And help reassure him, if there was any way she could.
Maybe the tension only seemed magnified tonight because of the lateness. During the day, there’d have been a thousand other distractions to force them to deal with an issue and move on.
Right now there was just Susanna and Jay and Mr. Llewellyn’s recliner.
The night was clear, the floodlights silvering the circle driveway and casting everything beyond into a black void. She and Jay were the only two specks in the light.
Maybe it was the hour, a time when normal people were in bed, asleep, wrapped around loved ones, legs twined together under the sheets, breaths hushed in the quiet.
For the lucky people who had loved ones, anyway.
She could barely remember. So much time had passed since she’d curled up with Skip, his arms her safe place in the world.
Taking a deep breath, she looked beyond Jay—a useful trick she’d been cultivating since that dream. If she looked hard into the spill of light from the floodlights, she could make out the vines reaching for the walls of the building in unexpected places, nature trying to take over.
Is that how Jay felt about her? That she was changing things that had worked before she’d gotten here, encroaching?
“A chair parked in the middle of a resident room doesn’t make sense,” she pointed out. “It’s a bulky, solid piece of furniture that blocks the walkway between the beds even when it’s not in a reclining position. It’s not going to move out of anyone’s way if someone accidentally bumps into it.”
“No one could miss that chair. They walk around it.”
“Even Mr. Shepherd with his macular problem?”
Jay narrowed his gaze.
Susanna went in for the kill. “Mr. Llewellyn has to circle the bed to get in the chair, and as you well know, he doesn’t use his walker like he should. But if the recliner is back a few feet, he can slip right out of bed and into the seat. Chester left enough clearance with the wall, so the chair will still recline. A simple adjustment solves the problem.”
“Except Mr. Llewellyn can’t see the television from that distance.”
“Then we’ll need to move the television,” she said simply, done with this conversation. “If Mr. Shepherd can’t see it, anyway, then maybe we can rearrange things to accommodate Mr. Llewellyn and not create a potential hazard.”
She wasn’t backing down on this. Not with patient safety at risk. Not with liability what it was. A chair in the middle of the room was begging for trouble and the first question Northstar legal would ask was:
“Were there any obstructions in Mr. Llewellyn’s room before he had the fall?”
Susanna might not have decades of memory-care experience, but she knew corporate liability like the back of her hand. Bracing herself, she lifted her face to meet his gaze.
Jay stared down at her, stubbornness all over him from the way he braced his legs solidly apart to the way he leaned back on his heels, as if getting comfortable to wait her out.
Susanna wasn’t sure what fired up inside her, but somewhere along the way this had turned into a gunfight between her and Jay. Mr. Llewellyn’s chair was the weapon Jay used to take aim.
So much more was going on with this man than she understood. And she wanted to understand. So she wasn’t dodging this bullet tonight. She was strapping on Kevlar.
He glared at her.
She folded her arms over her chest and glared right back.
The silence between them grew deafening.
His expression melted into exasperation a split second before he said, “We’ll see if Chester can rig the television differently in the morning.”
Not a concession but a compromise.
“Thank you.” Her neatly professional tone came with effort because in her mind she said, I was going to move it, anyway.
This man was giving her whiplash with his mood swings.
“I was surprised all Mr. Olivanti’s children came,” she said genially to get them back on solid footing. “Six adults and two spouses. Quite an entourage for a two-in-the-morning visit.”
Jay inputted his passcode with a nod. “I’m surprised we didn’t wake up everyone in the place. They were actually quiet.”
“Very respectful that everyone was asleep,” Susanna agreed. A truce.
This had been her first impromptu facility tour, and Mr. Olivanti’s family had witnessed firsthand that unlike many ALFs running a skeletal staff on third shift—sometimes even leaving 100 residents under the frightening care of one LPN and one PCT—The Arbors staffed adequately at all hours.
One only had to walk those quiet halls as they had tonight to see several shift PCTs strolling in and out of resident rooms, a floor LPN making rounds, an R.N. overseeing the care staff as well as any unexpected med dispensing, the duty manager in the offices, the security personnel—one in the facility and another in the gatehouse—monitoring live video feed from all three floors and the immediate grounds.
Even the facility co-administrators had appeared on site within ten minutes of receiving the call that the Olivanti family had arrived for an unexpected visit. The Full Disclosure policy had a literal definition at The Arbors.
Susanna couldn’t imagine what more a family could ask for from potential caregivers. But as she followed Jay into the front lobby, she realized this dedication to superb care came at a high personal cost for the man who held the yardstick.
CHAPTER TEN
JAY HADN’T BEEN HOME for ten minutes when his phone rang. No one called at 4:00 a.m. unless they needed something, but when he glanced at the display, Jay found the name of the one person in the world who might not need anything from him, after all.
“Drew. Hey, man, what’s up?” Not even at this hour because for all Jay knew it was morning wherever in the world his brother was. Major Drew Canady, USMC, called when he got a chance. Period.
“Change of plans, little brother. Can’t make leave on Thanksgiving.”
Drew had never been big on small talk. Jay wasn’t sure if the ability to zero straight in on the point was inherent in Drew’s personality—it wasn’t genetic—or a result of a dozen years in Special Forces.
“Sorry to hear that.” He reached down and scrubbed Butters’s head. It was the least he could do since the dog had made the effort to scramble off the couch where he’d been sleeping to greet Jay.
Gatsby only lifted his head, eyed Jay as if he’d been rude to make noise at this ungodly hour then promptly shut his eyes again. “Think you’ll be able to make it back to the States before I sign the papers? Would hate to turn over your key without giving you a chance to say your goodbyes.”
Not that his brother cared. Jay imposed his own sense of nostalgia on a sibling who’d long ago proved he was all about looking ahead to the next challenge rather than behind him.
A trait that Jay admired—mostly. All that running had some downsides, too.
“You want me home to clean out my old room so you don’t have to.”
“You remembered. I’m shocked.”
“You threatened to call Goodwill and have them pick up all my past history. Come on, Jay. Like I want my high school football and track trophies to wind up in someone else’s trophy case.” There was a laugh in there. The trophies in question were in a milk crate in the attic. No one but their mother had been interested in saving them, and she wasn’t around anymore.
“You never took me seriously before,” Jay said. “Didn’t occ
ur to me you’d start now.”
The sharp silence on the line came as a surprise. Then Drew said, “Never thought I had to, but that was before Mom died and you started getting real about unloading our legacy.”
Our legacy.
As Drew barely managed to make it home a few times a year. And then only if he wasn’t currently involved with a woman in his various ports of call. Involved, he didn’t come home. Single, he made an appearance.
Jay was glad someone was enjoying life.
But Drew never stayed for more than a week at a time. He seemed hardwired to spontaneously combust when he got too close to day seven of a visit.
No, the legacy was all Jay’s. Drew’s name just happened to be on the deed. A formality.
“Yeah, well. It’s time. I offered you the once-in-a-lifetime chance to take my place. You weren’t interested.”
“No way, man. Not when you’ve been doing such a bang-up job around there.”
A snort was the best Jay could come up with. Talking with Drew always brought mixed emotions. Appreciation for a living family member, which was a novelty in the Canady family. There was accompanying resentment because Drew never acted like more than a distant relation. He’d disconnected long ago, leaving Jay to deal with the family business as if he were an only child.
Why would Drew be interested in around-the-clock obligation when he was always knee-deep in some foreign conflict, his high-level security clearance making it impossible to discuss his work protecting the good old U.S. of A. from the bad guys?
Jay didn’t think he’d be so eager to give up the challenges of a cloak-and-dagger life. Challenges. Travel. Noble causes. Sounded pretty good from where Jay stood. Of course, Jay’s idea of excitement was sex on the beach, marriage and kids. All brothers weren’t cut from the same cloth.
Climbing the stairs, Jay wondered if he’d be able to sleep, or if he should chalk up the night and get started on tomorrow. “If you’ve got something to say, Drew, now’s the time. This place is half yours even though you’re never here.”
More silence, which was telling, but Drew finally said, “No, man. This is your call. You’ve done your time, and I haven’t been a damn bit of help. Not with Mom, not with Gran, not with any of it. You’ve been holding down the fort, so I didn’t have to feel guilty about not being around to deal with our legacy. If you want to move on, you go for it. I’d be the last person to hold you back.”
Jay pulled the phone from his ear and stared down at the display, so surprised that he missed Butters make a play for the bed, nearly knocking Jay over in the process of scrambling up.
Jay frowned at the dog and motioned to the other side.
Sinking onto the edge of the bed, he said, “Where are you? It’s got to be late at night because you’re awfully self-reflective. That almost sounded like a thank-you.”
“Not as late as where you are.” He laughed. “Doesn’t sound like I woke you up from your beauty sleep.”
“Someone beat you to the punch.”
“Not a woman. That much I know.”
Toeing off his shoes, Jay sank back into the pillows and stretched out after a very long day. “You don’t think?”
“Um...I suppose you could surprise me.”
“Just goes to show you that you probably shouldn’t think. It was five women, actually.”
“Sheeeeeet.” A snort of laughter. “Any of them not seniors? Or forgetting they have AARP cards.”
“Yes. Two definitely. Maybe three.” He couldn’t be entirely sure about one of Mr. Olivanti’s daughters. Maybe she’d been a few years behind her siblings or maybe she’d had good genes.
“Okay, so somebody either died tonight or you were giving the owl tour. Which was it?”
The fundamental truth of Jay’s sorry existence. “Owl tour. With the new director.”
“Like him?”
“Her.”
“Her, hmm. Another senior?”
An image of Susanna popped into Jay’s brain in all her feminine glory. Big blue eyes. Soft smile. Kissing lips. Unless that kissing mouth was pursed tight with a rebellious streak that was at odds with her feminine appearance.
Almost as if on cue, a light twinkled in his periphery. Jay glanced out his window to see another light blink out.
Susanna heading into the bedroom.
No, the new director definitely wasn’t another senior. He turned his back, determined not to be distracted. “Your age. Little older, maybe.”
By four years exactly. But Jay wasn’t going to admit he was paying such close attention.
Not even to himself.
“She any good? Wait—” Drew chuckled. “Let me rephrase that. Is she good enough that you’ll be able to leave the place without kicking yourself in the ass for the rest of your life?”
For a brother who hadn’t been around much since Jay had been fourteen years old, Drew could read Jay better than anyone, which made no sense whatsoever.
“I think so. Yes,” he said decidedly. “She’ll be ready by the time I have to sign the final papers.”
If he had to beat her into submission.
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed. For your sake.”
That’s when it hit Jay—the uncustomary chattiness of a brother whose conversations always ran along the lines of mission briefings. Drew called often, but they were always touching-base kinds of calls.
Letting everyone know he was still alive. Checking up on what was happening on the homestead. Getting updates on who was currently losing their mind or in imminent danger of dying. Of course, now that everyone had lost their minds and died, there wasn’t much to catch up on but the sale.
Drew had a life. Jay...not so much.
Of course, none of this explained why Drew was suddenly all sorts of chatty. So, one of two things was going on: either something was up with him or he had concerns about Jay.
“You good, Drew?” he asked.
“Never better, bro, and you can thank Northern Ireland for that. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been anywhere but the Middle East?”
Jay supposed the cold north might be a refreshing change after a long stretch of desert sand and broiling sun. Of course, someone who’d never lived off the sixty acres where he’d been born wouldn’t actually know...
“Bully for you. I was invited to Ireland to visit the cousins. Might actually make it when I get out of here. You need their addresses?”
“Working.”
“Well, have fun with all that cold rain and ocean wind. So what’s on your mind? You broke your record for phone conversations about ten minutes ago.”
More laughter. “Can’t call and shoot the breeze?”
“No.”
“Just wanted to make sure you were good. That’s all. Things have been changing since Mom.”
Since Mom. Funny how a man in Special Forces, a First-to-Fight Marine, would deal in euphemism.
Since Mom died.
Guess in some ways he and Drew were more alike than he’d thought. They both dealt closely with death. Drew with war and terror and disaster. Jay with the inevitable slow grind of age and infirmity.
“Never better,” Jay said. “Don’t worry about me. I’m looking forward to getting the hell out of here.” Finally.
“Got a plan for after you sign the papers?”
“Can you say Tahiti, no phones and beautiful women?”
“The beautiful women part sounds good. You hav
e fun with the sand.”
“I will, thank you.”
“Guess Tahiti would sound good to someone who prunes arbors for fun.”
“Do not start pissing in my cereal.”
“Don’t know how you’ve done it for all these years.”
Jay had never figured out if Drew was squeezing in as much of life as possible before Alzheimer’s robbed him of his faculties. Or was dangerous work his way of controlling fate? Going out with a bang was better than dying a slow death in a place like The Arbors with a healthy body and a rotting brain.
The one thing Jay did know was that Drew hadn’t lost his mind yet. Or shared what was on it.
Drew himself confirmed that observation when he said, “I can make it for Christmas. That work for you?”
“As long as you clean out your room while you’re here, so I don’t have to.”
Drew laughed. “You got it. I’ll let you know my arrangements when I make them. We’ll talk before then. Can’t make leave for Thanksgiving, but I’ll call.”
“Stay safe.”
“Will do. And, Jay.”
“Yeah?”
“It was a thank-you.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SUSANNA CLICKED ON THE software icon the instant it flashed a notice for a video call. Abandoning the budget she and Walter were still hammering into shape, she smiled in greeting as her daughter appeared on the computer monitor.
“I haven’t heard from you since yesterday, Mother, so I figured I’d better call.”
If the expression or the tone hadn’t given Brooke away, her use of the title Mother would have.
“Hello, sweetie. What’s up?”
“I haven’t heard from you for one thing. A day, Mother. Not a call or a text or an email. No one’s heard from you. Something could have happened to you, and no one would have had a clue.”
Susanna had said those exact words a hundred times, so it took her a moment to decide if Brooke was being facetious.
The Time of Her Life Page 15