by Amy Tan
Ruth’s eyes welled up. Why was she crying? Stop this, she told herself, you’re being stupid and maudlin. He’s talking about a business plan, for God’s sake, concept-sanctioned forms of happiness. She turned away as if to inspect a row of orchids. When she had collected herself, she said, “They must love it here.”
“They do. We’ve tried to think of everything that a family would think about.”
“Or wouldn’t,” Art said.
“There’s a lot to think about,” Patel said with a modest smile.
“Do you ever find any of them reluctant to be here, especially in the beginning?”
“Oh, yes indeed. That’s expected. They don’t want to move out of their old homes, because that’s where all the memories are. And they don’t want to spend down their kids’ inheritance. Nor do they think they’re old—certainly not that old, they’ll say. I’m sure we’ll be saying the same thing when we’re their age.”
Ruth laughed to be polite. “We may have to trick my mother into coming here.”
“Well, you won’t be the first family members to do so,” Patel said. “The subterfuges people have used to get their parents here—wow, pretty ingenious. It could fill a book.”
“Like what?” Ruth asked.
“We have quite a few folks here who don’t know it costs anything to live here.”
“Really!” Art exclaimed, and gave Ruth a wink.
“Oh, yes. Their sense of economy is strictly Depression-era. Paying rent is money down the drain. They’re used to owning a house, paid free and clear.”
Ruth nodded. Her mother’s building had been paid up last year. They continued along the walkway and went inside and down a hall toward the dining room.
“One of our residents,” Patel added, “is a ninety-year-old former sociology professor, still fairly sharp. But he thinks he’s here on a fellowship from his alma mater to study the effects of aging. And another woman, a former piano teacher, thinks she’s been hired to play music every night after dinner. She’s not too bad, actually. We direct-bill most families, so their parents don’t even know what the fees are.”
“Is that legal?” Ruth asked.
“Perfectly, as long as the families have conservatorship or power of attorney over the finances. Some of them take out loans against the principal on the house, or they’ve sold their parents’ homes and use the money in trust to make the payments. Anyway, I know all about the problems of getting seniors to accept the idea of even considering living in a place like this. But I guarantee you, once your mother has lived here for a month, she ‘11 never want to leave.”
“What do you do,” Ruth joked, “spike the food?”
Patel misunderstood. “Actually, because of all the dietary needs of our population, we can’t prepare anything too spicy. We do have a nutritionist who makes up the monthly menu. Many of the choices are low-fat, low-cholesterol. We also offer vegan. The residents receive printed-out menus every day.” He picked one off a nearby table.
Ruth scanned it. The choice today was turkey meatloaf, tuna casserole, or tofu fajitas, accompanied by salad, rolls, fresh fruit, mango sorbet, and macaroons. Suddenly another problem loomed: No Chinese food.
But when she brought it up, Patel was ready with an answer: “We’ve encountered that issue in the past. Chinese, Japanese, kosher food, you name it. We have a delivery service from approved restaurants. And since we have two other Chinese residents who get takeout twice a week, your mother can share the selections we get for them. Also, one of our cooks is Chinese. She makes rice porridge on the weekends for breakfast. Several of our non-Chinese residents go for that as well.” Patel returned smoothly to his rehearsed patter: “Regardless of special diets, they all love the waiter service, tablecloths at the meals, just like a fine restaurant. And no tipping is necessary or allowed.” Ruth nodded. LuLing’s idea of a big tip was a dollar.
“It’s really a carefree life, which is how it should be when you’re this age, don’t you agree?” Patel looked at Ruth. He must have picked her as the stumbling block. How could he tell? Did she have a crease in the middle of her brow? It was obvious that Art thought the place was great.
Ruth decided she should get hard-nosed. “Are any of the people here, you know, like my mother? Do any of them have, well, memory problems of some sort?”
“It’s safe to assume that half the general population over age eighty-five likely has some memory problems starting to show. And after all, our average age here is eighty-seven.”
“I don’t mean just memory problems. What if it’s something more…”
“You mean like Alzheimer’s? Dementia?” Patel motioned them into another large room. “I’ll get back to your question in just a minute. This is the main activity hall.”
Several people looked up from a bingo game being conducted by a young man. Ruth noticed that most were nicely dressed. One was wearing a powder-blue pantsuit, a pearl necklace and earrings, as if she were going to Easter services. A beak-nosed man in a jaunty beret winked at her. She imagined him at thirty, a brash businessman, confident of his position in the world and with the ladies.
“Bingo!” a woman with almost no chin shouted.
“I haven’t called enough numbers yet, Anna,” the young man said patiently. “You need at least five to win. We’ve only done three so far.”
“Well, I don’t know. Just call me stupid, then.”
“No! No! No!” a woman in a shawl yelled. “Don’t you dare use that word in here.”
“That’s right, Loretta,” the young man added. “No one here is stupid. Sometimes we get a little confused, that’s all.”
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Anna muttered under her breath, as if she was cursing. She gave Loretta the evil eye. “Stupid!”
Patel did not seem perturbed. He quietly led Ruth and Art out of the room and to an elevator. As they ascended, he spoke. “To answer your question, most of the residents are what we call ‘frail elderly.’ They may have problems seeing or hearing or getting around without a cane or a walker. Some are sharper than you or I, others are easily confused and have signs of dementia due to Alzheimer’s or what have you. They tend to be a little forgetful about taking their pills, which is why we dispense all medications. But they always know what day it is, whether it’s movie Sunday or herb-picking Monday. And if they don’t remember the year, why should they? Some notions of time are irrelevant.”
“We might as well tell you now,” Art said. “Mrs. Young minks she’s coming here because of a radon leak in her home.” He presented a copy of the letter he had created.
“That’s a new one,” Patel conceded with an appreciative chuckle. “I’ll keep that in mind for other family members whose parents need a nudge. Ah yes, free rent, courtesy of the California Department of Public Safety. Quite good to make it official, mark of authority, like a summons.” He swung open a door. “This is the unit that just became available.” They walked into an apartment overlooking the garden: a compact living room, bedroom, and bathroom, empty of furnishings, smelling of fresh paint and new carpets. It occurred to Ruth that what Patel meant by “just became available” was that the last resident had died. The cheeriness of the place now seemed ominous, a façade hiding a darker truth.
“This is one of the nicest units,” Patel said. “There are smaller, less expensive rooms, studios, and some without an ocean or garden view. We should have one of those available, oh, in about another month.”
My God! He expected someone else to die soon. And he said it so casually, so matter-of-factly! Ruth felt trapped, frantic to escape. This place was like a death sentence. Wouldn’t her mother feel the same way? She’d never stay here for a month, let alone three.
“We can provide the furniture at no extra charge,” Patel said. “But usually the residents like to bring their own things. Personalize it and make it their home. We encourage that. And each floor is assigned the same staff, two caretakers per floor, day and night. Everyone knows them by name. One
of them even speaks Chinese.”
“Cantonese or Mandarin?” Ruth asked.
“That’s a good question.” He pulled out a digital recorder and spoke into it: “Find out if Janie speaks Cantonese or Mandarin.”
“By the way,” Ruth asked, “how much are the fees?”
Patel answered without hesitation: “Thirty-two to thirty-eight hundred a month, depending on the room and level of services needed. That includes an escort to a monthly medical appointment. I can show you a detailed schedule downstairs.”
Ruth couldn’t keep from gasping over the cost. “Did you know that?” she asked Art. He nodded. She was both shocked at the expense and amazed that Art would be willing to pay that for three months, nearly twelve thousand dollars. She stared at him, openmouthed.
“It’s worth it,” he whispered.
“That’s crazy.”
She repeated this later, as he drove her to her mother’s.
“You can’t think of it the same way you think of rent,” Art replied. “It includes food, the apartment, a twenty-four-hour nurse, help with medication, laundry—”
“Right, and a very expensive orchid! I can’t let you pay that, not for three months.”
“It’s worth it,” he told her again.
Ruth exhaled heavily. “Listen, I’ll pay half, and if it works out, I’ll pay you back.”
“We already went through this. No halves and there’s nothing to pay back. I have some money saved and I want to do this. And I don’t mean it as a condition for us getting back together or getting rid of your mother or any of that. It’s not a condition for anything. It’s not pressure for you to make a decision one way or the other. There are no expectations, no strings attached.”
“Well, I appreciate the thought, but—”
“It’s more than a thought. It’s a gift. You have to learn to take them sometimes, Ruth. You do yourself wrong when you don’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The way you want something from people, some kind of proof of love or loyalty or belief in you. But you expect it won’t come. And when it’s handed to you, you don’t see it. Or you resist, refuse.”
“I do not—”
“You’re like someone who has cataracts and wants to see, but you refuse to have an operation because you’re afraid you’ll go blind. You’d rather go blind slowly than take a chance. And then you can’t see that the answer is right in front of you.”
“That’s not true,” she protested. Yet she knew there was some validity to what Art was saying. It was not exactly right, but parts of it were as familiar as the tidal wave in her dreams. She turned. “Have you always thought this of me?”
“Not in so many words. I didn’t really think about it until these past few months you’ve been gone. And then I started wondering if what you said about me was true. I realized I am self-centered, that I’m used to thinking about me first. But I also realized that you tend to think about you second. It’s as though I had permission from you to be less responsible. I’m not saying it’s your fault. But you have to learn to take back, grab it when it’s offered. Don’t fight it. Don’t get all tense thinking it’s complicated. Just take it, and if you want to be polite, say thank you.”
Ruth was tumbling in her head. She was being swept and tossed, and she was scared. “Thank you,” she finally said.
To Ruth’s surprise, her mother seemed to have no objection to staying at Mira Mar Manor. Then again, why would she? LuLing thought it was temporary—and free. After she had toured the place, Ruth and Art took her to a nearby deli to have lunch and hear her reactions.
“So many old people have radon leak,” she murmured with awe.
“Actually, not all of them are staying there because of radon leaks,” Art said. Ruth wondered where this was leading to.
“Oh. Other problem their house?”
“No problem at all. They just like living there.”
LuLing snorted. “Why?”
“Well, it’s comfortable, convenient. They have plenty of company. In a way, it’s like a cruise ship.”
LuLing’s face broke into a look of disgust. “Cruise ship! GaoLing always want me go cruise ship. You too cheap, she tell me. I not cheap! I poor, I don’t have money throw in ocean… .”
Ruth felt Art had blown it. Cruise ship. If he had been listening to her mother’s complaints these last few years, he’d have known this was precisely the wrong comparison to make.
“Who can afford cruise ship?” her mother groused.
“A lot of people find staying at the Mira Mar cheaper than living at home,” Art said.
One of LuLing’s eyebrows rose. “How cheap?”
“About a thousand dollars a month.”
“T’ousand! Ai-ya! Too much!”
“But that includes housing, food, movies, dancing, utilities, and cable TV. That’s thrown in for free.”
LuLing did not have cable TV. She often talked about getting it, but changed her mind when she found out how much it cost.
“Chinese channel too?”
“Yep. Several of them. And there are no property taxes.”
This also captured LuLing’s interest. Her property taxes were in fact low, stabilized by a state law that protected the holdings of the elderly. Nonetheless, each year when LuLing received her tax bill, the sum seemed agonizingly huge to her.
Art went on: “Not all of the units are a thousand a month. Yours is more expensive because it’s the number-one unit, the best view, top floor. We’re lucky that we got it for free.”
“Ah, best unit.”
“Number one,” Art emphasized. “The smaller units are cheaper… . Honey, what did Mr. Patel say they were?”
Ruth was taken by surprise. She pretended to recollect. “I think he said seven hundred fifty.”
“That how much I get Social Security!” LuLing said smugly.
And Art added: “Mr. Patel also said people who eat less can get a discount.”
“I eat less. Not like American people, always take big helping.”
“You’d probably qualify, then. I think you’re supposed to weigh less than a hundred and twenty pounds—”
“No, Art,” Ruth interrupted. “He said the cutoff was a hundred.”
“I only eighty-five.”
“Anyway,” Art said offhandedly, “someone like you could live in the number-one unit for the same as what you get each month for Social Security. It’s like living there for free.”
As they continued with lunch, Ruth could see her mother’s mind adding up the free cable TV, the big discounts, the best unit—all irresistible concepts.
When LuLing next spoke, she gloated: “Probably GaoLing think I got lots money live this place. Just like cruise ship.”
TWO
They were celebrating Auntie Gal’s seventy-seventh birthday—her eighty-second if the truth be known, but only she, LuLing, and Ruth knew that.
The Young clan was gathered at GaoLing and Edmund’s ranch-style house in Saratoga. Auntie Gal was wearing a silk-flower lei and a hibiscus-patterned muumuu, in keeping with the luau theme of the party. Uncle Edmund had on an aloha shirt printed with ukuleles. They had just returned from their twelfth cruise to the Hawaiian Islands. LuLing, Art, Ruth, and various cousins were sitting poolside in the backyard—or lanai, as Auntie Gal referred to it—where Uncle Edmund had fired up a grill to barbecue enough slabs of spare ribs to give everyone indigestion. The outdoor gas-fueled tiki torches were wafting warmth, making the outdoors seem balmy. The kids weren’t fooled. They decided the pool was too cold and improvised a game of soccer on the lawn. Every few minutes they had to use the long-handled net to fish the ball out of the water. “Too much splash,” LuLing complained.
When GaoLing went to the kitchen to prepare the last side dishes, Ruth followed. She had been waiting for an opportunity to talk to her aunt privately. “Here’s how you make tea eggs,” Auntie Gal said, as Ruth shelled the hard-boiled eggs. “Use two big pinc
hes black tea leaves. It must be black, not Japanese green, and not the herbal kind all you kids like to drink for health purposes. Put the leaves in the cheesecloth, tie it tight.
“Now put these cooked eggs in the pot with the tea leaves, a half-cup soy sauce for twenty eggs, and six star anise,” GaoLing continued. She sprinkled the mixture with liberal amounts of salt. Her longevity was obviously a tribute to her genetics and not her diet. “Cook for one hour,” she said, and set the pot on the stove to simmer. “When you were a little girl, you loved to eat these. Lucky eggs, we called them. That’s why your mommy and I made them. All the kids liked them better than anything else. One time, though, you ate five and got very sick. Big mess all over my sofa. After that, you said no eggs, no more eggs. You wouldn’t eat them the next year either, not you. But the year after that, eggs were okay again, yum-yum.”
Ruth didn’t remember any of this, and wondered whether GaoLing was confusing her with her daughter. Was her aunt also showing signs of dementia?
She went to the refrigerator and took out a bowl of scalded celery, cut into strips. Without measuring, she doused the celery with sesame oil and soy sauce, chatting as if she were on a talk show for cooks.
“I’ve been thinking one day I might write a book. The title is this, Culinary Road to China—what do you think, good? Easy recipes. Maybe if you’re not too busy, you can help me write it. I don’t mean for free, though. Course, most of the words are already in my head, right here. I just need someone to write them down. Still, I’d pay you, doesn’t matter that I’m your auntie.”
Ruth did not want to encourage this line of thinking. “Did you make those same eggs when you lived in the orphanage with Mom?”
GaoLing stopped stirring. She looked up. “Ah, your mother told you about that place.” She tasted a piece of celery and added more soy sauce. “Before, she never wanted to tell anyone why she went to the orphan school.” GaoLing paused and pursed her lips, as if she had already divulged too much.
