The Orange Tree

by Martin Ganzglass

  “I’ve already spoken to the Montgomery County Social Services Office. They said they would pay pro rata upon admission, and then on a monthly basis. I can go there this afternoon or tomorrow and get the check or have them forward it,” Mitch said anxiously.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Farber. Our policy is to require a full month’s payment at time of admission. There are no exceptions. Maryland laws are very strict about evicting a resident for non-payment. It is very difficult to do,” she said emphasizing each word, as if the degree of difficulty justified immediate payment. “We don’t want to evict anyone of course, but it avoids unpleasantness if payment is made in advance.” She smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry, Mr. Farber. The County will reimburse you or if we’re paid twice, we’ll repay you directly.”

  Mitch wrote out the check, calculating that if his running balance was correct, he and Ell had about $800 left in their joint account. He didn’t remember which bills had to be paid before their next paydays. Well, they may just have to make a partial payment on a credit card this month and eat the finance charges. Everyone else did. It was only a little after three. If he hurried, he could drive over to the Montgomery County Social Services Office and start the reimbursement process this afternoon.

  Sarah left him outside of 318A. Unlike the first floor, the halls were covered in linoleum, instead of wood, and there was a distinctive piney antiseptic smell, masking a fainter odor of human waste. He noticed the Mezuzah on the doorframe, knocked and peered inside. Aunt Helen was sitting on the low bed, rummaging through her clothes in the suitcase. The room was bright with sunlight. The blinds were up and he saw she had a room at the rear of the building with a pleasant view of the lawn in the back, screened from the private homes by a stand of Leland cypress. The walls were pale yellow with dark colored baseboard. A band of rustic leaf patterned wallpaper delineated the wall from the white ceiling. Two small dark wood night tables, one with a built in radio, and a medium sized dresser, all matching the baseboard, completed the wood furniture. There was an antique looking chair, with rust colored cushions, in the corner near the window. It would be a nice place for her to sit and read, he thought. Except for the linoleum floor and the call button at the head of the bed, it looked like a hotel room.

  The bathroom was more institutional. With an emphasis on safety. There was a grab bar, a pull call line and adhesive non-slip strips in the bathtub, as well as a rubber mat. Another grab bar was within easy reach of the toilet. An electronic call button was on the wall, below the towel rack.

  He sat down on the bed, careful not to crush her folded clothing. “This is a nice room,” he said recognizing the excessive enthusiasm in his own voice. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know the neighborhood. How can I do my shopping? And invite the family over for dinner?”

  “They cook the meals here for you Aunt Helen. You eat here. You don’t have to do any shopping. You’ll come over to our house for dinner, on weekends. We can’t do it during the week because we both work.”

  “Can I have ham while I’m here? she asked.

  “Sure you can. You can have pigs’ knuckles if you want.” He patted her hand.

  She continued to sort her clothes into piles, blouses here, and underwear there, the stockings separated from flowered handkerchiefs. “Mitchell. Do you make a lot of money?” She stared at him, waiting for him to answer.

  “Eleanor and I, between the two of us, are doing ok,” he said cautiously, apprehensive about where the conversation was going.

  “Good.” She beamed at him. “Good for you. You should always have a home to go to and not end up like this in a strange place.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “I’m doing the best I can for you. I love you Aunt Helen. Ell, Amy and Josh love you too.

  “And Oliver Farber. Don’t forget him.” She laughed. “God should bless your family. You and Eleanor should live to be a hundred and zvantsik.”

  “Wow, that’s more than 17 dog years.” She looked puzzled. “Forget it. When we visit you here, maybe we’ll bring Oliver. Let me help you put your stuff away.” He placed her two pairs of shoes at the bottom of the closet and hung up her navy blue coat.

  He left her slippers next to one of the night tables and stacked her sweaters on top of the flowered paper lining in the lower dresser drawer. He kissed her again, promised to bring some of her personal things, books, magazines and a few more wooden hangers and left her alone in the room.

  Mitch lost his way somewhere in the look alike shopping malls around Rockville and didn’t arrive at the County Social Services Office until shortly after 4 pm. He filled out an appointment card indicating the purpose of his visit and sat down on a hard plastic chair in the crowded waiting room. The last time he had been here, to register his aunt for financial assistance, was early in the morning. The place had seemed more friendly and inviting. Today, he thought, it was filled with “the lame, the halt and the blind.”

  “Quite busy today,” he said to the elderly black woman next to him, trying to make amends to himself for his uncharitable thoughts about the other applicants.

  “It’s the end of the month. People is hurtin. Rents due soon, no money left for medicines, sick kids.” She surveyed the people waiting. “You’re looking at a whole roomful of misery.” She drew out the words in such a melodic way that Mitch thought it could be a line from a blues song. “That’s why they haves late hours today. Ev’ry Thursday ‘n Friday. Last week of the month. The same misery twelve months of the year. Sometimes, even the same folks.” She appraised him, made a judgment that this white man in a suit and tie had a different problem than most of the others in the room, and returned to reading a worn copy of People magazine.

  By 4:55 when he still hadn’t been called, Mitch went to the assignment desk to complain. The clerk couldn’t care less. He told Mitch his situation was not an emergency, there were a limited number of case workers and he could either wait it out to see if they got to him today or come back tomorrow. He decided to stay, stepped outside to call Eleanor on his cell phone to tell her what was happening and went back into the waiting room.

  After another hour, having long ago finished the first section of The Washington Post, and skimmed through Motor Trend a second time, he was just about to give up and go home, when his name was called. He was directed through the grey double doors behind the assignment clerk down the hall to a windowless cubicle. It was empty. He sat down in front of he metal desk and stared at a poster proclaiming that if you weren’t helping with the solution you were part of the problem.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t here. Needed a bathroom break. It’s been a long afternoon. I’m Mrs. Wagner.” In one well-practiced motion, she put her purse in the lower desk drawer and slid it closed as she sat down. Mitch shook her hand and introduced himself.

  “The form says you want financial assistance to pay for your aunt in a nursing home.”

  “Yes. I spoke to somebody here before I brought my aunt down from New London. She said she would be covered. A Mrs. Albright, I think her name was.”

  Mrs. Wagner put on her glasses and thumbed through the loose papers in the case file. “There is a memo here that Mrs. Albright spoke to you on September 6th. Your aunt has come down from New London?”

  “Yes, I drove down with her this past weekend.”

  “When was she admitted to,” she paused looking for the name of the nursing home, “the Greater Bethesda Hebrew Home?”

  “Just today. She stayed at our house until they had a vacancy. They had promised me one for Sunday but,” he hesitated recalling Ell’s explanation of what a vacancy meant, “the room only became available today.”

  Mrs. Wagner nodded and pushed a paper across the desk. “Complete this application and mail in the financial information for your aunt. The file indicates her only source of income is Social Security. You’ll have to verify that she has no other assets.”

  “That won’t be a problem.” Mitch filled out the form, in a hu
rried, almost illegible print. He wanted to complete it and get away as quickly as possible with the assurance of financial assistance. Maybe he was lucky that it was the end of the day and Mrs. Wagner wanted to finish up and go home also.

  “Oh, oh,” she said, as she perused the completed form. “Mr. Farber. You live in DC.” She didn’t ask it as a question. It was more of an accusation.

  “Yes,” he said warily.

  “I can save you the trouble. Your aunt isn’t eligible for coverage from Montgomery County.”

  “Why not? Mrs. Albright told me she was,” he asked, unable to suppress a note of alarm in his voice.

  “That was before you brought her to the District.”

  “What’s that got to do with it,” Mitch replied in frustration.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Farber. The rules are quite clear. Montgomery County doesn’t provide financial assistance for DC residents. If we did, we’d be flooded with people coming from the District for the County’s social services, which are much more generous than DC’s coverage.”

  He forced himself to take a deep breath. “My aunt is not a DC resident,” he said slowly for emphasis. “I moved her down from New London to the Greater Bethesda Hebrew Home. They didn’t have a bed for her and she stayed with me. I couldn’t put her out on the street. As soon as they had a room, I moved her to the Home,” he explained, trying to persuade her.

  Mrs. Wagner closed the folder. “There’s nothing I can do, Mr. Farber. Those are the rules.”

  “This is crazy,” he said loudly. “If I had moved her from New London immediately into the Home, you would have paid for her. Right? That’s what Ms. Allbright said.”

  “Ms. Allbright probably thought you lived in the County since you were applying for benefits from us. But you don’t. You live in DC. And we don’t pay for DC residents.”

  “She’s not a DC resident and the Home is in Montgomery County,” he repeated.

  “Mr. Farber. I don’t make the rules. Don’t get excited.”

  “I damn well will get excited,” he shouted, perversely provoked by her advice. “If the Nursing Home didn’t have a bed and I parked in your lot for four lousy days and lived in my car with my aunt, you would have covered her. Isn’t that right?” He leaned closer, waiting for her to answer.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Wagner said, glancing nervously toward the door. “We would have. The rule is based on residency. You can appeal if you want to.”

  “You can damn well count on it. It doesn’t make any sense and I’m not going to let you or the County get away with it. Give me whatever forms you have for appeal because I am going to fight this all the way.” He leaned back in the chair, flushed and angry.

  She handed him an appeal form. “You won’t need to file this until you get an official denial and the reasons for it.”

  He grabbed the forms from her. “I’ll file them as soon as I can. You know what the decision is and so do I. The reasons stink and I’m going to say so.” He stormed out of the cubicle, brushed against a burly uniformed security guard coming toward him in the narrow hall, and went out into the parking lot. As he sat in the car, he realized the guard had been on his way to Mrs. Wagner’s office to see what the shouting was about. He was shocked he had been seen as a physical threat to someone, and ashamed of himself for losing control.

  He was still fuming about this bureaucratic idiocy when he got home. “Aunt Helen could have lived in the dumpster behind the building and they would have covered her. But because we took her into our house, we’re out of luck.” He picked at the dinner Eleanor had reheated in the microwave.

  “Tell me how Aunt Helen reacted to the Home,” Ell asked.

  Mitch recounted the visit, filling out the forms in Sarah Gould’s office and leaving his aunt sorting out her clothing on the bed.

  “You make Sarah sound like the nurse in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?”

  “Nurse Ratched? No, I just found her too efficient and not a good listener,” he said. “That’s not the problem, Ell. I feel like crap. I just dumped my aunt in a home. I’m afraid it’s going to kill her and I’m responsible.”

  She reached out for his hand, and held it, gently rubbing her fingers over his skin. “You’re not a bad person Mitch. You know that. We’ve been through a lot together.” She smiled at him. “We’ll get through this, we’ve done it before. Don’t feel guilty about what you did. It’s ok. You talked to your sister and she agreed. It’s the best we can do for Helen under the circumstances. We need to help her adjust. I’m sure there are skilled people at the Home who can guide us on this. We’re not the first family to go through it.”

  “Yeah, I know. But when they telephoned her room was ready, I almost shouted for joy. That was the reaction of her loving nephew. Hooray. I’m getting rid of her. And you should have seen the look of fear and despair when I asked her to sign the forms. It was like she was signing her own death sentence.”

  “I don’t know whether she thought that. Look, Mitch, she now has us. We’re nearby. It’s not like you abandoned her at the Home and we’re going to forget about her forever.”

  “What can we do with her?”, he asked. “She can’t walk very far. Sometimes, she’s not even on the same planet as we are.”

  “We’ll do what we can with her,” Ell replied quickly.” You know, our usual schedule, shopping, weekend chores, Amy’s soccer practice and games, driving the kids everywhere. She can ride in the car. We can bring her over for dinner. One of us can go the Home after dinner during the week. We’ll make it work,” she said reassuringly. “By the way, Josh is in “Guys and Dolls,” this fall,” she laughed. “Not a big part, but he’s in it, and very excited about that.” He nodded his head in agreement but he was thinking of the logistics of moving Aunt Helen. It was already a constant rush to get to Amy’s practice on time, or to Hebrew School and her Bat Mitzvah class.

  Ell squeezed his hand, trying to raise the question naturally, without being accusatory. “I don’t understand why Ms. Albright didn’t tell you there was a problem with our living in DC when you first met with her?”

  Mitch sipped carefully at his coffee, discovered it to be lukewarm and drank it in long swallows. “Ell, I honestly don’t recall telling her where we lived. I think what happened was we only talked finances-about how much money Aunt Helen had, how I could show that she only has her Social Security, the nursing home’s costs and that this home was on the County’s approved list. Now the problem is what are we going to do about paying the Home? The appeal could take months.”

  Eleanor rubbed his fingers gently. “She’s not a DC resident. You know, if you applied for financial aid from the District, I’m sure they’ll reject it. Then you could use that …”

  Josh interrupted, jumping down the last three steps from the second floor and careened into the dining room. “I finished my homework, dad. Can you watch me play air guitar?” He rolled his eyes, seeing his mother holding his father’s hand.

  He was about to say no, not now, when Ell squeezed his hand harder.

  “Go on. After the kids are in bed, we can have a glass of wine and come back to this?”

  “Come back to what?” Josh asked, more curious now about what his parents had been talking about. “How come you guys are drinking wine on Thursday night?

  “We were talking about Aunt Helen, Josh. Come on. Show me what you can do.”

  They had finished an entire chilled bottle of their favorite chardonnay, nibbling on cheese and crackers and talking about Aunt Helen. They digressed often enough, to discuss Amy’s bat mitzvah coming up in June, how to juggle her Hebrew and Torah study classes with the Saturday soccer schedule, when they should talk about the type of party- appropriate to celebrate the event, but not too lavish so as to obscure the religious theme; how to keep Ell’s mother from feeling left out as they dealt with Aunt Helen.

  Afterwards, lying in bed, while Ell took a shower, Mitch thought falling in love with the right person was a combination of blind luck and
a miracle. She was so supportive. So much a part of him. When she had mentioned that they had been through a lot together, he had been overwhelmed by his love for her and the children. That phrase was her shorthand for the deep scar on their collective memory. Her first pregnancy had ended with a heartbreaking miscarriage in the middle of the first trimester. They had anxiously endured the second pregnancy. Ell had called her gynecologist far too often, nervous that every exertion or strain, upset stomach or pain was an indication that the fetus was no longer living, no longer growing within her. By unspoken mutual agreement they had superstitiously refrained from doing anything to openly acknowledge they were going to have a baby. They had cautiously celebrated the third month milestone. After the fourth month, they had painted the baby’s room and started shopping for a crib. Eleanor had miscarried two and a half weeks later. After all these years, Mitch could still recall the helpless desperation of their frantic drive to the emergency room, Ell begging him to hurry, clutching her lower abdomen and uttering a sharp cry followed by moans of “No. No. Dear God. Please. No.” as the fetus slid out.

  Even after the births of Amy and Josh, Mitch knew Ell was at times overwhelmed by an illogical, panic inducing fear. Being blessed with two healthy children was only temporary. Something evil was lurking for them up ahead, some unforeseen and unavoidable tragedy which would take her children from her.

  He knew she thought they complimented each other perfectly. They had met at NYU at a Young Democrats event. He had been a senior, majoring in economics, minoring in statistics. She had been a sophomore and a political science major. They had dated seriously for the rest of the school year and maintained a lonely, long distant relationship, interspersed by passionate, but all too short, weekends, while he went for his masters in labor economics at Cornell.