by Brian Hodge
Most of the homes maintained common areas suitable to the mobile and the sentient, but go beyond that and you were in the corridors of the damned. Here were urine smells and feeble calls for help and waxy flesh straining to coat skeletons and an infantry of nurses maneuvering two-wheeled personnel carriers. You talked above hoary heads and studied antiseptically clean linoleum or looked at light caught in the sheers of windows that never seemed to brighten the interior. You pretended these were not warehouses for the dying. Welcome aboard the Titanic! In the end, Denny could not consign his father to such a place. He just couldn't do it.
And then he came upon New Eden.
KNEAL the small hand-painted placard below the rural mailbox read. If he hadn't stopped at the turnoff while trying to find his way back from Mankato, he wouldn't have noticed. He had gone to Mankato hoping that Golden Years Senior Living was the answer, and he had left in despair, grasping at straws, praying for deliverance, ready to trade in the Yellow Pages list of facilities he had been using for cues and omens. And suddenly here was this unimposing sign with that phrase again, that shibboleth that promised there wasn't a contradiction between freedom and confinement: "Assisted Living." Kenyon New Eden Assisted Living. KNEAL. Out here in the middle of nowhere.
It looked like a wood-frame farmhouse, but there was a long wing built of bricks, and it was pastoral and refreshingly distinct from the urban compounds and contrived façades of green over gray that clamored for the abandoned and the dying. Still you couldn't take the place seriously with that tiny sign, an afterthought, as if it needed to fulfill some regulatory declaration but didn't really want to be discovered. Maybe they were hiding a good thing. Maybe God had finally stepped in with a few misleading road signs to facilitate an answer for him. KNEAL. He was too frustrated and desperate not to pay attention.
The driveway was an archipelago of surviving chunks of asphalt that eventually led to a barn, but there was no parking area—no cars, in fact. And then he saw the last vestiges of a curb that ran parallel to the red brick addition. Goosegrass and dandelions were growing on the compacted area, and there were no tire tracks. What was going on here? A permanent bed and breakfast for enfeebled octogenarians? Some informal home-care facility qualifying for funds by listing itself as assisted living? It just couldn't be legit. Probably be out of business next week. But all he really knew was that it wasn't what he had already seen at a dozen geriatric prisons across the state.
He parked his Tercel under the umbrella of a willow and strolled up to the porch. Nothing stirred in the windows and the house was strangely mute, as if caught in its afternoon nap. Maybe everyone inside had died a decade ago, he thought; maybe he was walking into a mausoleum. He almost felt he should knock, but you didn't knock when you went into a business, so he turned the flecked metal handle and stepped across the threshold …
And it was like coming home.
In fact, he still wasn't certain he wasn't trespassing on someone's living room. But that wasn't all bad. Because the white-glove cleaning patrol, and the smell of disinfectant, and the receptionist with the lily who probably did double duty as an instant mourner, and the rattle of trays on gurneys, and the snail line of wheelchairs at the elevators, and the donated National Geographics and Reader's Digest books, and the WanderGuard detectors behind plastic plants, and the flashing call lights screaming silently on a switchboard or unanswered above a grim portal where the grim reaper leaned on the doorframe—all these were missing! True, you could just call this place ill equipped, but he liked the homey informality. Did it actually run? It came down to the people, didn't it? And that was when he realized that he was looking at two of them.
They sat on an ottoman as still as lamps. Two white faces—a man's, a woman's—trained on his, but with radiance awakening in their eyes. The woman especially seemed to glow at his presence, her eyes huge behind Hollywood glasses with glitter on the frames. She was a tiny woman in shrieking colors, and her red lipstick had rubbed onto a prominent eyetooth.
"Got a cigarette?" she asked hopefully.
The man—burly, leathery, in a shirt buttoned to the neck—leaned forward also intent on Denny's answer.
"Sorry," Denny answered.
"She won't let us smoke in here anyway," the woman murmured dryly.
She.
And suddenly there was another woman in the archway, a good deal younger than the other two, fiftyish, though nothing else about her suggested the formality of staff, except that her calves and forearms were plump and muscular, as if she were a twist balloon put together in segments. She had a shoe button nose, liquid brown eyes, jet-black hair with two white streaks like meteors in the night, and her voice held a hint of challenge: "May I help you?"
"I saw your sign," Denny said. "I'm inquiring."
"About … ?"
"Residency for my father."
"Does he smoke?" piped the woman on the ottoman, and the man next to her grinned.
"Now, you know we don't have any openings, Beverly," said the plump woman by way of informing Denny.
"How about a waiting list?"
The pair on the ottoman laughed.
"We don't keep a waiting list either."
"Plenty of room, Molly," the burly man put in. "You ought to ask Ariel."
Denny gestured loosely. "I didn't see you listed in the phone book, but you've got that sign outside—"
"We're a private home."
"Just what I'm looking for. How do people apply? You must be regulated or you wouldn't have that sign."
The word "regulated" entered the room like a hornet looking for a place to land.
"Wait here," Molly said warily and squeaked back through the arch in her ripple-soled sneakers.
Beverly, the tiny woman with the Hollywood glasses, stroked her chin with an age-spotted hand. "She's gone to get Ariel," she said. "Haven't seen that before, eh, Paavo?"
Paavo danced his feet on the floor—one step each—and nodded, his hands folded between his knees, his mirthful expression directed straight before him.
"Is Ariel the manager?"
"Oh yes. She manages us." Beverly nudged her glasses back up her petite nose. "You're almost a redhead," she assessed with the tactlessness of the very bored.
"Almost."
"I had red hair once. Naturally red hair. You wouldn't know it now, of course, but it was my best feature." She turned to her companion. "Apparently Ariel didn't like it."
The burly man restrained his amusement. He had square, pink fingernails and a strong face that was just starting to collapse with gravity. "Your hair's not all she may not like," he said to the woman.
"Aaah, to hell with it. I'll say what I like."
"Do I detect a Norwegian accent?" Denny addressed the man.
"Paavo's a Finn," said Beverly. "Paavo Seppanen. His wife is Ruta. She was a Lanoki before she married this old galoot."
Denny nodded too many times. "How long have you lived here?"
"About a year."
"You came at the same time?"
Paavo's smile seemed to freeze.
"Just about," Beverly said.
"So, do you like it here?"
"Hell, no. I'd like to be twenty-four years old and on the French Riviera, that's where I'd like to be. But it's better here than where I was."
"How's the food?"
"Food's good," Paavo said.
"And the medical staff?"
Again the tandem exchange of faint smiles. "Infallible," said the woman. "No one gets sick here. Not for long anyhow."
And that was when they heard the cane thudding on the wooden floor, and Denny saw their eyes go down. Molly reappeared in the arch, followed by a somewhat regal figure—a woman, tall, thin, gray hair cut short, and wearing a dress that a dowager empress might have worn in another time. She had very white skin and her hawkish nose seemed aimed at Denny like the bowsprit of a ship.
"Bring him back," she crackled at Molly.
They took each other's measure for
the first time not in an office but in a kitchen, Ariel on one side of an immense worn butcher's block, Denny on the other. The looks between them were guileless.
"We're not taking residents at this time," Ariel declared softly, and when he replied that he had been told they had plenty of room, she looked to the doorway as if Molly were still there. "It's a matter of choice," she said.
"But you haven't even met my father."
"—which should tell you there's nothing personal in it."
"But …” Denny tried to smile. “You can't be running a business that way."
"Do we look like a corporation, young man?"
Young man. When was the last time someone had called him that? He was fifty-one.
"No," he said. "But you have the sign out front. You must be regulated. Aren't you getting funds or tax breaks or something?"
"It's not a big sign, and we don't advertise."
However informal this place was, she was getting some kind of financial advantage from the system, he thought, otherwise why put up a sign at all?
The sun was on the other side of the house, and the light entering the kitchen was mugged of its color by the muzzy sheers. Ariel and Denny went back and forth in a black-and-white chess game where neither knew the rules and the moves were mostly pawns falling one by one.
"We're willing to pay the going rate," he said, "even a little more. More than the going rates for places with fuller programs than you have, I mean."
"If you value fuller programs, perhaps that's where you should look, Mr. Bryce."
"I don't. That's the point. I don't want what comes with them. All I meant was that you don't seem to have the overhead others do."
"We meet all requirements, you can rest assured of that," Ariel snapped.
Again he wondered if he had touched a nerve he could use to soften her resistance.
"So if I went to check out your credentials, you're a viable business? And you have a qualified medical staff."
"No one complains. You might say our doctor is a miracle worker."
"What kind of staff do you have?"
"For the record, there are only a dozen people in this house, Mr. Bryce. We all pitch in. That's why they call it assisted living. Things get done and we manage well. No one has ever had a serious illness or died."
He was not an intuitive person, but something in the informality of this house hinted more strongly than ever of the match Denny was looking for.
"My father isn't the ordinary beast," he said. "All those frantic social programs and interventions at the other places—he doesn't need that. He doesn't need stimulation—he needs a sanctuary. He's kind of a paradox. The less fussing, the better he likes it. Memory going bad—he's on Aricept—but other than that he just likes to be left alone. When I'm home, he's fine. If there are people around, he just hunkers down. But I have to work and when I'm not there he goes looking."
"We don't handle dementia patients."
"No? No senior moments allowed here? What are you certified for?” Immediately he was sorry. “Look, I don't give a rat's ass about how you run your business, but I've heard that term 'dementia' thrown around so many ways that I don't know what it means anymore. My father hasn't had a firm diagnosis, and anyway, no one has used that as an excuse to rule him out of a facility. Like I said, we'd pay you well."
For a moment Ariel seemed to consider the possibility. "Are you … like your father, Mr. Bryce?"
He tried to stare her down, but she was not easily flustered. "Does that matter?"
"Do you live alone with your father?"
"Yes."
"Isn’t there someone else in your family who could provide the care you’re looking for?"
He had a sense that she was fishing as much as resisting. She wanted to know how far she would be reaching out into the world if she took in his father. "We have no family left," Denny said. "We aren't fussy, and we aren't demanding, and we're very solitary. I've tried all the home-based programs, and now I need help."
"Be that as it may, the residents here have no connections to the outside world. None. They are here for life. They never leave. No shopping mall trips, no churches, no outside medical management. I'm the only one who goes into town."
He thought. "I don't see a problem with that."
"And they have no visitors."
"I'd be the only visitor my father had."
"That would be a problem."
"Why?"
"It might interfere. It might make the other residents resentful."
"But you said they had no families. Are you saying no one is allowed to come here?"
"You came here," she pointed out. "I'm just saying we do better without disturbances."
"I would want to see my father as often as possible—maybe every day—but I wouldn't disturb anyone. I don't see what the problem is. If you're a licensed home, you know you can't prevent access."
"It's not a rule, it's a policy. We might make an exception for your visits, but you did understand when I said the residents are here for life? I won't accept anyone who doesn't agree to that."
If there was a problem he would get his father out one way or another, he was thinking. And he wouldn't sign anything that said otherwise.
To his amazement, he didn't have to sign anything. No application, no medical disclaimers, no agreement of any kind. God help this woman if anyone ever took her to court. He wondered what her books looked like. In the end, Ariel Leppa and the house manager, Molly Armitage, took him on a brief tour that didn't change anyone's mind. And then—looking somewhat astounded, he thought—they accepted his thirty-five-hundred-dollar check for a month in advance. In less than an hour from when he had first seen their sign he was back in his car, heading home as if the surreal visit to New Eden had never happened. On the radio, the Eagles' "Hotel California" was playing, recounting a residency where checking out but never leaving was not a contradiction.
NEW EDEN
2001
Chapter 1
"Why don't you ever call me by my name anymore, Molly?"
"I – I didn't realize—"
"I don't want you to be afraid of me. Say it, please, my name."
"Ariel."
"That's better. We were friends. That's why I brought you back."
Molly was red-faced, chattering the way she always did when she was nervous. Ariel was implacably calm, regally motionless.
"I could have been a better friend. I know that, Ariel. Believe me, I know that."
"That's true. But we're better friends now, aren't we? We're all genuine friends here.”
“Definitely.”
“So why is everyone afraid of me?"
"Everyone knows we treated you badly, Ariel. They feel awkward, that's all."
"Awkward? Not sorry, not guilty—awkward?"
"Of course they’re sorry. And … okay, feeling a little guilty about it, if you want to use that word."
"I want to know all the words you use. I want to know everyone’s feelings. Does anyone talk about me? What do they say?"
"It's not like before, Ariel. No one says anything against you.”
“Against me?” She said it as if it never occurred to her that she could be criticized or made fun of now. “Does anyone say anything good about me? I need to know, Molly. Just be honest. If you're honest, there is nothing to be afraid of.”
“I’m trying. Everyone is soul-searching. We know what we were before. The petty jealousies, the pecking order."
"And there's no pecking order now?"
"Of course not."
"No … jealousies?"
"No, Ariel."
"But I painted Dana younger than you. And I brought you back younger than everyone else."
"Yes, yes, thank you, Ariel. I haven't noticed any resentment to speak of. Maybe from Ruta, but that's … just Ruta."
Ariel uttered a single syllable that might have been a laugh. "That's why I kept her more or less the way she was just before she died. Infirmities
made her a better person, don’t you think?"
"Yes, I do. I really do. We all know that. Ruta probably knows it too—deep down."
"So I’ll ask you again. Why are all of you afraid of me?"
"No one's afraid. They're all … grateful."
"Grateful?" The word came out with clinical precision. “How did we get from afraid to grateful?
"Ariel, you're mixing me up! What if we are a little afraid? You've given so much back to us … it's natural to be afraid of losing it. You can understand that."
"Then"—Ariel cupped her chin in her white fist, pretending to ponder—"they think I might take that away?"
"I don't know."
"What about you? Do you think I might take it away?"
"Don't do this to me, Ariel. Haven't I been loyal? I'll do whatever --"
"Stop!" Ariel’s white hand flashed in a gesture of restraint. "Not another word. I don't like playing God, Molly, but I had to decide. I had to re-create you. I did what I thought was best. Do you think I want to make a mess of my life a second time? Whatever you did to me—whatever all of you did—each of you has a second chance now. I have a second chance. That's why I need you to be honest with me, and to tell me what each of you needs, what you want, and what … you're thinking."
"I have."
"But you say Ruta is jealous, and I didn't know that. What exactly makes you think that?"
“Oh, it’s silly, really. She complains about her looks, and I think she wants her megavitamins and herbs. Nothing is directed toward you personally."
"I can do better than her pills with my paintbrush, if she earns it. What else?"
"Nothing else."
"Surely someone wants something?"
"Another television set, maybe. The men don't like soaps."
"I'll think about it."