Eyes on the Prize

by Sunni Jeffers

  “I understand that my cousin, Reggie Jamison, has spoken with you concerning our aunt, Agatha Jamison,” Vera said. “She may need to move into an assisted living residence. She’s named me caretaker of her physical well-being, so I’d like to find out more about your facility.”

  “Certainly. We have a wide range of possibilities here. We are a retirement community, so our residents must be over fifty-five. Our accommodations range from garden homes to condominiums, apartments and both limited-and full-care facilities. In the limited-care facility, the apartments have kitchenettes. However, there’s also a full-service dining room with professional wait staff. Our residents can choose among a variety of options. Mr. Jamison indicated that you’re interested in our limited-care apartments. Would you like to see one?”

  “Yes, if we could,” Vera said.

  He took a set of keys out of his desk and stood. “If you’ll follow me, we can go out the back.” He held the door for them, then led them down the hallway to an outside door.

  He took them in a motorized cart. They followed a paved path to a two-story building with a view of the river on one side and one of the woods on the other. He parked and escorted them inside.

  Near the entrance was a nicely decorated room with a wide-screen television in one corner and a baby grand piano in another corner near a large fireplace. The room had one occupant, a woman with a tote bag and a purse. She sat perched on the edge of a chair, as if expecting someone. The marble-tiled floor had no carpet so that people with walkers and wheelchairs could navigate without obstruction.

  “This residence is for our mobile patients who do not require full-time nursing care. Some use walkers or wheelchairs, but they can get around on their own.” Barney turned to the receptionist at the front desk. “I’m going to show Mrs. Humbert the facilities.”

  They walked down a brightly decorated hallway. He pointed out a library with filled bookshelves, reading areas and two computer stations.

  Farther down the hall he took them inside a large room. “This is the dining room,” he said. It looked like an elegant supper club, with white linens and a fresh flower arrangement on each table. “We require our residents to eat at least one meal a day here. We encourage them to socialize. I assume your aunt is able to get about?”

  “I’m not sure. She’s using a walker right now, but she isn’t very strong.”

  “She might need our nursing facility then.”

  They went into an elevator to the second floor, then down a hallway and around a corner to another hallway. He stopped at a door and unlocked it.

  The L-shaped apartment had no interior partitions. The larger side had a big window looking down over a courtyard with a fountain and a garden with paths through it. The inside wall had a small refrigerator, stovetop, sink and cupboards. There was a bathroom in one corner with a tub equipped for the handicapped. Vera looked around without comment, but Alice could see her difficulty trying to imagine her aunt moving into such a small space after living in a mansion most of her life.

  “Do you have anything larger?” she asked.

  “We have one-and two-bedroom units, but none of them are available right now. This came open unexpectedly. If you want it, we need to reserve it right away. We have inquiries daily.”

  Vera stood in the middle of the empty room, frowning, rubbing her chin, looking around. The sudden availability could be God’s provision. How would Vera know for sure? Alice tried to picture Agatha’s furniture crammed into the room. Her bedroom was larger than the entire apartment.

  “I’ll have to think about it,” Vera said.

  Barney nodded. “I realize it’s hard to envision your aunt living in a small apartment, but we have a very qualified, caring staff and a wide range of activities for our residents. We have a spa on the premises, a beauty parlor, an art studio and various classes, lectures and movies. Your aunt would adjust.”

  He dropped them off at Vera’s car. She said good-bye, but was silent all the way back to town. She parked in front of the Blue Claw Diner and they went inside and found a table.

  “I’m sorry to be so quiet. I don’t know what to say.”

  “It’s all right. You’ve had a shock. I know you’re distressed thinking about your aunt and what to do for her.”

  “I am. I’m not really hungry, but we have to eat. Maybe a lobster roll will help my mood. I guess I want to put off facing Aunt Agatha as long as possible.”

  “I’m sorry. Making life-changing decisions that affect you is hard enough. I can only imagine the pressure you’re feeling,” Alice said. “Would you like to pray about it?”

  “Yes, please.”

  After they gave their orders and the waitress left, they bowed their heads. Alice prayed, “Dear Father, we thank You for the meal we are about to eat and for the abundance and grace You give us. You know all about Agatha’s condition and the problem of her future. You know the responsibility and love Vera feels for her aunt. You love Agatha and You know what’s best for her. Please give Vera wisdom, guidance and peace in this situation. Reveal Your plan for Agatha, whether this opening is Your provision for her or not, and help Vera calm her aunt’s fears and anxieties. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

  “Amen.” Vera raised her head and looked at Alice. “Briarhurst is a wonderful place, but I just cannot believe in my heart that it’s right for my aunt. She’s ready to give up. I’m afraid that’s what she’d do in an assisted living center. I can’t let that happen. When I was young, Aunt Agatha always treated me like a grown-up and let me help whenever she worked at a homeless shelter or put on a charity affair.”

  “She was a big influence in your life,” Alice said.

  “Yes. She taught me life was about helping others and she lived by that code. My mother was sweet and beautiful, and she did what she could to support charities, but she didn’t like to get dirty. She tried to teach me to be a proper lady.” Vera laughed. “As you can imagine, I wasn’t very good at it. Aunt Agatha encouraged me to follow my heart when I wanted to be a teacher and go to a state university instead of Avonwood College, where my parents went. My poor mother thought I was throwing away my life.

  “When I wanted to marry Fred and move to Acorn Hill, Aunt Agatha stood up to my parents and supported my decision, even though it meant moving away from Shelton Cove. I can’t turn my back on her now. There has to be a different solution, even if I have to move her to Acorn Hill to live with me.”

  The garden looked decimated. Most of the plants had been pulled or stripped. Baskets and sacks of vegetables were lined up in rows, ready to be hauled to the house. Only the potatoes and Louise’s pumpkins remained to be harvested. Marigolds, asters and goldenrod still added color to the emptied plot. Jane looked at Louise and laughed. Louise looked up to see what was so funny.

  “You should see yourself,” Jane said. “You have twigs and leaves in your hair, and your shirt and pants look as if you’ve been making mud pies.”

  Louise wiped her brow with the back of her garden glove and left a new smear. “You don’t look so tidy yourself,” Louise said, laughing. “I’m just glad I didn’t have piano lessons this afternoon.”

  A truck rumbled up the driveway. Fred made a tight turn, then backed up to the garden gate. The back of his truck was filled with lumber and a large roll of heavy-gauge chicken wire mesh. Fred and Craig got out and came back to the garden.

  “Afternoon Jane, Louise,” Fred said. “We’re ready to box in your pumpkins. That umbrella has to go.”

  Jane went over and rolled down the umbrella, then started pulling and twisting it out of the ground. “It’s in there to stay.”

  Craig went over to help her.

  “What are you planning to do?” Louise asked Fred. “We’ll build a frame over the patch and cover it with tarps and your blankets,” Craig said.

  “There’s going to be some cold weather tonight,” Fred said. “Shouldn’t get down to freezing, but no sense taking a chance. I’m giving you the supplies you need
to keep this beauty safe.”

  “Then we got all this produce harvested in the nick of time,” Jane said. Fred’s weather predictions came true most of the time, although temperatures rarely dropped below the forties until late October. “If you would be so kind, you men can help us carry it all in.”

  Craig grabbed a basket. “A pleasure. Just tell me where you want it.”

  “On the back porch for now. We’ll take it in later.”

  Fred picked up a basket and carried it to the porch. Then he returned and pulled several lengths of board out of his truck and laid them out on the driveway. Craig helped him unload while Jane carried the umbrella to the shed.

  “I appreciate your helping us get our produce in, but you don’t need to go to all this trouble for my pumpkins. I can’t let you give it to me. I say we let nature take its course.”

  Fred leaned against his truck and crossed his arms. “You have a winner there, Louise. No one from Acorn Hill has ever been in a position to win a pumpkin weigh-off before and it might not ever happen again. I’d be mighty proud to have a picture of you and that pumpkin with its big ol’ ribbon to hang in the hardware store. I can just see it now,” he said, raising his hands as if framing the picture. “Lloyd’ll put up a sign outside town …Welcome to Acorn Hill, Home of Louise Smith’s Prizewinning Giant Pumpkin.”

  “Surely you jest,” Louise said.

  Craig rubbed the shadow of beard that covered his chin. “What did you plan to do with your pumpkin now that it’s grown so large, Louise?”

  “Plan? Nothing. I thought we’d have enough for a few pies and perhaps a large jack-o’-lantern for the front yard. Now I hear that the giant pumpkins have such a high water content, they become mushy when they’re ripe, so it’s destined for the dump.”

  “In that case, I’d like to purchase it,” Craig said.

  Louise looked dumbfounded. “Whatever for?”

  “The seeds from a pumpkin this large are valuable. Especially if the pumpkin becomes a weigh-off prizewinner. I can reuse the fencing mesh at the nursery, so that’s no expense.”

  “If you can haul that pumpkin out of here and dispose of it, you’re welcome to it. The seeds won’t cost you a thing.”

  “You went to a lot of work to raise it. And it won’t do me much good if you don’t enter it in the weigh-off,” Craig said.

  “He has a point, Louise. I say you should take it to Baskenburg,” Jane said.

  Louise threw up her hands. “All right. We’ll take it to Baskenburg, but you’ll have to figure out how to get it there.”

  Craig grinned. Fred stepped away from the truck and took out a tool box. “First order of business … we have to keep it safe and growing for another week and a half, until it’s time to move it. Let’s get this frame built. I calculate we can finish it before that dinner you promised us, Louise.”

  “This seems like a lot of trouble for a pumpkin,” Louise muttered as she moved the blankets out of the way.

  “That’s the price of fame,” Jane said, grinning at her sister. Knowing her sister wasn’t fond of gardening, she was proud of Louise for her persistence and diligence. She wasn’t averse to a little teasing though.

  The men laid out boards in a grid pattern and fastened them together using Fred’s nail gun. In no time, they had four lengths of fencing a few inches taller than the giant pumpkin. They carried the lengths into the garden.

  “We’ll try not to damage the plant, Louise, but we’ve got to secure this so the garden robbers don’t burrow under.”

  Jane and Louise helped the men move vines and trim off unnecessary branches, then guide the boxed frame into place. Once it was secured with stakes and wire, Jane left Louise with the men to finish the project while she went to the house to start dinner.

  As she washed vegetables and cubed a mix of eggplant, carrots, beets, kohlrabi, potatoes and onions to bake and glaze, she watched the progress out the kitchen window. Fred and Craig covered the frame with the wire mesh, stapling it in place, and Louise helped spread out the large blue plastic tarp, then cover it with the old blankets.

  With any luck, the pumpkins would be safe from the cold and the critters. Jane didn’t normally pray for plants and animals, but she wanted Louise to experience the full glow of success, even if the pumpkin didn’t win, so she uttered a little prayer, asking the Lord to watch over Louise’s pumpkin patch until the weigh-off.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Phew, I’m glad that’s over,” Vera said, setting her purse on the table in Agatha’s large kitchen. “How about a cup of tea?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Alice said. Agatha’s kitchen looked like one that might be seen in a popular home decorating magazine. The stainless steel appliances appeared new. The combination of apricot and red décor as well as the gold and tan granite countertops had to be recent. The cupboards had pull-out shelves and dividers. “Jane would love this kitchen. Is your aunt a gourmet cook?” she asked.

  “Heavens no. I doubt she knows a spatula from a whisk. She had a cook for years. From the food in her pantry, I’d guess she eats out a lot, except for breakfast. She has her traditional oatmeal, only I see she uses the instant variety now.” Vera filled a bright red electric teapot and turned it on to heat.

  “That kind of lifestyle must get expensive.” Alice couldn’t imagine eating out meal after meal. The idea left her cold. Although she enjoyed an occasional meal at a restaurant, Alice would ordinarily prefer to share a meal with her sisters.

  “She brings home a doggie bag of leftovers, so she gets two meals. Aunt Agatha is pretty frugal when it comes to spending money on herself, but she likes her home to be modern, and she doesn’t need to worry about finances. She has more than she’ll ever need.”

  “It looks like she redecorated the kitchen recently.”

  “No doubt,” Vera said. “Every time I visit, something has changed. She loves variety and it keeps her occupied.”

  “Would she be up to more remodeling?”

  “I suppose, but what’s the point if she has to move?”

  “What if she didn’t have to move?”

  “She’d love that, but how? What are you thinking?”

  “Let’s look around after we have our tea. A few changes might make this house elderly-friendly.”

  “All right. I feel so torn, between Aunt Agatha and Reggie, and trying to please them both. Reggie is the one who will be on hand. If Aunt Agatha needs something, she’ll call him. Just because she’s been independent doesn’t mean she can remain that way.”

  “I know, but let’s explore the possibility.”

  “Thank you, dear friend. You can’t know how much your company cheers me.”

  Alice was glad she didn’t have to make the final decisions. Her father’s sudden death had been a terrible shock, but perhaps the Lord had spared him from facing declining health and periods of pain. As a nurse, she could have cared for him at home to a point, but some things require the care available at a professional nursing home. She was grateful that she and her sisters had been spared making such difficult decisions and that their father had been spared the dependency.

  Vera was eager to look around, so they carried their tea with them.

  They tackled the main floor first. Off the kitchen were a large pantry lined with empty shelves, and a utility room with laundry appliances and a chest freezer. Off the hallway leading from the kitchen to the front door was a large, walk-in butler’s closet. Inside were cleaning supplies and household supplies. “Did your aunt have a butler?”

  “Yes, when I was little. I wasn’t allowed in his closet, which made me curious. I was disappointed when I sneaked in here to see what he was hiding.” She looked around, as if she thought she had missed some treasure all those years ago and it might still be there.

  “What’s on the other side of this closet?”

  “My uncle’s study. We’ll have to go around to see it.”

  She led Alice to the front, then around the back side o
f the sweeping stairway. A doorway at the end of the hall opened to an office with dark, heavy mahogany furniture. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined one wall, and deep pigeonholes with rolled charts and maps lined part of another. A world globe sat on a library table. Vera pulled out a map. A puff of dust billowed up. She put it back without unrolling it. “What a fascinating room,” Alice said “What’s right above us?”

  “I’m not sure. Let’s go see.”

  They ascended the stairs. At the top, straight ahead, above where the closet and study would be, was a doorway.

  Vera pushed open the door and they entered a luxurious dressing room with comfortable chairs and a wall of floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Another door went off to the back, which Vera explained led to a bathroom large enough to accommodate full skirts.

  “Aunt Agatha calls this the Ladies’ Necessary,” she said, grinning. “I always thought it should have a brass plaque with that label on the door. When they entertained a hundred years ago, the women could come up here to fix their hair, repair their gowns and gossip.” Vera set her mug of tea on a small table and sat in the low-back upholstered chair next to it. Alice sat in the chair on the other side of the table.

  “Aunt Agatha held a ball here for the yacht club when I was in college.” Vera looked around. “I remember all the ladies gathering, talking about who was dating whom and who’d broken up and how unsuitable some young lady’s date was. I remember thinking it was a good thing that Fred hadn’t come or they’d have been talking about him, which would have been highly unfair since they didn’t know him as I did.”

  “Didn’t you invite him?”

  “Oh yes. I invited Fred to the ball, but he had to work. Silly me, I was upset that he didn’t skip work so he could escort me to the ball. Then, when he didn’t come, I compared him to the guys from my set. They were so sophisticated in their tuxedos. They had impeccable manners and talked about politics and yachts and international races.”