Complicated Care

by Denise M. Hartman

  “I heard at one time more of the rich and famous had houses there than in Beverly Hills. Secret like.”

  “That can’t be true today. I think the whole island only has 80 homes or so.” Blanche looked at Al perched in his recliner with the beige fishing hat today.

  “Well, sure that was back in the day. My daughter says the head of the company she used to work for helicopters from the island to Palm Beach every day to work. Helicopters!”

  “That’d be quite a commute. Can you imagine? It’s none of Diane’s business if I help Edna or go out there. I want to hear Edna’s side of things first.” Blanche looked out the condo window at the clouds and glimpses of blue Florida sky. Hard to imagine the crazed wind of the hurricane last night. “Wasn’t there something about pirates hiding their booty on the island way back?”

  “I imagine it has hid a lot of things through the years. I think the mob used it in prohibition too. But say, Blanche, doesn’t it pique your interest about checking the bills? You don’t want anyone getting defrauded.”

  “I don’t trust the Dragon. I feel like she’s up to something besides checking on Edna, or how nice the people are out there and what the cost for aspirin is. I don’t want to be involved in her business. It can’t turn out well. Someone will get burned, and it’s not going to be her. I hope it’s not Edna.”

  “She did sweep Edna out of here without a party or a second to tell anyone goodbye. Nothing.” He fidgeted with his canes.

  “I make it a policy not to go to nursing homes anyway. I gotta get ahold of Edna on the phone or something. Now I know where she is, I can talk to her.”

  “You visited Edna in the hospital that time.”

  “Hospitals are different. Besides, there was a reason. We needed information.” She turned toward the pieces of shutters stacked against the sofa to organize them.

  “You’re not going to be able to avoid old folks homes forever. All your friends are getting older. You’ll have to make a courtesy visit sometime.” Al hauled himself up with his canes.

  “A courtesy visit is not the same as imbedding myself out there for days. But I have young friends too. Like my volunteer friends in the police booth in the mall.”

  Al grunted.

  Chapter Eight

  Blanche got up and put on her purple house coat. She relished the smell of the coffee brewing and reached for her first cigarette of the day. Oh how she loved leisurely mornings after the narrow routine of getting to an office every morning for more than 40 years.

  She passed through to her dining table where she could glance out the window at the amazing blue clear sky of a Florida morning and read her Sun Sentinel. It amazed her how fast a hurricane disappears from the sky after all the news casts running up to it for days and all the prep. Then poof it’s gone. Like Edna from her apartment. This thought disagreed with Blanche.

  She flipped another page of the paper. Mostly the news seemed to repeat itself, she felt, after reading the paper for years. The annual seat belt story, the annual back to school story, the annual summer festival round up, the annual roads under construction and then there was city, county and state politics. Politicians and their various attempts to up the taxes. Here was another one. Would they ever realize half the state was on a fixed income and another who knows how many were immigrants struggling to get by? “We aren’t made of money,” she said out loud picking up her coffee cup. Politicians and government needed to learn to get by like the rest of the common folk.

  Speaking of money, another article featured a new Medicare Fraud Strike Force that was set up just for Florida. Apparently a national version existed, but so much happened in Florida that they were special. Maybe the billing business Diane mentioned was real? Maybe she could call the strike force.

  An article on an increase of illegal drug imports caught her attention. It was scary to a former landlocked Midwesterner to think about the quantity of drugs that could pour onto the more than 1,200 miles of Florida’s coast line and muck up the quality of life that had moved her here. Retirees didn’t like to hear about things like this. But, facts are facts and you gotta face up to them as best you can with what you got in you, Blanche thought shaking her head.

  Normally she barely scanned the real estate section headlines since she’d bought her last home as far as she was concerned. A little voice said unless someone gets you to buy into a retirement center. She shrugged a chill away. She did not want to go to one of those places. It would be like admitting defeat. She turned to the headline. “Twin Mansions in Royale Cove may be double the deal.”

  It was funny how things caught your attention in series. Before the Dragon asked her to go to Royale Cove, she hadn’t thought about the island at all. Now it turns up again so soon. Do other things come in threes like deaths as the saying goes? She wondered if Royale Cove would come up again soon. Or was it just that your brain tuned in to something you hadn’t thought about before and then noticed it more? Like the Medicare Strike Force.

  The article explained how twin millionaires had built two identical mansions on the island side by side 25 years ago. The real estate people speculated these would be a “steal” because a feature of the island was how unique each house was. The identical five bedroom, seven bath homes in need of updating and extras would be a great investment for a savvy investor. Blanche sat cozily in her two bedroom condo on the fourth floor a few miles away. She chuckled about updating and extras. People in Boca Raton didn’t know how to make due with what they had. She did like to go on house tours and see how the other half lived though.

  Blanche put down the paper and got her tiny black computer onto the dining table. She refilled her coffee and determined to speak to Edna. She wondered if Edna had a cell phone yet, like Al. She couldn’t find a listing of numbers with Edna’s name.

  She tried searching the center and a central number was not the first thing that popped up. Blanche found it interesting that a facility offering public service wouldn’t be more forthcoming with their contact information. She searched in a Tallahassee database for care facilities and found a couple numbers. One out of service. The next one answered the Health Center of Royale Cove. They informed Blanche this was a high care wing and not for all the patients. They couldn’t help. She wangled another phone number out of them in her most professional secretarial way.

  The central phone system. “I’d like to be connected to resident Edna Williams.”

  “I’m sorry ma’am but most residents have their own phones and we’ve done away with individual phones in rooms.”

  Blanche smiled in her voice, “Oh, but I’m sure you have provisions for her to call me at such a prestigious center.” Blanche dictated her number and Edna’s name again. “How long until I can expect her call?”

  The woman’s voice was very smooth. “I’m not sure ma’am. We will have to find where she is. It’s quite a large facility.”

  “I’ll be waiting.” Blanche always found a sense of someone waiting could help speed things along. But times were changing. She looked at the clock. In one hour, she’d call back. She finished reading the paper and poured more coffee.

  She called again. She was retired she could do this all day. Besides it helped her avoid condo troubles.

  Blanche repeated the earlier conversation, pretending there must have been a misunderstanding. She explained carefully she was waiting for Edna’s call.

  She washed up her coffee things and her ashtray. Finally her red phone rang and she crossed to the windows and the end table.

  “Edna! It’s good to hear your voice. I didn’t know where you are when you called before but your Dragon came to see me the other day. What has she done to you?”

  “Listen, I don’t have long.”

  “Aren’t you allowed phone privileges?” Blanche’s radar went up. She didn’t like the sound of that. “Or a cell phone?”

  “Coverage is dicey out here on the island. The Dragon took mine to replace it. People are all around me here at
the moment it’s hard to hear.”

  Blanche pictured Edna with her big thick glasses and hearing aids pressing the phone tighter to her ear.

  Then Edna falsetto whispered, “I think I need some help here.”

  “Did you get forced into moving?”

  “Of course, but there’s something else.” Had the Dragon had an instinct for something going on after all?

  “What is it? I thought your daughter was being crazy.”

  “She is. Don’t tell her I called. She seems very intense about me being here in this specific room with this specific lady.” The whisper again, “But this is different, listen, I think someone is slipping me mickeys.”

  “You mean mickeys like illicit drugs?”

  “I don’t know. Yeah. Not sure why they’d do that. But sometimes whatever it is, makes me lose my mind for a few hours. I’m afraid they’re gonna put me in the cuckoo bin....ooh. I gotta go.”

  The last was a whisper and the connection broke. The hair stood up on the back of Blanche’s neck just beneath her bouffant hair-do. This was not good.

  Chapter Nine

  Blanche pounded on Al’s door a few minutes later.

  Al opened up, “It’s early for a visit from you. You lose something?”

  “Yeah, my peace of mind.”

  Blanche brushed past him into the apartment. Al’s place sported a patina of well-used. After his wife Jocey died, he hadn’t changed anything and the years were passing the furniture by.

  “Your clothes don’t match. Are you okay?”

  She’d dressed so quickly that her nylon jogging suit bottom and top she’d thrown on were not from the same set. That too was disconcerting.

  She threw herself on the crushed sofa and leaned forward as Al settled into his easy chair.

  “I just had a phone call from Edna.”

  “Must not a been good with you all lathered up.”

  “It was short but she seemed to think someone’s drugging her.”

  “I hear they do that a lot in those nursing homes. Keeps the clientele docile, you know?”

  “But no, that’s not what she meant. She didn’t feel like she could speak freely and she broke off the connection before she could explain. Not tranquilizers but something not on the record.” The coffee taste in Blanche’s mouth had gone bitter.

  “Oh. That doesn’t sound good at all.”

  They both sat quietly for a moment. It was the fear of all independent seniors to get hurt and have to go to a nursing facility or worse yet to be pressured into one by well-meaning relatives. Then you find yourself at the mercy of strangers. Mostly they’re good, but what if not?

  “You know, they can’t just get away with this stuff if it’s blatant or illegal and if it’s not, well then, they’re trying to do what’s right for the person. Maybe?” Al said.

  “I suppose bad things do happen with good intentions. I guess the Dragon must have some instinct about something going on that she didn’t want to admit. But she didn’t mention this.”

  Blanche bit her lip and realized she’d gone out without lipstick as well. “We can’t call in a complaint without something to show for it. They have to get inspections and official reports and such. Maybe I could call Tallahassee and see what sort of papers the Royale Cove Care Center files. See if everything is in order.”

  “Aren’t you going to go out there and take a look?”

  Blanche didn’t like the idea at all but poor Edna. “I don’t know. I don’t like those places. Besides, You have to have a way to get there by water. You can’t just drive on over.”

  “I think you need to go.” Al adjusted his fishing hat, green today, on his bald head.

  Blanche thought hard. Her heart still beat fast thinking about Edna’s voice. “I don’t know what I could actually do on an island.”

  “I think there’s a ferry or something down at the Boca Resort docks.” Al said.

  Blanche perked up. “Okay. Meet you outside in 15.”

  “Make it 30,” Al said organizing his canes to stand.

  “Right.” Blanche headed back to her apartment to put herself in order. She needed to see Edna now.

  They rallied in the parking lot and loaded into the old Lincoln with the now taped up back window space. The sun broke through the last of the clouds and blue skies once again backdropped the palm trees and bougainvillea mostly stripped of flowers and color now. As they drove the short distance, Blanche noticed ground crews everywhere clearing the remains of Hurricane Miguel’s blast. She’d swept up the broken glass but the car would not be fixed so easily. She cringed at taking a parking ticket for the marina at the famous Boca resort hotel all pink and pretty and tall. She could park near the hotel for free but didn’t want to subject Al’s cane’s to the long march to the marina area.

  “Do you remember where exactly?” Blanche had a plan of action, if getting on a random boat was a plan. She was ready to do something. Anything.

  Al muttered. Blanche realized he didn’t want to admit he wasn’t sure. So they drove the dock side road keeping an eye out for anything that looked NOT like a yacht. As they patrolled they saw a terribly well used ferry that didn’t live up to the rest of the vessels pull into a dock nearer to the main parking lot. Blanche did an illegal turn to get herself parked quickly.

  When they were out of the car and moving, Blanche saw that quite a lot of people were getting off the boat. Day trippers she assumed. As they drew closer and the crowd passed them. Blanche thought they looked suspiciously like the ground crews they’d just passed in the city. She started to board the gangplank when a man in a uniform stopped her. He approached with a clipboard.

  “Uh oh,” Al said under his breath.

  Blanche put on her best secretary smile.

  “Names?” The stout man asked without preamble.

  Blanche gave them.

  “You’re not on the list.”

  “Oh. You’re sure?” Blanche said buying time.

  “How’d you get on the list?” Al asked looking between the guy and Blanche.

  “Employees and designated guests only.” The guy looked disgusted and started to turn away.

  “No public access at all?” Blanche was surprised. This is still the USA after all.

  “Private island, lady. You gotta know somebody or have a boat and a dock to tie up to.” He walked back across the gangplank clearly tired of wasting time with them.

  “Well, now what?” Al raised his hat and dropped it back down to his head.

  “I think I’ll have to swallow my pride and get the Dragon to set it up. But Edna said not to tell her daughter she called. How can I say I’ve changed my mind?”

  “That’s just it. You did change your mind.”

  They stood watching the men moving around the ferry doing whatever boat people do between crossings.

  “Maybe, I’ll see where the paper trail leads first,” She chewed her bottom lip.

  “Is it just pure pride regarding going back on your word holding you back?” Al tapped a cane on the rough wood of the dock.

  Blanche tried to act like she was thinking but felt her face flush a bit. They turned and started walking back toward the car.

  “You gotta get out there and give it a looking over at least,” Al said.

  She knew he was right. “We’ve got to make the Dragon let you go too. I can’t go alone.”

  “Is the Blanche I know being a coward about a visit to an old age home? Or do you think it’s dangerous?” She knew he was ribbing her with this, but she didn’t want to get drugged and stuffed in a corner of a nursing home or worse.

  “No, not dangerous like you get jumped or mugged. No, I just, well...” She had trouble admitting a weakness to Al. “I’m just not comfortable...”

  Al let out a whoop. “I think you almost admitted you need help. Now we’re getting somewhere.” He grinned at her mocking.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “No, but you are.”

  “Be nice or I
’ll leave you there.”

  Al snorted. “You better call the Dragon.”

  Chapter Ten

  Blanche’s daughter Michelle was on the line. “Mom, Tommy is asking us for money again. Do you know what’s going on this time?”

  Blanche shook her head that boy of hers lived in perpetual hard straits. Something had to change. “I don’t think I know any particular problems. I’ll probe him.”

  “You won’t get much info as usual. I’m sure just the usual excuses.”

  “He doesn’t mean to be irresponsible but things certainly turn out that way.” Blanche made a note in shorthand on the paper beside her shiny red phone.

  “You aren’t giving him money again, are you?” Blanche flinched at Michelle’s accusation, but she knew it was warranted. She’d promised herself she’d confront Tommy, but she hated to tell his sister what she’d found out. Michelle already had a low opinion of her brother. “No, I haven’t sent anything this time.”

  “Never mind that. Why don’t you make your annual summer visit in a couple weeks? Bryan has some frequent flyer miles we could use to get your ticket this year.”

  “I guess it’s summer alright.” Blanche hoped her ambivalence wasn’t audible.

  “The kids have a big final swim meet and then there’s the homes association picnic. It would be fun. Then Bryan and I could go on a little vacation and you could hang out with the kids.”

  Yikes, vacation for whom? Blanche thought. Still if she had to travel to her adult children best to do it in the summer while the northern country offered warmth.

  “Michelle, honey, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay that long, maybe just a weekend away?”

  “You’re retired. What could you possibly have to get back for?” Michelle laughed.

  Blanche listened as Michelle turned aside and remonstrated with Ben who had just finished third grade. Something about a skateboard in the house. Blanche studied her calendar which she kept by the phone. It might just work. Blanche’s kids didn’t approve of her little investigations, so she’d given up explaining herself.