The Time of Her Life

by Jeanie London

  * * *

  LIKE EVERY RESIDENT WHO’D been felled by the horrible virus, Susanna took days to shake off the effects. In the meantime she lay curled up in a pathetic ball under a mountain of blankets—on the couch during the day and in bed at night. She sipped warm broth and nibbled saltines and slept.

  Jay ran the facility, returning to the cottage to check on her every few hours. Liz sent soup. Jay updated Brooke and Brandon on Susanna’s condition via text messages, took her mom’s and Karan’s calls every night.

  The only time he left for any stretch was when Mrs. Harper passed away as the sun rose one morning.

  “To start her first day in heaven,” Mrs. Harper’s son had said while he held her hand.

  Jay relayed the peace of the passing, reassured Susanna she wouldn’t have been able to do anything more to help had she not been sick. But Mrs. Harper’s death inspired Susanna to drag her sorry self into the shower for the first time in days. She fully intended to attend the memorial service at the end of the week without worries of infecting the guests.

  The best part of her illness was that she was so entrenched in her misery that she didn’t have any time to angst about Jay because if she’d been well, his thoughtful care of her during this illness from hell would have pitched her over the edge.

  As it was, it took a call from Gerald to do that. He caught her one afternoon as she slept.

  “Hello, Susanna.” His sober tone helped her shake off sleep. “Glad I caught you. Got a minute to talk?”

  “Of course.” She didn’t confess to lying around her living room and hoped she didn’t sound half-dead. “What’s up?”

  “We got some news this week I need to share with you. I haven’t called until now because we wanted to come up with an action plan before the news broke. But the news is getting ready to go public, and I wanted you to hear it from me.”

  Adrenaline surged. Closing her eyes, she fought a wave of nausea and ground out, “Doesn’t sound good.”

  “Not a crisis. Just a bit of a setback.” He went on to explain that one of the partners in the senior living venture, University, was going into Chapter Eleven reorganization and the news was about to break publicly with considerable fallout.

  “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

  “Wish I was, trust me. We’ve been in meetings all week, reviewing the details. We’ve decided to ride out their window until they have to file the reorganization plan. Unfortunately, your transition period will be up before University files that plan with the court.”

  “So what are you saying, Gerald? We’re pulling the plug on the acquisition?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that. The rest of the partners want to hang in, but you know as well, if not better, than I do the situation down there. We’re talking tightening our belts to ride out this setback, and Jay hasn’t been all that open to tightening anything.”

  Gerald didn’t know the half of it. “Have you considered bringing in a new partner?”

  “Of course. We want to see how much we can recover because we’re taking a hit. But if the creditors’ committee can come up with a viable plan of reorganization, something the court and creditors can live with, we’ll minimize damage considerably.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line, Gerald giving Susanna a chance to think of the questions that needed asking, to figure out where she fit into the picture.

  The bottom line was always about the money.

  Money, money, money. Making her life miserable again.

  When the silence stretched for too long, Gerald said, “You know that even if the deal falls through, you’ll still have a job. Don’t stress about that. We’ll come up with another situation that will work for you. Maybe not quite as optimum as The Arbors, but something you can live with.”

  “I appreciate knowing that,” she ground out between clenched teeth.

  “I wanted to get to you before you pulled up the internet or heard about this on the six-o’clock news.”

  Not that Susanna would have seen the news on the computer or the television. Her head pounded so hard that even the thought of listening to the drone of the TV made her head ache.

  “You want to break the news to Jay or shall I?” Gerald asked. “Your call. Either way, I’m going to send you the draft of our report. You and Jay will be able to see how the numbers play out. We still have time before the end of the transition period forces a decision. Maybe you can smooth things over with him. We’re not going to let the standard of service suffer at any of our properties. We just need to ride things out until University gets on their feet or we get someone else on board.”

  Jay wouldn’t care. He took every single decision personally. He wanted to argue about every change she made from the software they used to the coffee. From Jay’s perspective this news would constitute a crisis.

  And that’s exactly how the news felt to her.

  She didn’t like cutting corners on things that impacted quality of life for people. Sometimes they were little things that made all the difference between a frown and a smile.

  Susanna hadn’t genuinely understood the difference until The Arbors, until watching Jay make a leap of faith that the profit-and-loss report would balance next month so Mrs. Harper could have a specialized wheelchair to keep her mobile.

  Northstar’s margins didn’t really have room for leaps of faith. Sure, she could find places to shave down numbers, but at what cost?

  “I’ll tell Jay what’s going on.” That’s all she could promise.

  “Good girl. Tell him to call me with his questions.”

  She dropped the phone and stumbled to the bathroom. But the nausea appeared to be a false alarm this time, which must mean she was on the mend. She didn’t trust it, so she curled up on the rug with a towel beneath her head and tried to think.

  She couldn’t. Adrenaline made her thoughts race, her head pound and her stomach ache.

  God, what was wrong with her? Was she cracking under the pressure, coming completely unglued? She hadn’t eaten solid food in days, hadn’t slept well in months. Unless Jay was with her. Then she’d slept the exhausted sleep of a woman with her lover. A woman in love.

  Her head ached. She felt conflicted, out of sorts about everything The Arbors was and Northstar wasn’t. A dangerous conflict that would lead to nowhere but her own discontent since she owed her allegiance to the company that signed her paycheck.

  Why didn’t anything feel normal anymore? Not her life. Not her mood. Not her schedule. Not her periods. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had one.

  That stopped her.

  Eyes opening, Susanna lay there staring at the bathroom wall, where the mitered corners of the baseboards met in precision angles, so still, she didn’t think her heart beat.

  Her periods?

  Her mind went blank. Why couldn’t she remember having a period? She’d been intimate with Jay for the better part of two months and hadn’t once had to face the awkwardness of addressing why they couldn’t be intimate.

  When was the last time she’d had a period?

  Suddenly the most important thing in Susanna’s world was getting to her calendar.

  She was meticulous about noting her cycles, always had been out of habit because she hated wasting even one brain cell on such a mundane detail but equally hated getting to her ob/gyn and not having a clue when they asked. They always asked.

  Maneuvering through the display on her phone, s
he pulled up her calendar, scrolled through the previous weeks...the previous month...two months.

  Impossible.

  She and Jay were meticulous about birth control. Except for that first night when passion had caught them off guard.

  “Oh, God.” The words were out of her mouth on a hard breath. “No, that’s not possible.”

  Reason rebelled. Her brain simply couldn’t wrap around the impossible thought.

  Not so impossible really.

  Then in the recesses of her stunned brain, she could hear a voice saying, Mother, you should practice what you preach.

  And she laid her head on the sofa cushion, and shut her eyes, trying to breathe through the panic.

  * * *

  JAY ARRIVED AT THE COTTAGE to find Susanna on the couch hunched over a laptop. Butters and Gatsby raced toward her. With a sharp command, Jay stopped them before they jumped up.

  “Hey, babies,” she said, her voice rough, as if she’d been crying. Cradling the laptop close, she petted the dogs, cooing to keep them satisfied, while Jay took in her pallor and the dark circles beneath her eyes.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine.” But she didn’t meet his gaze. She just sat there, holding tight to the laptop with one hand, petting the dogs in turns with the other.

  Taking the bottle of sports water, he headed into the kitchen to grab a fresh one from the fridge. He cracked the lid, set it on the table beside her. “You’re overdoing it.”

  That’s when she finally looked his way, and the distance he saw in the deep blue depths of her eyes surprised him.

  “We need to talk.” Her tone warned he wasn’t going to like what he heard.

  He didn’t really want to hear about the problems they faced because he didn’t have any answers. Not an answer for how he was supposed to leave her now that he’d found her. Or how he could ask her to quit her job and stay with him if he couldn’t leave.

  The fact that she already had a family and he’d wanted one...well, turned out that part was negotiable. He wanted to be with Susanna. She had a great family already, and when he really got down to it, did he want to pass along the death sentence of Alzheimer’s to his kids?

  He shooed the dogs away and sat down on the couch by her feet, Butters at his feet. Gatsby opting for his own space on the ottoman. “Okay. Let’s talk.”

  “Gerald called.” Then she explained what he needed to know and Jay’s day turned end over end.

  “I’ve been going over the report, Jay. And I’m worried you’re not going to be happy with the numbers. You okay?”

  Not okay. He was having visions of The Arbors filling beds on the government’s dime. Not that he had a thing against the government providing for patients who needed care. He didn’t. He supported that assistance through his taxes and was grateful people who needed care could get some.

  But The Arbors wasn’t about spreading around the minimum level of care. The Arbors was about utilizing cutting-edge advancements and supporting the research that broke ground with Alzheimer’s. Risking that status would undermine The Arbors’ fundamental goal. The first step onto a slippery slope that would only lead one way—down.

  He couldn’t answer Susanna’s question, so he asked one of his own. “Anything else?”

  Their gazes met across the length of her lovely body stretched between them, an intimate connection. He hadn’t expected Susanna in his life.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “THEN SHUT DOWN THAT laptop and forget all about Gerald and that report right now,” Jay told Susanna. “Neither of us can do anything. And no worrying about the staff, either. I’d be surprised if any of them has a clue who the partners are. We’ll handle the situation the same way Northstar did. Once we decide what to do, we’ll tell them.”

  But Jay didn’t have a clue what that might be. Leaving The Arbors to Northstar’s care in these circumstances was simply unacceptable. This entire transition period had been an exercise in relinquishing control. Jay hadn’t. Not much, anyway. He’d been stubbornly resisting one change after another. That much was evident in the face of a really big change, one that would impact The Arbors much more than the kind of coffee they served.

  The only thing he could do was take a deep breath and clear his head, so he could look at all the angles.

  He had way too much emotion right now. His whole life felt as if it hung in the balance of this acquisition, as if he might implode if he couldn’t get out of here.

  But he didn’t want to leave Susanna and what he’d found with her.

  And he’d promised everyone at The Arbors not to leave them on unstable ground.

  “I still have things to do at the facility before I’m done for the day, but I won’t go back unless you promise you won’t sit here and stress out for the rest of the afternoon.”

  He would stress enough for the both of them.

  “I promise.” She forced a smile.

  The fact that she had to work so hard for that smile told him he shouldn’t believe her.

  But Jay had to leave to get a grip. He needed a new plan because the one he had was coming apart.

  Butters and Gatsby accompanied him from the cottage, and he didn’t bother taking the golf cart. The walk would help him work off the edginess, calm the frustration. With any luck. And as far as he could tell, his luck had taken another unexpected turn.

  He was not going to allow medication to be dispensed by folks with sixteen hours of training. He was not going to allow patient assistants earning minimum wage to be responsible for more residents than they could reasonably care for.

  He didn’t give a hoot about the regulatory bureau, which did nothing but put deterrents in place to avoid catastrophes.

  The Compassion to Care.

  He had trusted Northstar to provide that level of service...no, he had hoped Northstar would hold to the same standard, but he hadn’t trusted them. If he had, there would have been no need for any transition period.

  That truth suddenly seemed so simple.

  His trying to cover all the bases...and Susanna in the middle. He hadn’t understood the position she’d been in until right now. She wasn’t happy with what was going on, but she needed her job to provide for her family. All along she’d been trying to appease both Northstar and Jay, jumping through hoops to find some common ground.

  And he’d fought her every step of the way. Over coffee, for Christ’s sake.

  Butters let out a bark and chased after something scampering in the underbrush. Jay dragged himself from his thoughts and realized he hadn’t walked to the facility, but to his granddad’s old farmhouse. He hadn’t been here in a while.

  Leaning against the fence, he waited for Butters to return, noticing the rotted slats his great-granddad had insisted be replaced every spring. He’d corral Jay and Drew, have Gran pack a picnic then herd them down here for a day of hard work....

  “Why do we have to work?” Drew asked, tossing the knife so hard that the blade sliced into the hard-packed dirt halfway to the hilt. “We’re only kids.”

  Great-Granddad didn’t answer right away, kept rolling that toothpick around his lips until Drew withdrew the knife and gave Great-Granddad his attention.

  “You’re part of this family, Drew. You have to do your share whether you feel like it or not.”

  Drew didn’t say anything, but Jay could tell he didn’t like that an
swer one bit.

  “Is that why Gran takes care of Great-Grandmom?” Jay wanted to know.

  Great-Granddad nodded slowly. He did everything slowly because he was real old. Walking and talking and milking the cows. And he didn’t fix the fence at all because he couldn’t get up when he knelt down anymore. So he handed Drew and Jay the tools and gave orders.

  “That’s exactly right, Jay-boy,” Great-Granddad said. “Makes your Gran feel better. She’s taking good care of her mama and the more she learns about the Alzheimer’s disease, the more she feels in control. She’s putting things in place in case she winds up like your great-grandmom.”

  “Will she? Wind up that way, I mean?” The thought of his strong, laughing Gran sitting in a wheelchair, staring out the windows with the same smile on her face during every Sunday dinner, every birthday party, every time the wisteria bloomed then the peonies then the gardenias then the azaleas.

  Even Drew wanted to know. He was back to playing with the knife again, but he was listening real closely. Jay could tell because they both knew that Great-Granddad only told the truth. He didn’t care how old they were. He treated them like men.

  “There’s no way of telling, Jay-boy. We just got to hope.”

  Jay wasn’t sure why he remembered that long-ago conversation now, several lifetimes after the fact. Now when the fence was rotting and there was no one left to run this place but him. And Susanna.

  But it turned out his grandmother hadn’t come down with the disease. His mother had. It had started with her lists. If she didn’t write it down, she wouldn’t remember. She’d laugh and blame menopause, which she swore would kill her. It hadn’t, but the need for lists never went away even after the hot flashes did. Lists in her purse. Lists in her pockets. Post-it notes all over the house. Even on her rearview mirror in the car.

  Then one day they’d found her trimming the arbors in the midsummer when everything was in full bloom.

  Things had gone downhill from there.