Chapter One
Aunt Dottie
Theresa Gallagher peered at the registered letter the postal worker handed her. She did not recognize the return address, nor did she know anyone in Tempe, Arizona. As she scribbled her signature on the green card, her fuzzy memory clicked in. She recalled her mother telling her and her sister Margaret about their Aunt Dottie, who left home at seventeen “and moved out west.” Dottie had been the rebel of the family, and trouble hung around her like a humid day in July.
Dottie had been caught shoplifting on more than one occasion. Smoking in the girl’s bathroom in high school was another one of her “stunts,” as her father liked to call them. Truancy was also one of Dottie’s specialties. Her parents tried pleading, then bargaining, and eventually moved on to threats. Their father was growing more impatient by the day and swore if Dottie got into trouble one more time, he was going to send her away. But Dottie didn’t wait for trouble to find her again. At sixteen going on seventeen and looking like she was twenty, Dottie packed her bags and left home with no forwarding address. A short note was left on the kitchen table:Heading out to find myself, since no one seems to like who I am here.
Dottie’s mother Agnes was undoubtedly horrified. Her husband, Floyd, was relieved. As far as he was concerned, Dottie was going to ruin his marriage. He and Agnes would be up until all hours of the night arguing about what to do with their oldest daughter. Her father wanted to send her to a juvenile facility, but Dottie never got into the kind of trouble that would cause a judge to send her to a detention center. She never harmed anyone or committed a felony. Agnes insisted it was simply a matter of rebellion and wanting attention. The situation put enormous pressure on the family. It was inevitable that sooner or later someone, or something, would blow a valve.
It wasn’t that her father didn’t love her, but he grew to resent her—something that could eventually turn to hatred if she kept it up. He had had enough of leaving work to fetch her from the security guards at the local department store. What made matters worse was the gossip. Floyd Carpenter was attempting to build his plumbing business and knew his customers were developing their opinion of him as a father. She was always getting in trouble; Floyd worried that the next thing would be her getting pregnant. She didn’t have a regular boyfriend, but hung around a few unseemly types, the types that would surely end up in jail. Floyd truly believed Dottie’s departure was for the best. He hoped that she would find a better circle of friends and turn her life around. If not, the family wouldn’t have to suffer through her shenanigans.
Agnes blamed her husband for Dottie’s exit. He blamed her for Dottie’s bad behavior.
Months passed before they got word from her via a postcard from New Mexico. It said little except how beautiful the scenery was. She signed it with a capital D. NoLove, Dottie, noMiss you, no nothing except a scribbled letter of the alphabet. Life in the Carpenter family went on, but Dottie’s absence didn’t bring the peace that Floyd anticipated. The tension between Agnes and Floyd remained. It was thick. You could cut it with a knife.
Agnes didn’t pretend that Dottie was coming back. She knew in her heart she might never see her daughter again. She went to church every week and prayed her child would be safe, but that was all she could do. She peeled the posters off Dottie’s bedroom walls, painted the walls a bright shade of yellow, and took the room for herself. She and Floyd never slept in the same room ever again, and rarely spoke to each other.
JoAnne was grateful she only had one more year of high school before she could leave for college. She had hopes to go someplace not too close to home, but not on the other side of the country. She worried about her mother. She believed her mother would die of a broken heart, and at the age of fifty-five, Agnes passed away from a pulmonary embolism. By that time, JoAnne was married with two daughters, Theresa, and Margaret, and lived fifty miles away.
When Theresa and Margaret were growing up, JoAnne rarely spoke about her long-lost sister, especially in front of other relatives. JoAnne thought it was a blemish on the family. As far as she was concerned, Dottie abandoned her, leaving the family torn to pieces. An occasional Christmas card would arrive, leaving a vague and dead-end trail. JoAnne saved the cards and the envelopes to try to determine Dottie’s whereabouts, according to the postal mark. They were always from somewhere out west. Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona. It was JoAnne’s private secret, and a souvenir from her sister.
Theresa hadn’t heard Aunt Dottie’s name in years … until now. The letter was from a neighbor of Dottie’s, informing Theresa that their aunt was now in a nursing home in Tempe, Arizona. The neighbor said she was able to track down Dottie’s last known relatives, and thought the family should be made aware of the situation.
Theresa immediately phoned her sister Margaret, and they debated what to do. “We don’t know her,” Margaret said.
“But now that Mom is gone, we’re her only family,” Theresa responded.
“What do you think we should do?” Margaret asked, but truthfully, she was inclined to do nothing.
“We should go to Tempe to see her. Make sure she’s okay.”
“Are you crazy? I can’t just drop everything to fly to Arizona,” Margaret protested.
Theresa argued that if their mother were still alive, she would want to know. To help.
“Okay, fine. I’m still not going, but if you want to go, I’ll pay for half of your airfare.”
Theresa knew that was the best she was going to get and booked a flight to Phoenix for the following week. In the meantime, she hoped she could find a few missing pieces to this puzzle.
Theresa recalled there were some of her mother’s belongings in the attic. They had been sitting there for decades, ever since her mother died. She had meant to go through them but would always put it off. She pulled down the disappearing staircase that led to the area she rarely visited. If she needed something, she usually asked her husband, Brian, to fetch it, but this was a personal mission.
She gingerly climbed the ladder-type steps and grabbed the pull chain that turned on the exposed light bulb. There were dozens of bankers boxes marked with names and dates, an old wooden rocking chair, and more hastily marked boxes of various sizes. A colonial-style maple headboard and footboard from decades ago were resting against a small nightstand. Theresa spotted an old steamer trunk that belonged to her mother. Inside were boxes of photos. She cleared a space on the attic floor and began to go through them. There had to be over a hundred of them. Some were black and white; others were from Polaroid cameras, many of which were faded. All of the photos were of people she didn’t recognize, except for one attached to a few postcards with a rubber band. It was a photo of her mother when she was in her early teens, standing next to a young woman, two or three years older. Theresa was able to make out a scribble on the back of the photo that readDitzy Dottie and Me. The postmarks on the postcards were smudged, but she could make out one of the dates: 1971. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
As Theresa squinted at the photo, she noticed the woman next to her mother was wearing a small, art deco style ring on her left hand, and remembered her mother telling her that Dottie swore she would never take it off. It had been a gift from their grandmother when Dottie had turned sixteen. Theresa continued to sift through the memorabilia, but the photo was the only thing that contained a clue. When she was convinced there was nothing left to find, Theresa tossed everything back into the chest. Something for another day. Maybe. Maybe never.
Theresa had a lot to do before she left for Arizona. Part of her preparations included checking the website of the care facility. See what kind of place it was. When she searched Sunnydale, an impressive website appeared touting the many services the facility offered, from Senior Living to Assisted Living to Long-Term Care. They also had a rehabilitation center for post-operative “clients.” She noticed they didn’t use the word “patients” when describing the multi-tiered accommodations.
Theresa continued to peruse the site. The company had three Sunnydale complexes, one in Arizona, one in New Mexico, and one in Florida, all with similar lodging. She clicked on the Tempe, Arizona location. The photos were impressive, as was the virtual tour. The place was luxurious. It looked like a five-star resort or a well-appointed gated community.
A long circular driveway ran from the security checkpoint to an impressive building called Manor House. The lobby resembled that of an upscale hotel, with a wood and slate front desk. The video led her down a hallway to the left of the welcome counter to an exquisite restaurant with an adjacent patio. The smooth disembodied voice listed some of the many activities they provided for their “guests.” The patio was lined with tall vegetation that obscured any view of the other buildings, and the tennis, pickleball, and shuffleboard courts. There was even a putting green within the outdoor activity area. Theresa leaned into the back of her chair and wondered:Did she have the right place?She then clicked on an aerial view that exposed several other buildings separated by a long line of foliage and landscaping, and another wide drive. There was a small clinic, rehab, and long-term care on the opposite side of the roadway. They were distinctly separated from the senior living and assisted living quarters.
The camera drone took her above the duplexes that lined the roads, which were dotted with golf carts.
Theresa continued to read the multitude of positive reviews and the company’s mission statement:Life is a series of transitions. We are here to guide you through them with ease. Make the most of your journey with us. She smirked. That surely didn’t say much, but she supposed a picture is worth ten thousand words. She then speculated how Dottie could afford to live in a place like that. What she did know was that she knew nothing about her aunt or her life. But that was about to change.
The following week, Theresa arrived in Phoenix, rented a car, and checked into her hotel located close to Sunnydale. It was late in the afternoon, and Theresa was still on Eastern time and decided to shower, order room service, and call it a day. Her plan was to get up early, get a few steps in, and then drive to Sunnydale. It was time to close the familial gap.
The next day she typed the address into the GPS and drove toward Sunnydale. The trip took a little longer than she expected. The place could almost be considered off the grid. That would explain why they had a mini-clinic on site.
