gone. So that is the buggered-up situation I’m in, but I’ll survive. I can get a posting with some university, I’m sure. If it comes to that, I can teach in a school system.”
Teach what, grade five Sanskrit? “I’m sure you will. Although we do have to wonder how much luck anyone will have with getting a new job, a good one, in this recession. How come you got your Ph. D. in every dead language known to humankind, by the way?”
Rosie laughed. “I really can’t speak much Hittite. After your famous severance letter and telephone conversation from England, I wanted as many of my days as possible to be as far removed from the realities of life as possible. What we’re going through now with this stupid will only confirms the brilliance of my decision back then.”