The Widows of Sea Trail-Tessa of Crooked Gulley

by Jacqueline DeGroot

  “What if she is not really sick and he’s somehow convinced everyone that she is?”

  “Then that’s something you’ll have to take up with her doctor.”

  “Is there any way I can be made her medical advocate?”

  “At this point, no. Her husband is her legal guardian; he’d have to approve it.”

  “So, a man can have his wife committed, put her property up for sale and run off with his lover, and there’s nothing the county, state, or federal government can do about it?”

  “Not if it’s all legal. And if he got a doctor to commit her, there must have been a good reason.”

  “Poppycock! His reason is that he’s tired of her and wants her money so he can go live the life of a pampered playboy.”

  “Then you’ll need to prove that.”

  “Don’t you worry, I will!”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Busted golf Ihad to drop out of the annual STLGA, Sea Trail Ladies Golf Association, tournament in Pinehurst to keep my promise to Amy to visit her. I was supposed to room with Cat and when I called her she argued for me to go with her instead of going to see Amy, but when I told her about the For Sale sign, she said, “Well then you’d better go and see what’s up.”

  Even if Amy was lucid, how was I going to tell her that Carlos had run away from home and left a For Sale sign in her front yard? She loved that house and would never agree to sell it if she was in her normal state of mind.

  A quick canvas of the neighbors along with Anna Marie Kozel, the real estate agent who had the listing, confirmed that no one knew that Amy was sick, or that she was now in a nursing home. Everyone had assumed that Amy was out of town with Carlos, in either Georgia or Florida.

  Anna Marie was told that they’d be relocating after the house was sold. Carlos had not specified where, he’d just said that it was time to go someplace where he could play more golf. It had all seemed plausible to Anna Marie, many people moved here and then after a few years moved further south, and sometimes, even back north. The mega retirement community of The Villages in Florida had inherited several former Sea Trail and Ocean Ridge homeowners over the years.

  But now that I had alerted Anna Marie to the fact that Amy had been committed for early onset Alzheimer’s, she was in a state of disbelief. Over and over she kept saying, “But she’s so young. She’s only in her early fifties.”

  “I know Anna Marie, it’s very, very odd. Please don’t tell anyone, but I’m going to go see her doctor tomorrow and try to figure out how this could be happening to her.”

  “Well, you keep in touch okay.”

  “And you, you take your time selling Amy’s house.” “Got a couple coming in over the weekend to

  see it.”

  “Show them something else.”

  “Carlos won’t like that.”

  “With every day that passes, I care less and less for

  what Carlos likes.”

  “I’ve got a few other houses I can show them first.” “Good.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  What’s wrong with me? Ihad to come up with a plausible ailment for my appointment with Amy’s doctor. All the way up Route 17 I wracked my brain. I was in that rare space of time as a senior when everything felt reasonably good. I had no complaints. But now I had to come up with something fast.

  Despite having had a shingles vaccination after my self-tanner debacle, I decided to say I was worried about a rash I had on my arm. In the glove box I pulled out the tube of sunscreen I kept there for the days when I decided to put the top down. It was bought at the beginning of the season before I’d been on my fateful cruise and I knew it probably had PABA in it. At the Shallotte stop light, I smeared some on my inner arm then rubbed it in briskly. Sure enough, ten minutes later when I made the turn into the medical center, I had the desired rash. I wondered if Amy knew how good a friend she had in me.

  It took half an hour to get through the registration and waiting room process and then I was led to the back to have my vitals taken. My blood pressure was a bit elevated, but I needn’t have wondered why; subterfuge did not come naturally to me.

  Acheery faced man in his middle years with salt and pepper hair came into the room, introduced himself, and shook my hand. Then came the obligatory, ”So what brought you here today?”

  I wanted to scream, “Why did you commit my friend?” But I knew it was way too early for that. I showed him my arm and listened as he hmmed and uhhuhed and then said, “Well you needn’t have worried about shingles.” He proceeded to give me a list of symptoms I could look for in that event.

  “What you have appears to be an allergic reaction, possibly something in a cosmetic or hand cream. I can give you an ointment to help with the itching.” I should have told him I had a whole basketful of whatever he was probably going to prescribe, but I didn’t want to blow my cover.

  “That would be wonderful. By the way, I’m Amy Diaz’s neighbor; she’s a very good friend of mine. Her husband says she has early onset Alzheimer’s and that he had to put her in a home in Southport.” No way was I going to let him tell me he couldn’t say anything because of patient confidentiality. I had put it all out up front. I knew what she had and I knew where she was. All he had to do was confirm, then I could ask more.

  “Yes, sad case that, her being so young and all.” “I didn’t even know you could get it that young.” “It’s rare, but sadly it does happen.”

  “Hers came on rather quickly didn’t it?”

  “I don’t know, I only saw her the one time.” “Can you diagnose Alzheimer’s from one meeting?” “She had all the classic signs and everything her

  husband had documented just cemented the diagnosis.” “I would dearly love to go see her, but Carlos says

  he doesn’t want anyone to upset her. Is that likely? Wouldn’t

  visitors be a good thing for her?”

  Jacqueline DeGroot “She should have visitors; it would help her to connect more. Family and friends are important, they help to keep Alzheimer’s patients from slipping away too quickly.”

  “I’m not really familiar with how this kind of thing works, do you prescribe her medication now or does the doctor at the facility?”

  “She’s their patient now. I was just there to assist her husband with his horrible dilemma of what to do with his wife now that she wasn’t functioning on her own anymore. I wish there was something we could do for these patients, some magic pill or potion—but we’re just not there yet.”

  “That would be nice,” I mumbled as he scratched out a prescription on his pad for me. He handed it to me and I stood.

  At the door I turned back, “Is there some magic pill that can give you Alzheimer’s?” I really shouldn’t have asked, it was akin to showing my hand. But I didn’t think this doctor was in on anything; if he’d diagnosed Amy to have Alzheimer’s, he’d believed it to be true, but still . . . I was in dangerous territory here.

  He didn’t seem to see my query as an affront or a challenge to his diagnosis. He quirked his head and I could see him processing something. Then he said, “Some heart medicines, some antidepressants, some anti-anxiety medicines could mimic the symptoms of memory loss and confusion. And adding alcohol could hasten the effect, even cause one to be suicidal or lapse into a coma, but she wasn’t on any of those when I saw her.”

  I quirked a brow as if to say , At least not that you were aware of. “Well thank you doctor, you don’t know how relieved I am not to have shingles.”

  “It’s good that you checked, caught early it’s not so devastating, we have some new drugs that are showing great promise with that malady now.”

  Better living through chemistry, I thought. It’s probably due to the drugs we took as youngsters that suppressed our chicken pox, made them milder cases than they should have been, that make shingles as rampant as it is today to begin with.

  I paid my bill and found my way out, tearing up the prescription as I walked to my car.

&nb
sp; Now, to see Amy and hope that she was more herself today, but first I had to stop at the Hardee’s to change into Tom’s scrubs. Right after Tom had died I had worn them almost non-stop. And up until recently I had often used them as pajamas. Meeting Roman had changed that. Roman had all but obliterated Tom’s laughing eyes and smiling face from my memory. Now when I thought about the man in my life, I saw a sexy shock of white on a raven mane, steely gray glints that saw into my soul and generous lips that had tasted every inch of me.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Going back in time Amy wasn’t any better, in fact, she was worse. I spent more time talking to Janie, Amy’s roommate, than to Amy. I did do some physical therapy, moving her legs and arms and massaging the muscles in her upper and lower back and then we colored together while she told me about the TV shows she looked forward to watching in the morning. My little Desperate Housewives and Gray’s Anatomy junkie was now into Sponge Bob Squarepants, and Dora. It was so sad. But I couldn’t help feeling this was not what it seemed.

  It was no different on my next visit, or on the one after that, unless you considered different to be worse. Her speech was often slurred now and she fell asleep mid-sentence. She had also developed a habit of fidgeting and rocking that drove me crazy and she was usually too tired to do more than a few exercises despite my teeth-gritting patience.

  Slowly, Amy was reverting to infancy and no amount of memory jogging was lasting more than fifteen or twenty minutes. She was on a loop of some kind. Often, I had to keep reminding her who I was while I was taking care of her. On the following visit when I discovered she was wearing a diaper, I went into the bathroom and cried.

  When I came out, Janie had an interesting tidbit for me. She said she noticed that Carmelita was cleaning the room more often than usual, that she was often mopping their floor twice a day when before Amy’s arrival it had been once every other day at best. And that she was asking questions about Amy’s physical therapist, namely, yours truly.

  “What kind of questions?”

  “Why you read to her, and color with her, and stay longer than most therapists. Do you come from South Carolina? Because she can’t seem to find your name in the medical directory at the nurse’s station.”

  Uh oh.

  “Why Amy sometimes seems to know you. Amy told the nurse you were her best friend two days ago while Carmelita was in the room dusting and I saw her freeze and her shoulders tense. Why do you think that would be?”

  “I don’t know. But you sure are a smart cookie, Janie. Keep up the good work.”

  Two days later I did the unforgivable in terms of hospital etiquette and used Amy’s bathroom. Janie was out of the room and I didn’t want to leave Amy alone, but I really had to go. I left the door open a crack and just as I was pulling up my scrubs and getting ready to flush I happened to look up and through the opening I saw Carmelita standing by Amy’s hospital table. I couldn’t resist. I flushed and watched her jump out of her skin. She spun around and saw me and with eyes wide with fear, she backed up until she cleared the bed and then fled.

  “Hmmm, that was odd,” I said to Amy who was engrossed in a game show on TV.

  I quickly washed my hands and went out to check on her. There was only one thing on her hospital table, her 32-ounce mug of water with the protruding straw, Amy’s name indelibly scrolled across the side in permanent marker. I picked it up and looked at the contents. Nothing looked unusual. Then I looked down the straw and smiled, “Aha. Gotcha!”

  I gently took the straw out of the mug, careful not to dislodge the tiny white pill lodged inside. Then I thunked the straw against my palm until the pill came out. It was a white oblong pill, multi-scored and thankfully intact, as it hadn’t had time to be absorbed into the water yet. Amy was always complaining of her mouth being dry and she often drank two of these thermal mugs full on any given day. The question was not who was drugging her while she innocently chugged down water, but how Carlos managed to have an accomplice in the lovely, young Carmelita.

  My mind did not have to wander far. I wrapped the pill in a tissue and went to find her. I saw her shoving her bucket and mop into a closet and as she cleared the doorframe I pushed myself in behind her and pulled the door to.

  “Como?” she said in shock as she felt me push her ahead of me. Then the room opened up and she turned to face me.

  “Just one question Carmelita, do you know Carlos Diaz?”

  Her head hung, she sighed, and she said timidly, “Si.”

  “English please.”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I carry his baby.”

  Shit!

  I shook my head and stared at this young, devastated little girl who had tears running down her cheeks. She was shaking, her fear palpable. She knew she was in big trouble. This discovery could mean jail; it would certainly mean the loss of her job.

  I unwrapped the tissue and held the pill up for her to see. “How long have you been giving her these?” I picked up the pill and gingerly turned it over, the imprint was small, but I could just make it out. “Xanax?”

  “Si.”

  She was upset, so her native Spanish was the default language. “English, Carmelita.”

  “I have been giving them to her since she arrived.”

  “How often?”

  “Twice a day, the nurses are giving her some, also.”

  “So you knew you were overdosing her?”

  “Carlos said it wouldn’t hurt her. She has Alzheimer’s. He said it would make it easier for her; it would help her through this without pain. And when he was a widower, he would come back for me.” She was sobbing now and trying hard not to look at me.

  “You know he was trying to kill her?”

  “No! He said she was dying, that this would just help make it easier for her!”

  “That’s not true and I’m not sure whether you knew that or not. How old are you?”

  “Sixteen.”

  It was my turn for a heartfelt sigh. “Well, let me tell you a few things about Carlos.” I told her where he was and what he was doing. I watched as her eyes widened, then closed shut, then as tears began leaking out and dripping off her chin. “He’s not coming back, Carmelita. He’s been using you.”

  I dropped the pill in my pocket and handed her the tissue so she could mop her face. “And what’s worse, he’s put you in a position of accomplice to murder.”

  “Murder?” she screeched, “No, No! No murder!”

  “All this overmedicating would have eventually killed her, you know. As it is, she may not get her memory or faculties back. And it will be your fault. Where have you been getting the drugs?”

  “He gave them to me and told me to give them to her twice a day. He said it wouldn’t be very long until he would be free to marry me.”

  “Does he know about the baby?”

  She shook her head. “He has not called, he said that he would, but he has not.”

  I took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. What to do? What to do? Should I get the Sheriff involved and have this pregnant sixteen-year-old thrown in jail? Should I let the nursing home handle it? What would be the best course for Amy? If all hell broke lose over this how would it affect Amy? That was the final thought that pushed me over.

  “Listen, I know you’re young, but you do know what you were doing was wrong, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want you to give me the rest of the pills, and then I want you to tell your family what you’ve done, everything. Do they know about the baby?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then you have to tell them about that, too. Then after they’ve assured me that they’re going to take care of you, I’ll forget about this. But I want you to know that when, and it had better be when, not if, Amy gets her memory back, she may want to handle this differently. But for now, stay away from her, do you understand me?”

  “Si, I mean yes. And thank you.”

  “I can almost
assure you that Carlos won’t be coming back but he needs to help support your baby. You will need to get an attorney. I highly recommend that you not have anything to do with him. He’s bad news, very bad news. For crying out loud, he tried to kill his wife for her money, is that the kind of man you want to marry?”

  “No. I did not see it that way.”

  “Well now you do. Give me the rest of the pills he gave you.”

  She turned around and fumbled under some linens and then produced a huge bottle that said Xanax (Alprazolan) 4mg. 500 tablets.

  “Geez, this is like a year’s supply! Where the hell did he get this?”

  She started to answer and I held up my hand. “No, don’t tell me, I really don’t want to know. I have enough to deal with right now. I want your parents to call me tonight or I go to the Sheriff tomorrow, got it?”

  “Yes, only it’s just my mama, my papa is no longer.”

  “Well then you’re going to need this job, aren’t you? Just stick to mopping floors from now on, not administering medication.”

  “I will.”

  I gave her my phone number and then I stuffed the bottle into the elastic of my pants and walked out to my car. Sheesh! What a can of worms!

  On the way home I called CVS and spoke to my pharmacist. Amy had classic symptoms of being on Xanax: depression, drowsiness, confusion, nervousness, dry mouth, diarrhea, severe fatigue, slurred speech and memory loss so severe she appeared disoriented and childlike. The good news was that she would probably be just fine; the bad news was that she had to come off the medication gradually, dropping by no more than .5 mg. every three days. She would be coming off of 8 mg. a day, plus whatever the nurses were giving her and it was going to take a long time, over a month. Through the Thanksgiving break and into the Christmas holiday. I would have to cancel my trip to St. Thomas to see Roman. My heart stuttered at the thought. He had been so patient, and we were both looking forward to our time together.