When the Cat's Away

by Dane McCaslin

  "I know that's not true," Laura said, her sweet, oval face becoming even more earnest. "Lily and I always adored you when we were children."

  Helen adored her nieces in return, but she wasn't foolish enough to admit it right now. If she showed the least sign of weakness, she would find herself surrounded by grand-nieces and grand-nephews, and Auntie Helen would spend the rest of her life as an unpaid babysitter. She'd worked hard for the last twenty years, coddling one bunch of babies—her ex-husband and his cronies—and she wasn't about to replace them with a new set. No, her job was done, her career as the state's first lady was over, and she had every right to enjoy her retirement. Alone.

  Laura smiled encouragingly, and there were still traces of the chubby little round face she'd had as a toddler.

  Despite herself, Helen said, "I might be willing to visit you and your myriad of children occasionally."

  "That would be lovely." By the look in Laura's eyes, she'd forgotten she was here to browbeat her aunt, and instead was daydreaming about the dozen or more babies she planned to create with her Howie.

  "Never mind the babies," Lily said. "You need to decide which of us you'll live with."

  "I'll disinherit both of you if you don't stop this foolishness right now."

  Lily shrugged. "You probably disinherited us years ago and willed all your money to charity."

  "You'll find out eventually." Most of her substantial estate was going to charity, but the girls had also been provided for. They obviously didn't consider being disinherited much of a threat, presumably because they knew she cared about them too much to actually do it, even if they did persist in helping her against her will. Whatever little leverage the threat gave her, though, was better than nothing. She was not moving out of her cottage.

  "We don't need your money, Aunt Helen." Laura absently re-fluffed a pillow. "We have perfectly good jobs."

  "Then how do you find the time to come bother me?" Helen said, struggling to get out of the recliner. This had gone far enough. It was time to show them to the door. "You should be at work, not spending half the day coming here to bother me."

  "We don't work on Sundays." Lily said. "You know, forgetting the day of the week is one of the signs of mental disorientation."

  "You are not going to commit me to a mental institution just because I sometimes lose track of the days of the week now that I'm not tied to a calendar." Helen leaned against the arm of the recliner, waiting for the ache in her hip to subside enough to allow her to walk without a pronounced limp. "Especially since I know that you work plenty of weekend hours, Lily Binney, so it's perfectly logical for me to expect you to be working on a Sunday."

  "Very good." Lily smiled, her face still sharp, but no longer quite as worried. Lily had never had a sweet little baby face. By the time Laura was born, Lily had already looked and acted like a miniature adult. "You're still mentally alert."

  "If anyone even thinks of committing me," Helen said, "I'll get out my Rolodex. You don't want to see what happens then."

  "I know what you can do with a few phone numbers," Lily said. "I'm sure it's enough to strike terror in anyone's heart."

  Laura ran out of pillows to fluff. "We just want to help, Aunt Helen."

  "We don't want to commit you," Lily said, letting some of her frustration show, "but we really think you should come live with one of us so you aren't alone. It isn't safe for you here."

  Neither of the girls would be easy to dissuade from their current plan. Lily was single-minded and thick-skinned. Laura was easily distracted, but also easily hurt in confrontations.

  "I'm perfectly fine here." Why couldn't they see how happy she was here? The cottage had always been her refuge from her public life as the governor's wife. Vacation time spent here had given her the strength to get through the rest of the year, when she'd worked long hours charming all of her husband's constituents and cronies as he worked his way up the political food chain. "I've spent a good part of every summer here alone for a dozen years. You weren't worried then."

  "It's different now," Laura said. "You're older."

  "I'm forty-five," Helen said, struggling not to snap at the sensitive Laura. "That doesn't make me feeble."

  "No," said Lily. "Your lupus flare-ups make you feeble."

  Laura, who should have been used to her sister's blunt comments, still looked shocked. Laura patted Helen's arm. "It's just that you could have been hurt badly when you fell last week, and no one would have known you were in trouble."

  "I'm perfectly fine," Helen lied. Her hip still didn't feel right, even though the bruise had faded, and the x-rays had ruled out a fracture. Standing just these few minutes, even leaning against the chair, had caused it to ache again.

  "That's not what Dr. Jamison said," Lily insisted. "Your hip joint is already a mess with all the inflammation, and he wants to replace it before it's too late."

  "Surgeons always want to chop you up, with the least little provocation," Helen said, although she knew they were probably right about the surgery. "What ever happened to doctor-patient confidentiality, anyway?"

  "Dr. Jamison is just trying to help you," Laura said.

  "Heaven save me from people trying to help me," Helen muttered. "Looks like I'm going to have to get out the Rolodex after all and call my lawyer."

  "You don't have a lawyer any more," Lily said. "You only threaten to call one whenever you've run out of logical arguments. I still remember when you threatened to hire a lawyer to force me to eat my dinner."

  Trust Lily to remember that. She'd been all of about four at the time, and Helen had been terrified her niece would starve to death while in Helen's custody, since Lily had refused to eat anything at all for twenty-four hours. Lily had been right not to eat, even if she'd been unable to explain why at the time. It had turned out that she had a stomach virus that would have been much worse if she'd eaten even a fraction of what Helen had pushed at her.

  Now was not the time to dwell on past mistakes. She couldn't lose this battle. "This time I mean it. I'm calling my lawyer."

  Helen shook off Laura's hand and headed across the great room for her desk, forcing herself not to limp, despite the pain in her hip.

  "You don't have to do anything desperate." Laura trailed behind her. "Come live with me and Howie. We'll feed you and drive you where you want to go and spend lots and lots of time with you."

  Helen was horrified by the prospect of all that help and would have said so if she hadn't known her niece was only offering what Laura, herself, would have found appealing in the circumstances.

  Helen turned to face her loving, helpful nieces. "I've got everything I need right here, thank you. Including a bunch of things neither one of you can provide."

  "Like what?" Laura asked.

  "Solitude, for one," Helen said. "Peace and quiet, and no one to distract me from my hobbies."

  "I didn't know you had any hobbies," Laura said. "Maybe we can do them together. I was thinking about learning to knit so I can make baby clothes."

  Lily would never believe Helen was taking up knitting. She needed to come up with something that at least sounded plausible. Helen glanced in the direction of the desk cabinetry that lined the side wall and thought of the boxes hidden inside there, filled with the detritus of her political career. "Scrapbooking," she said. "I'm going to do something with all the pictures and newspaper clippings from my days in the governor's mansion."

  "You'll hate scrapbooking," Lily said, ignoring her sister's disapproving look. "I'm giving you one last chance to decide for yourself which one of us you want to live with."

  Even if Helen didn't want to live alone, it was an impossible choice. Laura would smother her with attention, and Lily would try to dictate Helen's every move, until one of them snapped. She crossed the room to settle back into her recliner, hoping her face didn't reveal the relief she felt at getting off her feet. "I am not living with either one of you. That's final."

  "Something's got to be done." Lily sta
red at Helen for several long moments, apparently testing their respective resolves. Helen held herself still, refusing to blink, despite the sharp pain in her hip, vaguely aware of Laura's anxious glances back and forth between her sister and her aunt.

  Finally, Lily picked up her purse with a frustrated huff. "If you won't move in with one of us, how about getting someone to come live with you?"

  "I'm too old for a roommate." Helen caught sight of Laura's face going from worried to dreamy. "And I'm not interested in a lover."

  "Why not?" Laura said. "Howie's got an uncle who's a widower. You'd love him."

  "No matchmaking," Helen said. "Either one of you tries that, and I'll move to California, and your children will never, ever meet their great-aunt."

  Laura looked stricken, and Helen tried not to care.

  "What about a visiting nurse, at least?" Lily said. "Someone to bring you meals and monitor your prescriptions and just check in on you, to make sure you haven't fallen again."

  "I don't need a babysitter," Helen said.

  Laura, whose hurt feelings always healed as quickly and easily as they were bruised, perched on the arm of the recliner and leaned in for a hug. "I'm sure we could find a nice, helpful nurse who would stop by to visit you a few times a week. As long as you're okay, she'd just say hi and then leave right away. That wouldn't be too disruptive for you."

  "Forget it, Laura. She isn't going to be reasonable," Lily said, heading for the front door.

  "Leaving so soon?" Helen didn't trust Lily's surrender. She was a lot tougher and more single-minded than her sister, at least when it came to any subject other than babies.

  "Lily is getting her suitcase out of the car." Laura's voice sped up, the words running together the way they always did when she was trying to forestall an argument. "She's going to move in with you. See, I can't, because of Howie. He wouldn't like it if I left him alone, and we're trying to get pregnant, so of course I have to be home when he is, and Lily isn't married, and she only has her job (Okay it's a demanding one.), but she does come home for at least a few hours a night, and so she's got to be the one who moves in with you, not me, although I would if it weren't for Howie and making a baby."

  Laura ran out of breath and words, and looked away guiltily, but she didn't move from her perch on the arm of the recliner, effectively trapping Helen. Through the front window, she could see Lily wrestling a suitcase out of her trunk. She had to be bluffing. Except the luggage looked heavy, far more than she'd need for a single night's stay. If it was a bluff, it was a convincing one.

  Maybe it was time to compromise. It would be easier to keep Lily out now than to evict her once she'd settled in.

  First, Helen needed to get away from her reluctant guard. "Why don't you go help your sister with that suitcase?"

  As soon as Laura stood up, Helen grabbed the lever to drop the footrest and free herself from the recliner. She met the girls as they returned to the front door, and blocked their re-entry. "Let's talk about a compromise. How often would this nurse person have to visit in a week to make you happy?"

  Laura said "three" at the same time Lily said "five."

  That was what they'd wanted all along, Helen thought with relief. A visiting nurse. "I could probably live with once a week."

  Lily looked at Laura and they both said "three times a week."

  Lily's hand tightened on the handle of her suitcase, signaling her intent to drag it over the threshold. "That's our final offer."

  "Okay. Three times a week." Helen watched to see if Lily would release her grip on the suitcase. "But the nurse just pops in her head, makes sure I'm breathing and not bleeding, and then she leaves."

  "Deal," Lily said, abandoning her suitcase. "We'll find the perfect nurse for you, and I'll take care of the payments through the account I manage for you. You won't have to do anything. You can enjoy your retirement, without any stress whatsoever."

  "Right," Laura said. "We're here to help you, after all."

  Helen understood, however reluctantly, that they were trying to help her. She even understood that maybe, just maybe, they were right in that she needed to have someone check on her occasionally.

  But they didn't have to be so damned cheerful and efficient about it.

  * * *

  Just three days later, Lily and Laura returned. Helen had hoped it would take weeks, maybe even months, for them to find a visiting nurse, but she had agreed to the plan, and she was prepared to make the best of it, to keep her nieces happy. It was for her own good, after all, and she was confident she could handle the three brief visits each week.

  The woman with them was tall, solidly built, and the softness around the edges of her face suggested that she was in her fifties. She wore standard white nurse's clogs, but instead of a white lab jacket or pastel scrubs, she wore bright purple pants and a pink smock printed with purple teddy bears. Even Laura, when she'd been five years old and at the peak of her pink-and-purple phase, would have considered the colors too silly.

  Helen stared at the bright teddy bears for another moment. They might actually be a good omen. Lily had told her the nurse specialized in geriatric patients, which, in the absence of an autoimmune disorder specialist on the local agency's staff, was a reasonable choice for someone who could handle the wide variety of symptoms that a system-wide disease like lupus could cause. If the nurse thought her scrubs were appropriate for working with adult patients, though, she was probably as silly as her shirt, and Helen would have her wrapped around her little finger in no time at all. Then she could enjoy her solitude again with minimal interruption and without hurting her nieces' feelings.

  She stepped back from the door and let the three women inside, thinking that as soon as Lily and Laura left, Helen would have a nice, little chat with Nurse Goldilocks, and convince her that none of the bears in this cottage were "just right." No, the bears around here had sharp claws, huge teeth, and enough strength to tear a visiting nurse to pieces.

  Once everyone was inside and the front door was closed against the chilly morning air, Laura said, "Aunt Helen, this is Melissa Shores. I'm sure you two are going to be the best of friends."

  "Pleased to meet you, sweetie," Melissa said, folding Helen into a brief one-armed hug, overwhelming Helen's tense resistance. Finally, Melissa let her go and raised her six-pack of Diet Pepsi to eye level. "If you'll excuse me, though, I'll go put these in the refrigerator. Wouldn't want my soda to get warm."

  No problem, Helen thought as she made her way over to the recliner. The woman wasn't going to spend enough time at the cottage to need a drink, warm or cold.

  Laura took a seat at the far end of the sofa, leaving the spot closest to Helen empty. Lily remained standing behind her sister's shoulder, and said with fake nonchalance, "Melissa should have a set of keys to the cottage, in case you can't get to the door to let her in. I already gave her mine. The one you gave me a few years ago."

  "I remember." Lily had wheedled it out of Helen during a weekend-long visit a couple years ago, and then had stubbornly refused to return it, using one excuse after another. "I gather the key wasn't permanently lost, after all."

  "I found it in the last place I looked," Lily said with a straight face, and if Helen hadn't known her so well, she might have believed the innocent act.

  "You know we're doing this because we care about you," Laura said.

  Helen did know that, but it didn't change how much she hated being seen as needing help. "I suppose it's my own fault that you two turned out so bossy. I was a bad influence on you. I'll never understand why my brother ever let you visit me when you were young and impressionable."

  "But we love you, Aunt Helen," Laura said.

  Helen felt a brief pang of guilt, and then rallied. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

  "Aunt Helen's trying to say she loves us too," Lily told her sister as she came around the sofa to pull her to her feet. "We should leave now, though, so she and Melissa can get to know each other."

&nbs
p; The nurse was just returning from the kitchen, a soda can in each hand. Melissa saluted the girls with her soda, taking care not to spill the open can. She waited until the front door slammed behind them before turning her attention on her new patient.

  Helen stared back. She had better things to do with her life than dealing with a babysitter. How was she going to convince the woman to leave her alone and not tattle on her to the girls?

  Helen needed to gather more information on Melissa, just as she'd collected information on her husband's allies and enemies in her Rolodex, to find her weak spot. For now, all she was certain of was that the woman was older than herself. Her age probably explained why she was so obviously excited about a light duty assignment. She'd probably spent decades working hard at helping people. People who, unlike Helen, had wanted and needed that help.

  Melissa set her two cans on the side table and sank into the sofa. "Now that your lovely nieces are gone, sweetie, we can really get to know each other. It's always hard the first day, to be without your family, dealing with someone new."

  "I got over separation anxiety forty years ago," Helen said. "I don't need my nieces to make me feel secure."

  "Good, good," Melissa said, sliding to the edge of the sofa, ready to get to her feet. "But I can tell you're nervous, sweetie. How can I help?"

  "You can go away," Helen said. "I don't really need any help. I just agreed to hire a visiting nurse to make my nieces happy. All you have to do is pop in, confirm that I'm alive, and then leave."

  "Oh, but my contract calls for a minimum one-hour visit," Melissa said. "More if needed."

  "I won't tell anyone that you left early," Helen said. "You can bill the agency for your time, and I won't complain. You'll get paid, and I'll be left alone. Everyone wins."

  "You want me to not do my job?" Melissa shook her head. "I can't do that. It wouldn't be right."

  It figured, Helen thought. She had to get the one virtuous employee left on the planet, someone who was intent on providing an honest hour's work for an honest hour's pay. Helen would just have to make the most of it, looking for an angle to leverage the nurse out of her life.