With some trepidation I showed my sister the brochures I had obtained from Advantage House in Hingham, an assisted living facility ten minutes from my condominium.
I wasn’t surprised when she said, “I don’t think there’s going to be anything on the menus I can eat.”
I wasn’t surprised when she said, “I don’t think there’s going to be anything on the menus I can eat.”
I confessed my answer to Kathie: “I’m afraid I said, `Then
you’ll starve.'”
“Oh dear,” said Kathie, who would never say
anything like that, even in jest. We had looked at a menu in the brochure a
couple of weeks ago, and yes, for breakfast there were items like eggs and
bacon and sausage—no-no’s for Jan—but there were also cereals and toast and
fruit. As for the mid-day dinner and the evening supper, Janeth said unhappily
that she supposed she’d just have to change the diet she has adhered to so
carefully for decades. I tell her the meals would be the kind that Kathie and Frank and I
have been eating for years, and they haven’t damaged our health.
She says, “What about . . . “ then stops. I know
what she’s thinking. She’s thinking about my lumpectomy years ago and the 30
days of radiation. I had no side effects except for irritation over the daily
drive to Mass General. And I didn’t blame Peter Pan’s Peanut Butter for the inconvenience.
Tonight I decide to prepare
“Skillet Chicken Breast with Vegetables,” a recipe I found on Google. I will
double the ingredients so Jan will have enough for at least two dinners. Red
wine is an ingredient in the recipe; do I have any red wine? I look in the
cupboard and pull out a bottle of Sauterne. It looks red. My sister will
approve because red wine is good for your health, like dark chocolate. The
bottle slips out of my fingers. It doesn’t break, but it spills gorily and
requires a tedious cleanup.When I have finished using my foot to push a large square of terrycloth around the floor (it’s too painful to mop it up any other way), I see a sort of black doodle that has resisted my efforts to eradicate it. Is it something in the wine bottle like the mother in raw vinegar? I look more closely. No, the doodle is not superficial; it is a permanent scar on the white surface. I say to myself irrationally: “It’s HER fault!” Then Kathie calls. I tell her about the disaster in the kitchen but don’t tell her I blamed Janeth. I say I’ll put a Band-Aid on the scar when company comes.
All the hours on the phone, all the forms sent to banks along with a copy of my Durable Power of Attorney, all Janeth’s fears that her savings are gone from the dozen different annuities she has, all her worries about having been robbed. . . all these concerns are beginning to be resolved. With three checks made out to Janeth Black, I call her and say we’re going to the bank.
She comes down to the car, and we set out. When we
get to the bank, we sit down at the desk of a woman named Laura, who soon finds
that she needs to keep repeating herself. She has trouble understanding our
concerns, and we don’t understand her at all.
I announce that we are here to deposit three checks
to my sister’s account. Jan supplies her social security number and date of
birth. Laura looks at the screen.
“There has been activity in the account, and the
balance is quite low.” Jan and I swivel our heads and exchange looks—hers
panicky, mine puzzled. It turns out this was the checking account we’d reserved
for Jan’s Social Security deposits.
“She has another account,” I say, and give Laura
the information. Laura looks at the new information on her screen.
“A check was returned to us on April second, due to
insufficient funds.” I hear the tsk-tsk in her voice.
“I know that. I forgot to deduct the check my sister
gave to her lawyer.” Sheesh, it could happen to anyone.
The balance is reassuring. Laura asks Jan to
endorse each of the checks and write “For deposit only.”
“Why do I do that?” Jan asks.
“If you were to drop a check in your travels, no
one could cash it as long as you write those words on the back.”
On the way home I’m thinking about what a novice I
am in the world of finances. Jan says out of the blue, “You’re so smart!” I
tell her what I'd been thinking, and we laugh. Back at her building, she retrieves
her cart from the trunk, and we hug goodbye.
I call Jan to find out how things went with her
dentist appointment.
“The new dental assistant had an odd quirk. She
kept saying, `How does that sound to you?’ It was such a broken-record question
that it drove me crazy.”
When the dentist finished cleaning Jan’s teeth, she
said another appointment would be needed to take x-rays. “How long does that
take?” About five minutes. Jan said, “I can last that long, let’s do it now.”
The assistant said, “You’ll need to open your mouth very wide. How does that
sound to you?”
Janeth calls to tell me again
about Ray’s eighteen-page letter, this time supplying details.“He compared the way he felt about me to a movie he’d seen.”
I listen to Ray’s account of the movie the way mothers listen to their children giving a scene-by-scene narration of a movie’s plot. Not attentively enough to be able to repeat much of anything, if asked.
Jan’s conclusion, “He is a man who has loved me and
still loves me more than any man in the world ever loved me.”
“You’re lucky to have such a good, helpful friend.
What do you want done with letters like that? Do you want them to go to Linda?”
Jan utters a big OH! For a moment I think my
question has offended her, but no, she is in shock for a different reason. The
balcony curtain that shields her from prying eyes in her eighth-floor apartment
has just fallen down. She is distraught about this loss of privacy.
“You said Ray might be coming on Sunday. I’m sure
he can find a way to put the curtain up again.”
“But how could such a thing happen?” I know what
she is thinking. Someone could have come in while she was seeing the dentist
and tampered with the support for the curtain.
“Maybe Ray jostled it when he was working on your
TV.”
“That’s impossible. The TV is way across the room
from my balcony.”
“Well, Ray can fix it, I’m sure.”
Jan says, “Remember what
Vaughan used to say? `If it isn’t one thing. . . .’”“It’s another,” I supply.
“No,” says Jan, “If it isn’t one thing, it’s two.”
I like Vaughan’s version better. I tell my sister I love her and we exchange the hugga-huggas that end a long phone call. This is the best way for me to be a caregiver, now that I’m trying to avoid too much walking. Thank heavens for Ray.
“How can I bring my awful bed that hurts me when I bump into the edge?” she asks. “What would I do for furniture?”
“The apartment comes completely furnished with towels and sheets and the works. You won’t have to bring a thing. They always have one ready for what they call respite. If a family is going to be away for a couple of weeks and can’t take care of a relative, this is the solution.”
My sister is still upset about her destroyed privacy. “My
curtain has fallen down.”
“I know,” I said. I was on the phone with you when
it happened. Is there a building with an eighth-floor apartment that faces
yours?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if you look out that balcony window, can
you see anyone with a window facing yours?”
“I never looked, Bar-ba-ra!”
“Try looking now.”
“But people can get up on the balcony like the man
that assaulted me. They can get up on scaffolding when the building is being
worked on.”
“That was months ago. It isn’t being worked on now,
so your privacy shouldn’t be a concern. Anyway, didn’t you say Ray might be
coming tomorrow?”
“Ray? There’s no way he can fix it properly. It
will need new fixtures.”
“Okay, call the office on Monday and tell them
about your problem.”
“They aren’t going to be able to do anything with
that big chair in the way and all the other things in the way.”
“Professionals know how to work around the
furniture. Just think of men who come in and put new carpeting down. Think of
the sofas and wall units and tables and lamps they have to get out of the way.”
Jan finally says she’ll call the office. “I’ll just
have to live with it for two days, no privacy at all for two days.”
I say, “You hate living there, don’t you!” Yes, she
says, she hates it.
“We’re going to get you moved out as soon as we
possibly can.”
Jan calls to tell me Ray has worked on the curtain rod.
“He did a pretty good job, but the curtain is a little shorter than it was before, so there’s a peek-through opening at the bottom. I gave him an atta-boy anyway.”
He took her to the supermarket after he fixed the
curtain.
“We were able to find some really cheap tonic with
quinine, only eighty-nine cents for a big bottle. I’ve rinsed out a Polar tonic
bottle very carefully and thoroughly because there isn’t room in my
refrigerator for the eighty-nine cent one. I’m going to pour tonic from the big
one into the smaller one. Do you think it’s safe to leave the big bottle on the
counter after I’ve opened it?”
I say it’s probably okay for a few days. She’s
going to take the chance—it was only eighty-nine cents; if it goes bad she’ll
throw it out.
Jan’s fears for her security continue. I visited her today, parked in front of her building and called to tell her to meet me outside. I walk over to the small park nearby. It’s a beautiful day, about sixty degrees; a man is sitting on a bench, reading the paper. There are other benches, but I’m not there to sit down and enjoy that stranger, the sun. I’m there to look up at the top floor where Janeth’s apartment is. An upward glance makes it clear that no one, even on a very long ladder, could possibly see into her living room.
When she comes through the door, I take her arm.
"I want to show you something, Jan." She
comes with me to the little park. I turn her around and point to the top floor
of her residence.
“Look, you don’t have to worry about anyone peeking
into your window." Janeth stares upward for a moment.
“They can if they’re on my balcony,” she says, her
voice rising. The man with the newspaper looks up. “Have you forgotten that I
was assaulted in the middle of the night by a man on my balcony?”
“But that was back when there was scaffolding in
front of the building. Now that there isn’t any way to climb onto the balcony,
you’re safe.”
“He can get onto my balcony another way, there’s a
place….a place….up there where those white columns are, there’s a place. . .I
don’t want to talk about it!”
“You don’t have to, dear.”
As we walk back toward the building, my sister
tells me again in a loud voice that a hand had seized her and wrestled her to
the floor. Bystanders stare, as I try to calm her.
“That must have been awful! I remember asking you
how he got out on the balcony, and you said, `He came up on the elevator, of
course.’”
“I didn’t say ‘of course! That was just
someone’s guess. Everyone was making guesses as to how it happened.”
I do what I should have done
much, much sooner: change the subject. “I’ve been thinking about the patches the neurologist gave you for the pain in your shoulder. I’m wondering about the back pain you have if you try to stand up straight. Maybe putting patches on your back would relieve the pain.”
“I don’t even know how to use them,” she says
helplessly. “I don’t understand the instructions. It says to leave them on for
twelve hours, and sometimes I find myself taking them off at six o’clock,
sometimes at eight. It’s all just too confusing!”
“When you move to Advantage House, there will be
nurses to help you keep track of things like that. I do hope this will happen
soon.”
Jan calls, tells me a social worker named Nell is
there and is recommending an assisted-living facility in Quincy, Hancock House.
I am irritated that Nell is complicating matters but try not to show it.
“Jan, you’re on the waiting list for Advantage
House, and it’s only ten minutes away from me.”
Jan calls again after the social worker leaves. She
says she doesn’t like having Nell know that she might be moving. “It’s my
business, nobody else has to know.”
“You’re such a private person, Jan. Moving to
Advantage House isn’t anything you need to keep a secret.”
“That’s what I’d like to do, keep it a secret.”
I ask how the visit with Nell went.
“We just sit here, not knowing what to say to each
other. She’ll be paying her last visit next time.”
“Didn’t she try to help with anything?”
“I wanted her to call in a prescription for me, but
she said she doesn’t do that. She did say that when I dispose of the vial, I
should peel off the information on it. I’ve been trying to do that. It’s really
hard to do.”
“Peel off the information? I never heard of such a
silly thing! Why did she tell you to do that?”
“Well, I guess if someone sees the writing on the
label, they can steal your identity.”
“That’s absolutely crazy! Just put the empty vial
in the chute and down it will go with the rubbish from all the other residents.
Wait till Kathie hears that this woman is adding to your worries with talk of
identity theft! That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard!”
Jan’s voice is a half-shriek as she says, “I didn’t
say Nell said anything about identity theft! I just figured this was why she
wanted me to peel off the information!”
“Oh. Well, I don’t know why on earth she told you
to do that, but I’m sure you don’t need to.”
“That’s what she says when she advises me to do
something. She says I don’t have to do it.”
“Do you have a prescription that’s running out?”
“It has six or seven days left. Nell said I’d have
to call Baxter’s and then call my doctor to get her approval. ”
“The pharmacist will do that for you. I’ve done
that a million times, called in a prescription, and the pharmacist says it’s
expired and he’ll call the doctor.”
“It’s all just too much,” says Jan.
“Give me Baxter’s number and the number on the prescription,
and I’ll do it for you.” When we finally hang up, I’m exhausted, and I’m sure
she is, too.
I call Jan again at six, wanting
to be sure she is okay.“I’m trying to take the leaves off my Romaine before it’s rotten.”
I ask if she knows to separate the green part of the leaves from the hard, tasteless white spine.
“Yes, the part that looks like celery I put in the toilet. I have a lot of deli stuff in the refrigerator, but I don’t know which I should use up first. There isn’t any date on the cartons.”
"You’ll have to use the smell test." She laughs, but during the rest of the call she sounds forlorn and lost, as if she doesn’t know what to do at the moment or at any moment in the future.
People who have stayed there enthuse about how good
the meals are. The trouble is, good food is not a turn-on for Janeth. She is
suspicious of anything that has additives and preservatives, having read an
article claiming that substances like . . . .
I just looked up the latest on additives and
preservatives and find my sister has good reasons for being suspicious. This
will be my Mother’s Day gift to her—admitting I shouldn’t have been so sure she
was mistaken about the notion of chemicals in food.
Jan was amazed at how much Linda
accomplished. “I just trusted her with the papers, and a big bag of them was
taken away. And the trampoline is gone. Linda told me that trampolines were
good exercise for the mentally impaired, and Tiffany had used one when she was
younger. I said if it might help some child, she could take it.”This was my niece’s most diplomatic achievement.
Another frantic call. “Guess what I’ve done now! I left the patches on my leg all night. They’re only supposed to be on twelve hours! How could I be so stupid?”
“Jan, it wasn’t stupid, it’s perfectly understandable when you consider what an unusual weekend you’ve had. Our dinner with Kathie and Frank at the Marriott Saturday, dinner with Linda Sunday at the Hearth & Kettle.”
“It’s good of you to think up excuses for my
craziness.”
Kathie and I exchanged a series of e-mails. She is
concerned about the patch, thinks Jan should discontinue its use, will do some
research. She learns that the patch Dr. Martin prescribed is Tylenol, which
isn’t as strong as others.
We both know that Jan’s use of the patch is a
futile exercise. It will have no effect on the infection she is convinced she
got from Dr. Martin’s dirty fingernails. The scene of the alleged crime shows
not even a bruise, just a few pink spots on the back of her leg.
Linda predicted that her mom would come up with
something critical, despite her hours of work. She was right. I stopped briefly
at Southern Artery Apartments today, meeting Jan in the office so copies could
be made of her insurance cards for her respite stay. Then we went up to #822 to
see how her apartment looks with the trampoline gone.
“This is just wonderful,” I say. “It’s a big improvement.”
“But I'm worried. I’m afraid Linda has thrown out a
stack of envelopes with friends’ addresses on them.” She demonstrates what the
stack looked like, outlining them with her hands. “She was working so fast, I just tried to stay out
of the way and trust her not to make any mistakes.”
“They weren’t letters, they were envelopes!" she exclaims. "How can I write to my friends if Linda threw their addresses away?”
A couple of hours go by while I work in my study,
with part of my mind wondering if I should call my sister. The phone rings. Janeth says she wants to apologize.
“You don’t have anything to apologize for, Jan.”
“Yes, I do, but those envelopes were vitally
important to me. Back before Wally died we had an address book, but after that
I never kept addresses in a book where anyone could see them. It was nobody’s
business who my friends were. I just saved the envelopes and planned to write
some letters after I retired. Now that I’m going to Advantage House, I’ll be
retired and I’ll have time to catch up on what’s happening with my friends.”
“Janeth, we’ve reached an age where we don’t have
very many years left. It’s time to let
go of things. We should focus on what’s
really important.”
“Old friends aren’t important?”
“Not if it means hurting Linda’s feelings by
finding fault with her after she worked so hard to help you.”
Surprisingly, she listens to me and says nothing
further about the envelopes.
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