“So where should we go for dinner?” said Beryl. “The Moonbeam Café? Eastern Depot?”
The Moonbeam was back down in Gorham, which he’d just driven through, and the trip back would constrain his booze intake to less than his mood required. The Eastern Depot was the swish place most folks reserved for anniversaries and birthdays, and Shep’s natural generosity was under strain. “What’s wrong with walking to the Black Bear?”
Beryl wrinkled her nose. “It’s all meat. I’ve gone back to being a vegetarian.”
“Since when?”
“Since that lasagna at your house. It made me, you know, totally ill.”
What had made her ill was not getting her way. “Thanks.”
“Don’t take it personally.”
“Why don’t we eat in? I’ll make a run to the state liquor store over on Pleasant Street, but that’s all I’m up for.”
As for not taking her out to eat, she would make him pay. One way or another, Shep ended up paying for everything.
“I’m starving,” Shep announced, putting the bottles on the counter.
His sister raised an eyebrow at his waistline. “You don’t look starved.”
“I have to make Glynis the heaviest food possible. I end up eating it, too.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, with all this stuff about Dad, I forgot to ask!” Beryl turned from the stove and creased her forehead, assuming an expression of deep, worried solicitation. “How is she doing?”
It was a look that Shep had learned to recognize. The very music of her question—drawn out, searching, dropped in pitch—was identical in timbre to the queries he’d fielded from ancillary characters for months now. Beneath the perfunctory, brow-furrowed performance lurked the hope that the answer not be awkward, that it not ask anything of them, and that most of all it would be short.
“Seems we may beat this thing,” he said, forcing himself to remember that he was a believer now, an evangelist, a zealot. “Chemo’s working.”
“Fantastic!” The cryptic, positive response had let her off the hook, and that was that.
Beryl cooked the way she dressed. Everything she prepared came out lumpy and brown. The concoction on the stove tonight was classic: a mash of soggy cashews, blobs of soy-stained tofu, and bloated pinto beans that were starting to disintegrate.
Abandoned on high heat, the gunk was clearly burning, but Beryl would never detect the singe in the air. Discreetly adding a little water, Shep reflected on the fact that his sister regarded her absence of a sense of smell as not a deficiency but a badge of honor. These days everything had got mysteriously turned around so that not being able to see, hear, learn, or walk made you superior. So he was bewildered by what to do with his sympathy. Wishing that his sister were able to savor the aroma of snapping pine logs was now apparently an insult.
Once they sat down, the serving on his plate looked like a meadow muffin from a cow with digestive problems. The Moonbeam Café served great homemade bread and fruit crumbles; maybe this sandy, sticky mass was what Beryl enjoyed, but he couldn’t help but feel he was being taught a lesson. At least the dumpy dinner would not distract them from the main agenda, although the main agenda was no more appetizing.
“You know, about Dad,” Beryl began. “I hate to say I told you so—”
“No, you don’t. So go ahead. Smugness is one of life’s pleasures.”
“I just mean, like I was saying in Elmsford, this was bound to happen—”
“Okay, you finished? It did happen. Next.”
“You don’t have to be so snippy. This is hard for everybody.”
“It’s mostly hard for Dad.”
“Well, of course,” she backpedaled.
Stirring the crust from the bottom of the pan had been a mistake. Black flakes turned up on his fork in sheets.
“I’m horrified by the reason, naturally,” Beryl continued. “But getting a break from Dad and me in close quarters will be a bit of a relief. He’s grown so persnickety! His day is super-ritualized, and everything has to go just so.”
Shep nodded at the computer at the end of the table. “He seems to have accommodated your stuff. That’s pretty flexible.”
“But I make him his grilled cheese, right? Trying to be nice? And it supposedly comes out too dark, and the cheese isn’t melted enough. You have to keep the heat at exactly this little point on the dial, and put a pan lid over the sandwich, a particular lid that’s exactly the right size for Branola. And God forbid you should forget the two dill pickle chips, or come back from the store with a brand that isn’t cut with ridges. I think of him as so frugal, but he actually threw the sandwich out and made another one!”
“Good for him,” said Shep. “How many more grilled cheese sandwiches is a man his age going to eat?”
“Man, the other thing that drives me nuts,” she continued, trying valiantly to draw him into filial cahoots, “is the paper. He still snips out all these articles—you know, about forgiveness of Third World debt, anything to do with Abu Ghraib, and obviously when anybody’s starving he gets excited. So I get to the paper and it looks like one of those lace snowflakes we used to make in school. I’ve told him, you know, if he wants an article we can print it from the website, but, no, he has to have the newspaper version. You’ve seen his office upstairs. It’s stacked with all these file folders full of ratty yellow articles. I don’t know; it’s a little sad. Like, what’s he going to do with that stuff, really?”
“Seems like a good thing that he still takes such an interest in the world,” Shep said staunchly. “Most folks at eighty wouldn’t even read the paper, much less clip it.”
Beryl didn’t take the hint that he wasn’t coming on board. “Do you realize he writes a letter to the editor practically every day? Sometimes to the Sentinel, but usually The New York Times or The Washington Post. They hardly ever see print. It’s like, every time something happens the whole world is waiting to find out what Gabriel Knacker thinks. Now, that is sad. I picture all these letters editors getting another envelope postmarked Berlin, New Hampshire, rolling their eyes, and tossing it unopened in the trash.”
Uneasy being apart from Glynis, Shep didn’t plan to stay up here long; a prolonged cringe-fest about their remaining parent could wait for another time. “So what’s the prognosis? Do you think he’ll be able to come back here?”
“That would mean hiring a nurse or something, since he’s likely to be bedridden for weeks. In fact, he could need round-the-clock care for, I don’t know, forever.”
“True …” Shep looked at his sister hard.
“And who knows what kind of person that would be. If she was some officious, bossy shrew, life around here could become unbearable.”
“From what I’ve read, fulltime, live-in medical assistance can come to about a hundred grand a year.”
“I can’t believe that we’ve only talked about this, like, a minute, and you’re already talking about money.” Her smile tried to cast the goad as a joke, without success.
“Since he’s not here to tell us what he wants to do next, the only thing you and I can talk about is money.”
“Whatever it costs,” Beryl declared, “what matters is what’s best for Dad.”
“Don’t you expect that he’d rather come back home?”
“But I don’t think his living here is practical anymore,” said Beryl. “It might even be dangerous; he could easily take another fall. Besides, it would just delay the inevitable. This is the perfect juncture to make a decisive move to some sort of facility, where he has doctors, and meals made for him, and the company of people his own age.”
“Leaving you in this house. Is that what you picture?”
“Maybe I’d stay here a while longer. What’s so terrible about that? Somebody’s got to hold down the fort.”
“‘The fort’ is Dad’s only asset. It’s all he’s got to help cover what’s likely to cost a hundred K a year, whatever he opts for—whether that’s home care, a nursing home, or assi
sted living.”
“Are you saying you’d sell this place out from under me? Where the fuck would I go?”
“Wherever grown-ups go when they don’t live with their parents.”
“This is ridiculous! What’s all that Medicare and Medi-whatsit for, then?”
“I tried to lay this out when my lasagna was making you ill.” He shot a pointed look at his plate. “Medicare doesn’t cover long-term care, period. You’re thinking of Medicaid.”
Beryl waved a bored hand. “I can never keep that stuff straight.”
“Medicaid’s requirements are stringent, and it would take a lot of paperwork just to get him on the rolls. It only covers the destitute. Dad will never qualify while he still owns this house and draws a regular pension. So we either sell off the property, use up the cash, and liquidate his pension fund, or we’re”—he paused at the pronoun, but decided it was good for his sister’s moral education to keep it—”or we’re stuck with the bill.”
“What about my inheritance?”
“What inheritance?”
“Half of this house will be mine, and I’m counting on the proceeds for a down payment on my own place!” she wailed. “How else will I ever have a home of my own?”
“I don’t own a house, Beryl.”
“That’s your choice. You could buy whatever you want, and you know it.” She crossed her arms, sulking. “Shit, there has to be a documentary in this. Dad working his whole life, and paying taxes, and then when he needs—”
“The depletion of assets for end-of-life care,” Shep cut her off, “hasn’t gone unobserved.”
With evident discipline, Beryl unfolded her arms and placed her hands calmly on either side of her plate. “Look. We could do it this way. You cover Dad’s nursing home, or assisted living, whatever. Give me two or three years here, and I can save up some capital. Then once Dad’s passed away and we sell the house, your share of the inheritance would cover your outlay.”
Shep sat back. He could only regard such audacity as rather magnificent. Nobody could claim that his sister wasn’t entertaining. “My share goes to some nursing home. And you keep yours?”
“Sure, why not? And then I’m off your back. No more knocking on your door for cups of sugar. I could move back to New York.”
“Leaving aside whether I’d buy your Brooklyn Bridge, just how much do you imagine this house is worth?”
“The property market has skyrocketed all over the country. Everything’s, like, tripled in value in, like, ten years. Everybody but me has been making money hand over fist. Five bedrooms, three baths … This place must be worth a fortune!”
“I repeat: how much, exactly, do you think this house is worth?”
“What … five hundred? Seven-fifty? With that big backyard, I don’t know, maybe even a million!”
Shep knew his sister loved this house, and to some degree for good reason. The dark interior woodwork was all original and had never been painted over. It was spacious, and it had funk. The place had further appreciated in her head for being where she grew up, and her memories were pleasant; she’d always been the favorite. He hated to burst her balloon, but Realtors were not so sentimental. “I did some nosing around on property websites. Houses this big in Berlin are going for under a hundred grand.”
“That’s impossible!”
“Fraser Paper is closing, and everybody knows it. Haven’t you noticed how many vacant and derelict houses there are in this neighborhood? There’s talk of building a big federal prison and an ATV park, but even if they happen you’re talking a few hundred jobs tops. After making Reducing Paperwork, you of all people should know that everybody’s moving out. Property values in this area are falling.”
“They’re not falling anywhere! This house is the best investment Dad ever made!”
“Beryl, think about it. Who wants to live here? Exiled New York documentary makers who lose their rent control. That’s about it. And that’s the real problem. Even if we put this place on the market tomorrow, it could sit there for months or even years, and meantime Medicaid won’t touch Dad’s nursing home fees with a barge pole. So don’t worry about its being ‘sold out from under you.’ The worry is it won’t be.”
“Well … we don’t know how long he’s going to last, right? I mean, I’ve always heard that for a lot of old people a broken bone is the beginning of the end.”
This was ugly stuff. “Yeah, if only he’d die right away, you could get your inheritance.” He gave the last word a final hiss.
“I don’t appreciate that insinuation! I was just saying—”
Shep collected the plates. He stood beside the stack, debating. He almost let the proposition go, but—maybe it was having Dad down for the count at Androscoggin Valley—he was starting to feel less like Beryl’s brother than her father.
“The longer Dad is able to keep living at home,” said Shep, “the better it is for him, and the better it is for us. But live-in help would be expensive and, as you pointed out, intrusive. So I’m curious. There’s one possibility we haven’t talked about. What if he came back here and you took care of him?”
“No way!” she exclaimed. Clearly this option had never entered her head.
“You suggested Amelia’s old room in January—though that was before we told you that Glynis was sick. Back then, his living with you in Manhattan was out of the question, since you were about to lose your apartment. But now you’re ensconced here, and no one would be dislodged from their home, not you, and not Dad. You could make yourself useful.”
“I don’t have the qualifications! I’m no nurse.”
“I’m sure the hospital could provide physical therapy. But the main requirements will be cooking and shopping and keeping the house clean. Changing his linen, doing his laundry, keeping him company. Giving him sponge baths and helping with his bed pan. For all of which you’re qualified as anybody.”
“Dad would never be comfortable having his daughter wipe his ass. It would be totally embarrassing for both of us.”
“People change what they’re willing to accept when you change what you’re willing to give.” Shep smiled. The homily sounded so much like their mother.
“I can’t believe you’re asking me this! I don’t notice you volunteering to throw everything aside and take care of somebody else all day!”
“Oh, no? Throw everything aside and take care of somebody else all day—or all night—is exactly what I do for Glynis. While holding down a fulltime job, which I loathe, and only keep to ensure that my wife has some kind of coverage.”
Any discomfiture her gaffe occasioned was short-lived. “You’re talking about my putting my whole life on hold, possibly for years! Well, you only have a job, but I have a career! It happens to be a career that Dad himself believes in. He’d never want me to sacrifice my filmmaking about important social issues just for his fucking sponge baths! In fact, maybe I will do a documentary on end-of-life care. In which case I’d do a whole lot more old people a whole lot more good than I could ever do by hanging around here asking if a single elderly man needs a drink of water!”
“So that’s it. No? End of story?”
“Better believe it. Not negotiable, a nonstarter. Absolutely, positively no, out of the question, forget it, period.” She seemed frustrated to have run out of negatives.
When he sold Knack of All Trades, Shep had never expected to be treated with greater regard—to be provided preferential seating in restaurants, to have his small opinions accorded any extra weight—merely for having made some money. But damned if he’d expected to be punished for it.
“So that leaves me paying for the alternative—whether fulltime home help or some sort of institution. As for your free ride in my old bedroom, you’re lucky, since I’m not going to put this house on the market so long as Dad thinks there’s a hope in hell he might come back home. But I’d like you to understand that covering the costs of his care is not going to be easy for me. I have huge costs associated with Glynis, a
nd I’m no longer the moneybags you think.”
“I don’t understand,” said Beryl with genuine bafflement. “You said you had health insurance.”
Shep laughed. It wasn’t a very nice laugh, but it beat crying.
Chapter Twelve
Plenty of couples stopped having sex and were probably fine. Big deal, their libidos ebbed. There was still that cozy thing, if you shared the same bed, which he and Carol continued to do, but only because she’d not have wanted to upset the girls with even a fanciful explanation of why Daddy had been exiled to the couch. Exile writ small, the foot-wide moat of cold sheet between them was arguably more painful. She couldn’t bear the sight of him. Occasionally she turned toward him in sleep, but only from habit; stirring to find her cheek on his chest, she’d rebound with a harrumph to the far edge of the mattress. She reliably wrenched the bedding along with, leaving Jackson with nothing but boxers for cover. He’d come to detest sleeping in his underwear. The boxers had achieved the same shamefulness as his briefs in boyhood, when he’d been so mortified by the prospect of his mother spotting a brown smudge at the back that rather than toss them in the laundry he buried them in the trash.
Even if plenty of couples did cheerfully give up on sex, he had never expected Carol and Jackson Burdina to count among them. They may have got it on less often once Flicka was born, but ask Bobby Sands: there was a massive difference between a diet and a hunger strike. The loss created a sense of spoliation that spread far beyond sleep. For if he was not in bed, he was dreading when he would be. That floating, limb-tangled languor between snooze alarms used to be his favorite part of the day.
During the whole of his marriage, Jackson had chafed over a subtle inability to possess his wife. She was elusive; she held herself apart. Although Carol’s repleteness had always awed him, he didn’t covet the same blithe, needless wholeness for himself. However female the image, a little interior absence, that small soft bottomless hole that endlessly cried out for filling, made Jackson a more desirous and therefore a more desirable man. Why, were he suddenly to metamorphose into a kindred creature—a discrete, self-sufficient organism who puttered about his business as she puttered about hers, asking for and expecting nothing, efficiently and tirelessly doing what was required, well—Carol would be goddamned desolate.
So Much for That: A Novel Page 27