“Oh, sweetheart,” I told her. “We all dream of that.”
“And I could make you a vampire too,” Mary volunteered.
I smiled and opened my arms for a hug. She smelled like cherry lip balm and the faintly oniony underarm scent of a teen who wasn’t diligent about putting on antiperspirant. She felt so alive in my arms that it seemed even sadder that she was dreaming about death.
“Then you wouldn’t have to go anywhere,” Mary went on.
“When I go back to the city, you can come visit like before,” I told her.
Mary looked confused, though. A chill went through me. “Sorry—where am I going, honey?”
Mary shrugged. “Because you’re getting older…I don’t know.”
That night I didn’t take my pain medicine. I didn’t drink wine. And I didn’t sleep.
July 15, 2014
Tonight, sober as a church mouse, I managed to overhear one of Diane’s calls.
“You got it listed yet?” She stood in her upstairs hall, pacing back and forth near the top of the staircase. “Harry can’t do that!”
Oh, I wasn’t going to like this.
Diane went on. “I faxed him the power of attorney she signed.Again. The guardianship papers. What else can he possibly need?”
She listened for a few minutes, making noises of agreement. “No, we’re doing the right thing. What does she need the place for—or all that money? Dad meant for us to have it.”
So David was on the other end of the line, then.
“No, I haven’t told her about the home yet.”
Right up until that moment, I hadn’t accepted how bad the situation could get for me. In my defense, she’s my daughter. I knew she loved me. I just forgot that people can love you and still convince themselves to do some truly terrible things.
“Yeah,” I heard Diane say with a sigh. “But once it’s happened, she’ll accept it. What choice will she have? We’re her kids. She wants what’s best for us, right?”
Fine, I admit it. I cried after I heard that. I cried a lot.
July 17, 2014
In addition to the windows being hung with garlic, they locked mechanically. The door locked that way as well. I found that out by attempting to go outside this afternoon, only to have an alarm go off.
I managed to seem confused by the whole thing, so I don’t think Diane believed I had any intention of escape. I don’t think she thinks of me as a prisoner, exactly. She didn’t let me see her punch in the code to turn the alarm off, though.
July 18, 2014
All those British murder mystery shows must have been good for something. How annoyed Nigel would be if he knew.
I hid my pain pills in my cheek and flushed them down the toilet. I even managed to log in to my email on one of the grandkids’ iPads. From there, it was simple to send a message to Harry. We were able to schedule a Zoom over the Wi-Fi, with my television turned up to cover the sound of my voice.
“Tell me my options,” I said as soon as he came on the screen.
He tried, although it was difficult for him to be brief or inexact. I had signed a financial power of attorney and appointed Diane as my health care proxy while I was in that hospital. She’d used that to get a guardianship—which meant power over my health care—but so far, the trust Harry put in place kept Diane from being able to get at the bulk of the money. (It did, however, allow for the sale of the apartment.) Unfortunately, she also had power overme. And she was applying for a conservatorship, which would give her even more.
I noted that David was really trusting Diane to manage the whole thing and give him his cut. I doubted that was going to go well, but it was clear that neither of them were interested in my opinion.
“What do you want me to do?” Harry asked.
I told him, although I admit, I let him believe I had differentplans than the one already forming in my mind. Maybe I wasn’t ready to admit what I’d decided, even to myself.
