by Una Tiers
Did he have a stroke? See a spider?
“Eddy?” I whispered. “Are you okay?” I touched his arm, without a reaction. I assumed pinching was unacceptable.
He continued to stare without blinking or shifting in his chair. His breathing seemed very slow.
“Call the nurse,” I cried in a panic.
The nasty man stood still, displaying zero emotion or concern. So, I grabbed the emergency button attached to the bed and pressed it.
The nurse took Eddy’s blood pressure and checked his pulse. She was too casual when she pronounced him to be “fine.” She was wrong, he wasn’t talking, listening or moving.
I called 9-1-1. The paramedics were there in less than five minutes. They were very calm and pleasant, but couldn’t get Eddy to respond either. They said they could take him to the hospital if a family member or guardian authorized transport.
His blood pressure was normal, his pulse was normal. There was no explanation as to why he sat unresponsive. This was maddening but less so that no one seemed to think anything should be done.
The police arrived last and weren’t certain what to do. Eddy remained still, not answering questions. The administrator continued to scream. The paramedics packed up to leave.
What happened?
And, what the heck? Why wouldn’t a person be able to see whoever they wanted? I wasn’t sure how I signed in at the front desk. For reasons I cannot explain, I sometimes lie. In a bootstrapping defense, the fact that an attorney is meeting with a person, should be completely private.
The paramedics left. The nurse left.
I walked out with the policeman who said I should probably call a lawyer.
A message was waiting for me back at the office from Know Acres.
Peep. “Ms. Gravel, my name is Sue Ulnar, Eddy gave me one of your cards.
I need help, I want to go home. I don’t belong here. I’ve been in this hell hole for almost a year. The government filed a case against me and stuck me with an attorney who told me to settle. She promised me she could get more for me if I did and that I would lose at trial. She promised me I could go out, see my boyfriend, see friends and go to church. She said after a while I could probably return to live at my house.
But those were all lies. My cell phone was cut off a month after I agreed to the guardianship. My friends can’t take me anywhere. They say I have to pay a companion service to go out and when I call for a ride, I’m told that I have to pay. I can’t get to my bank, my credit cards were taken away from me and I have no way to get out. I want to see Liam, my boyfriend. I want to live with him like we did before this mess.”
She snorted a little, “As we say at Know Acres, Get Me Out.”
I thought I heard soft sobbing before the message finished.
“Would you call me?” her voice wavered and the call ended.
About a half hour after lunch hour at Know Acres, I placed a call to Sue and was told she was not available to take calls. The home was starting to sound like Hotel California. (You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave.)
Chapter Eleven
The Department on Aging sent me a letter the next day. As guardian for Eddy Szem, they were prohibiting me from contact with him in any manner, bla bla bla. Violation of this restriction letter would result in repercussions as well as a disciplinary report. The letter was signed by an attorney named Michael Wrigley. His arrogance almost made the paper stink.
About six months ago, the Department on Aging filed a guardianship case against one of my clients and scared her so badly, she ran away. Were all the attorneys who worked there jerks?
Andrew wasn’t sympathetic when I called about the letter.
“You don’t want a holy war with them Fiona, they work for the government. Our way of making a living is foreign to them.”
My hopes of help from him plummeted.
“You don’t think he has a case?” I asked.
“I do, but a tough case to win and a tough case to get paid from your vantage point. His money is locked up now. The Department on Aging is sneaky and the judges let them get away with murder. If you win, they’ll fight your fee. If your fee is approved, they’ll delay payment. The better cases involve supportive families and a decent estate. The better cases in guardianship mean that you represent the guardian and not the disabled adult.”
“But this man needs help. He has a house. He doesn’t seem like he needs to be in a nursing home. He isn’t bed bound. He was dressed and walked and talked and explained his predicament.”
“Look, I will help you but my name has to stay out of this,” Andrew added grimly.
Feeling alone, I headed for the law library after work.
“Late night counsel?” Came the pale but smiling face of the librarian.
Ben Shelf was my favorite librarian at the law library in the Daley Center. He has helped me find things when I forget everything I learned in law school about research.
He recommended that I look at guardianship in the encyclopedias for an overview of the topic. My recollection was only that there were two of them, red ones and brown ones, both on Illinois law.
The law encyclopedias are a different, almost indirect way to approach the law. They have long winded treatises and articles that take a lot of thinking to get to the point. Now I remembered why I didn’t turn to them as a research tool.
Ben also showed me a quick guide to guardianships and said I might want to contact some of the authors for more details on how things worked in the courts. Brilliant.
I love librarians. They are never judgmental. If you are confused or stupid, they are happy to help.
Lugging the books home made me feel productive. Carrying books makes you look smart and builds muscle if not brains.
After several hours of reading, one thing was clear, Eddy should have objected at the beginning of the case.
The way court cases work, one person files a case saying another person did something wrong. Then the second person has a certain amount of time to raise objections. Next, both sides try to determine what proof the other side has.
After that, the court makes a decision, sometimes with trial and others without. If the decision isn’t what you can tolerate, you have a limited amount of time to complain to the appellate court. After that, you are pretty much stuck with the court ruling.
I wasn’t sure if Eddy could get his position before the court at this late date. The time for an appeal was gone. Not that I have any idea how the appellate court works. I do know the appellate courthouse is over on LaSalle Street in Chicago. As much as I can remember is that you have thirty days to file a notice of appeal.
Using several different accents to disguise my identity, I tried to call Eddy, without luck. Maybe my impersonations need work.
Chapter Twelve
Sue’s boyfriend, Liam Ulnar, called early the next morning, whispering. Can you call a man in his seventies a boyfriend? He asked to meet at the Cultural Center on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago.
His accent resembled Paul McCartney. I knew I would enjoy this meeting.
At one time, the Cultural Center was the main library for the City of Chicago. Built in 1893, it opened in 1897. In 1991, the main library moved to new digs after being housed in empty department stores for years.
The Cultural Center is magnificent, even with all the changes and without all the books. There are two real Tiffany domes (one is the largest dome in the world), curved marble staircases, incredible ceiling art, mosaics and a host of other architectural things to ogle.
There are glass blocks in the floor with lights beneath them; you can walk on them, or take a picture and put them on a humorcide book cover.
Sadly, the incredibly large reading room that ran the length of the building was renovated into smaller rooms. The building has been reconfigured and is used for music concerts, cultural events and private parties. There are always art exhibits, although no Van Goghs or Rembrandts are displayed, but Ed’s o
r Molly’s works appear daily.
The first floor has a Chicago tourism center. A gift shop and snack bar are added and removed with regularity. There is an elevator that has two stops, the first floor and down one level to the pedway.
The pedway is an underground tunnel system that connects many buildings like the Daley Center, City Hall, stores, including Macy’s, and eventually a hotel near the lake front. Some areas are very busy, while others are unknown.
People gather, hang out, knit, read and visit in the great room on the first floor. It’s nice to sit and eavesdrop on conversations. It’s fascinating to watch the people sitting and talking and those walking through the room. They resemble people you might see at a train station or at a real library. The tables are mismatched, along with the chairs. Overall, it has great character, and characters.
When I walked into the great room I realized I didn’t know what Liam looked like. As I gazed around, a small, white haired man beckoned me over to the elevator, like Lassie. He looked at me, he looked over to the elevator, and repeated until I understood. Liam had a sort of Pablo Picasso look without the striped t-shirt. I tried to introduce myself but he shushed me, looking around in fear.
We went to the second floor into an enormous room that was empty. Really empty, no tables, no chairs, no art or other exhibits, just space. We sat on a window sill overlooking Michigan Avenue with a view of the Prudential building, once the tallest building in town.
Despite the enormous empty room, there was no echo because we were using our library voices.
“I appreciate you meeting with me,” he whispered as his eyes filled with tears.
“No problem.”
“Eddy gave us your card. He likes you.” He showed me my card.
“He’s very nice,” I commented. I realized Eddy must have given Liam my description.
“I realize this seems silly to meet here but there is no privacy at all at Know Acres. Someone is always hovering when we try to talk. I’m not allowed to see Sue but for two times a week. She can’t go to church and I’m, well, we are not allowed to go out together.
We can’t be alone together either.” He studied his shoes. “We always talked about retiring and traveling, maybe to Montana or California or both. Sue used to joke about seeing Las Vegas and getting jobs as card dealers for a lark.
I retired almost five years ago. I was a drama teacher at Schurz High School on the northwest side for over thirty five years. And, Sue worked part-time, she was a registered nurse and worked a few days a week. I mean she worked until they put her in a nursing home.
She just loved being a nurse, she loved the uniform even…even….” his voice trailed off.
Uncertain of how to move to the main feature, I shifted to the personal aspect, thinking it was a transition. “Have you been together a long time?”
“Yes, almost forty years. We dated for a while and then moved in together. Neither of us wanted to get married along the way.”
Still trying to get to the guardianship issues, I mentioned, “Sue left a message at my office, but I haven’t been able to reach her. They tell me she is unavailable when I call her. I’ll keep trying to set up an appointment.”
“Typical, they do that all the time. They scare the patients. They isolate them from family and friends. They lie. It’s awful the government can get away with it.
Can I ask you a question in secrecy?” His eyes were pleading.
“I guess.”
“What if we got married now?” He searched my face for some good news.
“Do you both want to get married?” I wasn’t sure if that was a right taken away by the guardianship process. There were a few cases about divorce when a person had a guardian but none I remembered about getting married.
“I want to be with her. How we get there isn’t really important. Do you know what I mean?”
I didn’t want to know. So I nodded. “I would have to look that up to tell you the answer. Did you say your last name is Ulnar?”
“Yes. That’s how we met, our last names are the same and a little unusual. Sue reserved a library book and I got the notice by mistake. I looked up her address and took it to her.
I fell in love with her the first time we spoke. We had coffee a week later and then lunch.
I never thought someone like Sue would be interested in me. After a while, with our last names the same, people assumed we were married. I think we both liked the idea secretly but never said that out loud,” he explained.
As he spoke, I could tell he was reliving the good times and wanted to go back.
“How did Sue end up at Know Acres?”
“Well, over a year ago, the city condemned our house. They said it was uninhabitable. We had to go to court and the lawyers we hired and paid, did a little work and then quit. We had three of them. We did what we could but the city wanted more repairs than we could afford.”
“Oh that’s awful,” I said mostly from my heart instead of my lawyer brain.
“Sue was sick from all the stress. She had chest pains and they admitted her to the hospital for observation and tests. While she was there some doctor wrote a report on her. They transferred her to the psychiatric unit and she went nuts, to coin a phrase. She was outraged at the way they treated her. I wasn’t allowed to see her,” Liam cried. “She would call me on her cell phone before they cut off the service. Now there is no phone in her room so she has to make a call from the nurses’ station where everyone listens. It’s terrible.”
Liam sighed, his breath coming out in spurts.
I tried to exude sympathy while he collected himself and sipped water.
“So when did Know Acres come into the picture?”
“When Sue was in the hospital she got papers that she was being sued for guardianship. A lawyer from the court came out and the only thing she talked about was settlement.
She made promises to Sue. She said if Sue would try Know Acres for a few months, she would eventually go home.”
“Know Acres seems kind of creepy, they called the police on me when I went to see Eddy,” I admitted since I was in good company.
“They have called the police on me too. It’s a violation of our right to privacy, isn’t it?”
“What?” I couldn’t follow him.
“To be alone together. Don’t we have that right as consenting adults to privacy?”
“I don’t know, my strength wasn’t constitutional law in school.” It took me a few seconds to realize he was talking about something other than the federal constitution.
After several deep breaths, Liam continued. “Eddy’s under a guardianship, but unlike us, he manages to find lawyers who will come out to talk to him. He has had two lawyers come out already. You’re the third. Of course after one meeting they never returned. He wants to work within the system. We on the other hand are desperate, the system doesn’t work. It’s broken. We just want to be together.
Eddy says he’ll pay our legal fees if he can get to the bank. I’m not so sure. Sue’s accounts are gone. His accounts may be gone too.”
“What do you mean gone?”
“Well I’ll tell you.” Liam sniffed and sipped water.
I waited.
“We don’t have millions of dollars. We put our money together and lived not high on the hog but covered expenses and went out to dinner or a movie occasionally. If Sue had extra work, we could go to the opera. I got a job at the library but it didn’t work out for very long.
We didn’t care if the furniture was new or old. We would go to a movie on a senior ticket. Sometimes we would usher a play to get in free. We loved to take walks together, especially early in the morning.
But when a pipe started to leak at the house, we were short on cash. We had a choice between food and insurance or the pipe. So we bought a bucket for three dollars. Next it was a drain, I got baby-sitting jobs in the neighborhood but, we couldn’t keep up. I mean we were lucky when a neighbor would lend a hand. Some of them cut the law
n. They would bring over a casserole dish. But the repairs really piled up.“
“Would you be able to get a reverse mortgage to make the repairs?”
“I’ve heard of them of course, but Sue handled the money decisions. I was the 50s wife, smiling and preparing dinner. Besides the house does not belong to us, it’s hers not mine, not ours.
You know Fiona, there was also the bank issue.”
“What was that?”
“We started to talk about that a few minutes ago. Sue and I always had separate bank accounts. We added up the fees and realized it would be cheaper to merge our accounts. Her bank had better rates, so we added my name to her accounts. We transferred my money into them.”
“Why should that be an issue?”
“We didn’t think it was but the nasty little banker asked if we were married. We should have lied. Well he got up on his soapbox and said unmarried people should not mix up their accounts. Can you imagine? We’ve been together for forty years. Many marriages don’t last that long. That snob acted as if I was taking advantage of her. He asked Sue to wait a couple of days before deciding. He said he had to speak to her privately, can you imagine?”
I nodded. “Liam, what can you tell me about court?” I asked.
“Court was in a word, a disaster. I guess that’s two words. There was no trial, Sue wasn’t allowed to go to court to talk to the judge. The attorney just talked about settling, nothing else was on her agenda. When Sue didn’t agree, she the attorney I mean, made promises.
After the mess she got us into, the attorney asked for five thousand dollars and then said she was withdrawing from the case. She said she would get the money from the Department of Senior Services. She didn’t do a thing to protect my Sue.
Really I think that attorney didn’t know what she was doing, she only knew the judge.
Well now we’re told we need a lawyer, but we don’t have enough to pay one. Her money, well her accounts, really our accounts were closed. My savings were taken away.”