The Good Life

by Susan Kietzman

  “I know that,” said Ann, softer and slower. “But I also know we can get through this.”

  “Then you’ve decided,” said Mike, stiffening.

  “No, honey,” said Ann, extending her legs so her bare feet touched Mike’s thigh. “I’m still trying to decide. But you tell me what you’d do if you were the only child and your seventy-two-year-old mother, who has been single-handedly taking care of your seventy-two-year-old father, called you and asked for help.”

  Mike’s concept of parents and what they represented had become clouded and dark since their accident and death. Their untimely passing had made him a very wealthy twenty-two-year-old man, and he wasn’t sure he would give up everything to have them back. “I don’t know,” he said, looking at the melting ice cubes in his glass.

  “I know,” she said, gently digging her toes into his leg. “You would help them. And though you can no longer help your parents, you can help mine.” Mike rubbed his forehead with his thumb and index finger. “You know this falls on my shoulders, Mike,” said Ann. “I will do everything. You will have to do nothing.”

  “This is bigger than you think.”

  Sensing a slip in his defenses, Ann began making a mental list. Mike stood and crossed the room. He dumped the remaining half of his drink in the bar sink, and then faced her again. “This conversation is not over.”

  “I know,” said Ann, hiding an inner smile.

  “I’ve got some more work to do before turning in,” he said. “Let’s sleep on this and talk more about it tomorrow.”

  “Come here,” said Ann, standing. And when Mike again crossed the room to stand beside her, she wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head momentarily on his chest. “You’re a good man.”

  “Not necessarily,” he said. “I’m a businessman. What, if anything, is in this for me?”

  “My happiness,” said Ann, the champagne working its way through her system like electricity through a circuit.

  “Umm,” said Mike, kissing her on the mouth.

  As soon as he left the room, she scurried over to the bar and silently opened another bottle. She downed half a glass, then ran to the kitchen for a legal pad and mechanical pencil. Back on the couch with her champagne in arm’s reach, she started her list. She scribbled notes and drank for an hour, then she turned out the lamp beside her and lay down for a moment. She awoke early in the morning, with the cashmere blanket from the armchair draped over her.

  Two hours and three Advils later, Ann showered, dressed, drank a supplement shake, and drove her fifteen-year-old daughter, Lauren, to the public high school. They rarely talked on the ten-minute drive, so it was easy not to tell her the news. Ann would tell her and Nate, sixteen, as soon as everything was in place. She would also have to tell their housekeeper, Emma, whose duties would be affected, at least temporarily. After the drop-off, Ann called her mother on her cell phone, fumbling the numbers twice in her haste. She kept meaning to add her phone number to her contact list; this new arrangement would finally prompt her to actually do it.

  “I hope we won’t be too much trouble,” said Eileen, picking up on the third ring as she always did.

  “No trouble at all,” said Ann. “I’m going to set you up in the guesthouse, with your own caregiver.”

  “Oh, we don’t need all that,” said Eileen, sucking in her stomach. “We’ll be fine. And we can come to you if we need help.”

  “This will be better for both of us, Mother,” said Ann. “The only thing you’ll have to come to us for is dinner on a Sunday afternoon.” On her way to the coffee drive-through, Ann told her mother to pack winter clothes for herself and Sam. “We’ll arrange to have more sent as we need them,” she said. “And you won’t need anything else. The guesthouse is completely furnished.”

  “This is all happening so quickly,” said Eileen.

  “I thought this was what you wanted,” said Ann.

  “It is what I want, what I need,” said Eileen. “There are just so many details to work out.”

  “Like what?” said Ann, switching lanes.

  “Like the house,” said Eileen. “What do we do with our house while we are living with you?”

  Ann told her mother they had a couple of options. They could rent the house. It was only ten minutes from the local agricultural college and would certainly attract a professor or staff member with a family. Or, they could simply sell it. Since they would be moving from Ann’s guesthouse to Meadowbrook, they wouldn’t need it anymore. Eileen could think about it, and then Ann would call a Realtor, either way. All Eileen had to do was tag the pieces of furniture she would take with them to Meadowbrook. The rest would stay with the house as part of the package. “Meaning we’ll be moving from Meadowbrook to Oakdale Cemetery,” said Eileen, grimly.

  “Oh God, Mother,” said Ann. “There’s no need to get morbid here. Hold on a moment. Yes, I’ll have a large low-fat caramel latte. And make it hot.”

  “Are you still there?”

  “Mother, I’m ordering a coffee.”

  “In the middle of our conversation?”

  “Welcome to the twenty-first century.”

  “I miss the twentieth,” said Eileen. “Life was simpler. I can barely find what I need in the grocery store, there are so many products crowding the shelves. The other day, I was looking for a block of cheddar cheese, you know, to grate onto my tuna casserole? Well, the blocks are gone, replaced by bags of already shredded cheese, coated with something to prevent the pieces from sticking to one another—corn starch, I think it is. Who in the world needs that?”

  “Many people prefer that, Mother. It saves time.”

  “What are people so busy doing they can’t grate cheese?”

  Ann breathed heavily into the phone as she took the cardboard cup from the girl with a nose ring at the window. She immediately set the latte down in her cup holder, handed the girl a dollar, and then cradled the phone between her shoulder and neck so she could sanitize her hands with Purell. “Thank you,” she called as she zoomed out of the drive-through lane.

  “Well, thank you, Ann,” said Eileen.

  “For what?”

  “For taking us in,” said Eileen. “Are you talking to me again, or are you still distracted?”

  “Yes, I’m talking to you,” said Ann, pulling the car out into traffic. She blew the horn at a teenage driver who tried to pass her on the right.

  “Ann?”

  “I’ve got to run, Mother,” said Ann. “People drive like maniacs in this town. I’ll call again in a few days to see how you’re doing. Try not to worry. Everything is going to be okay.”

  As soon as Ann got off the phone with her mother, she called her decorator and asked her to come immediately. Dede Devore expeditiously rescheduled all of her appointments that morning and arrived at Ann’s front door, fabric books in hand and lipstick retouched, forty-five minutes later. “My parents are coming,” said Ann by way of greeting, leading Dede quickly through the foyer and into the kitchen.

  “So, you want to redo one of your spare bedrooms?” asked Dede, trying to hide her disappointment.

  “I want to redo the guesthouse,” said Ann, handing her an espresso.

  “For a weekend visit?” she asked, taking a sip.

  “For a prolonged stay,” said Ann. “Let’s take those books out back.”

  Ann and Mike had built the guesthouse along with the main house three years earlier. The combined 8,500-square-foot structures stood majestically at the end of Foxwood Lane, number sixteen, accessed by a divided crushed shell driveway. The house was a white 7,000-square-foot stucco box, with a semicircular, columned portico attached to the front. Looking at the house from the street, the living room was on the left, the dining room was on the right. The kitchen, Mike’s study, and a den ran along the back of the house, as well as a bathroom large enough to hold a sauna, which, in the end, Ann decided belonged in the basement next to the workout room. It looked remarkably like the White House in Washingt
on, D.C., so much so that everyone in town referred to it as White House West. The guesthouse was less grand in appearance, but spacious enough to accommodate two couples or a family of four for a weekend.

  Before moving to Foxwood Lane, the Baronses lived on the other side of town, adding onto an aging house in an old neighborhood three times in ten years. The house eventually outgrew the neighborhood, as did the Baronses when Mike became CEO of Dilloway. The construction of the new house took nine months, but everything was ready when they moved in, from the landscaped flagstone patio and pool area to the painted walls, window coverings, and furniture Ann had meticulously chosen with Dede. The guesthouse matched the main house in its traditional decor—Ann loved floral chintzes, subtle stripes, and rich colors—but it would never do for simple, elderly people like her parents. Ann was convinced they needed a country look if they were going to feel at home. “The walls should be a cream color, I think,” said Ann, opening the guesthouse door and walking down the hallway into the living room. “Something soft and soothing, an antique white maybe.”

  “How about some stenciling on the kitchen walls along the ceiling?” asked Dede, laying her books down on the coffee table in front of the couch and adjusting the waistline of her shirt, making sure the fabric camouflaged the small mound of flesh at her middle. “Some hearts or ducks, something pastoral.”

  “That sounds great,” said Ann. “My mother would love that. Let’s go with hearts.”

  The living room furniture, they decided, was too formal and would have to be put in storage. Dede would replace it with inexpensive wood composite furniture that Ann could simply donate to the Salvation Army after her parents’ departure. The furniture in the bedrooms could stay, but the duvets would be replaced with quilted, washable bedspreads, and the window treatments would be scaled back to simple, pinch-pleat panels that could be drawn closed in the evenings. Dede jotted down notes as they walked back into the living room, where she asked Ann about a budget. “Don’t worry about that,” said Ann. “I don’t want you to go overboard, of course. Keep in mind these are farm people. Spend more time and energy on the larger bedroom, where my parents will stay, than the other one. And make sure the fabrics you select are washable. God only knows what kind of spills and accidents will happen back here.”

  “Would you like to look at some fabrics?” asked Dede, her green eyes wide and attentive.

  “I’m going to leave that to you,” Ann said. “Give me three choices for everything and we’re in business.”

  “Great,” said Dede, smiling at Ann through pink frosted lips as she mentally calculated her profit on the job. “When do you want to get started?”

  “The sooner the better,” said Ann, leading Dede back out the door. “They will be here in as soon as two weeks. Is that enough time?”

  With an unlimited budget, Dede knew she could find painters to work that very night. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll get things rolling as soon as I get back to my office.”

  Yellow legal pad in hand, Eileen stood in their bedroom closet, looking at Sam’s sparse half: three button-down flannel shirts, four white button-down broadcloth shirts, two pairs of stained khakis and one reasonably clean pair, two pairs of navy blue sweatpants, a flannel bathrobe, a dark gray business suit, and a rack of outdated neckties. Everything hung on wood hangers spaced inches apart along a six-foot chrome bar, like clothing in an expensive women’s boutique. The painted pine shelves at the end of the bar housed Sam’s favorite navy blue, V-neck sweater that had worn through Eileen’s darning job at the elbows, a light gray cardigan sweater, two faded sweatshirts, a pair of Cloud 9 walking shoes Sam used to wear when Eileen took him to the mall for some exercise, and his favorite brown wing tips. However, his feet had become so swollen from medication and disuse that he spent most of his time in a pair of ancient sheepskin slippers that Ann had sent from L.L.Bean the Christmas after she married Mike. When he went to the Lutheran day care, Eileen shoehorned his red, scaly feet into a pair of soled moccasins she had picked up at the mall several months ago. They were undignified, as Sam had called them when he insisted on wearing the wing tips that first day, but they were comfortable and would keep Sam’s feet dry on the way from the car to the church parish hall. Eileen decided she would pack the flannel shirts, two of the white shirts, the sweatpants, and the blue sweater. She would also take the moccasins and slippers, as well as socks, boxer shorts, and pajamas from his dresser—and his gray fleece bathrobe hanging on the hook in their bathroom. He would need some new items though, which she jotted down on the pad: two pairs of khaki pants, a gray sweatshirt, and one pair of comfortable shoes—size eleven, not ten! When Eileen turned, realizing she ought to check the condition of his boxers, she just about ran into Sam, who had silently traversed their bedroom carpeting and was standing less than a foot behind her. “Oh!” she said, putting her free hand to her chest. “You scared me.”

  Sam frowned, his full head of white hair looking like it had lost the war. “Why in the world would you say a thing like that? I have every right to be here.”

  “Of course you do, dear. I guess I was just lost in thought,” said Eileen, combing his hair with her fingers. She would have better luck after his shower.

  “Not a bad place to get lost,” he said, turning away from his wife. He moved slowly back into the bedroom. When he reached their double bed, he sat down. “What’s on the docket for today?”

  “Errands.”

  “I hate errands.”

  “That’s why you’re going to the center,” said Eileen. “They need you today.”

  “They sure do,” said Sam, pushing himself up off the bed. “Frankly, I don’t know how they run that outfit when I’m not there.”

  “Let’s get you in the shower,” said Eileen, looking at Sam’s damp pajama pants. “And then we can get dressed and be on our way.”

  Eileen walked Sam into the day-care center and left him with Janice, an always optimistic fifty-five-year-old nurse and Eileen’s favorite volunteer. Eileen watched them walk to the armchairs, where Janice helped Sam sit before getting him a donated copy of yesterday’s New York Times. As usual, Sam turned immediately to the business news. Eileen watched a moment longer, then walked back down the hallway to the director’s office and knocked on the door. Penelope Jennings looked up from her computer screen, her black round glasses resting on her pink round cheeks. She smiled genuinely, and waved Eileen in. “How’s our Sam today?” she asked, standing. “Can I get you some coffee?”

  “No thanks,” said Eileen. “And Sam’s okay. He seemed happy to come today.”

  “That’s good. That’s what we like to hear,” said Penelope. “I’m sorry about all the trouble last week.”

  “Don’t be,” said Eileen, holding up her hand. “You offer a wonderful service here for clients who match your criteria. Sam is moving into another category.”

  “Do you have plans?”

  “Yes,” said Eileen. “We are leaving in a week or so to live with our daughter in Michigan.”

  “No kidding,” said Penelope, folding her arms across her chest. “I’d forgotten about your daughter.”

  “She’s far away,” said Eileen.

  “Yes,” said Penelope.

  “So, I’m here to thank you, for everything you’ve done for Sam. Next Tuesday will be his last day.”

  Penelope walked out from behind her desk and hugged Eileen. “We will miss him,” she said into the space behind Eileen’s left shoulder. “Underneath his disease, he is a good man with a good heart.” Eileen’s eyes began to tear up. She looked at the muted industrial-quality drapes covering half the window behind Penelope’s desk. “And you are a good caregiver,” said Penelope, releasing Eileen and moving two steps back. “One of the best I’ve seen. You’d be surprised at the number of people who drop their husbands, wives, grandmothers, and grandfathers at the door without a word. They don’t have to say anything; the burden and resentment are written all over their faces. They’ve forgott
en the good days.”

  “I understand that,” said Eileen. “Sometimes they’re easy to forget.”

  “Hold on to them,” said Penelope, putting her hand on Eileen’s shoulder.

  “We try,” said Eileen, struggling to sound cheerful. She then shook the director’s hand.

  “If your plans change and you stay in town, call me. I’ll help you find the right place for him.”

  A sad smile on her face, Eileen thanked the director again, and then walked out the door, closing it quietly behind her.

  The guesthouse redecorating was finished eight days after Ann first spoke with Dede, and cost Mike Barons $20,000. During that week, Ann had been successful in hiring a caregiver, a retired nurse who lived up north but had a sister in town who had responded to Ann’s ad in the local newspaper. Only two things remained on Ann’s list: renting her parents’ house and physically getting them from Pennsylvania to Michigan. Charlene Dennis, the real estate agent in Clearwater, was optimistic about renting the house. Not only was the college close by, but so was a large agricultural processing plant in need of experienced shift supervisors. Between the two, an outsider would surely get hired and need to relocate. And, Charlene said, offering a furnished home was a bonus. A single man or family pressed for time could sign the contract in the morning and move in that afternoon. Ann grabbed a hot pink sticky note from the kitchen counter and stuck it to her list. On it, she wrote: Call Charlene! Her biggest worry was getting her parents from point A to point B. She had no doubt her mother was a fine driver—she did everything well—but a trip across two states was radically different from a trip to the corner market for milk.