by Alan Ryker
“On your right.”
She entered the bedroom first. As she expected, a narrow path led to a bed almost entirely crowded with junk. Piles of soft items like clothing, quilts and pillows dominated the room, all infused with a staticy layer of cat hair. Only one, linen-less corner of the mattress was clear. It wouldn’t have been large enough even for tiny Anna to stretch out on.
Rebecca knew she’d saved the worst for last. The bathroom door barely opened, due to Anna having crammed items behind the door. The toilet and bathtub were inaccessible. There was just enough space in the room for a commode chair over a bucket containing human waste.
“She must dump the bucket outside.”
“Why wouldn’t she just use the toilet?” Peter asked so quietly and so thickly that Rebecca could barely make it out.
“My guess is that when the toilet became inaccessible, she intended to only use the chair temporarily until she could clear things out. But hoarders procrastinate because they don’t know where or how to start. So eventually the toilet dried up, the gaskets cracked and now the toilet doesn’t even work. It happens more than you’d think.” With that, Rebecca stepped forward and tested the floor. “Stay back.” It sank beneath her weight. Beneath the yellowing linoleum, the floorboard had turned to mush. “You’d fall right through this floor. It’s completely rotted. We should talk outside.”
Rebecca wanted to dash out, but followed Peter carefully. Once they emerged into the clean summer air, she tried not to be too dramatic in gulping down great breaths of it.
“No question about it, she can’t stay there.”
“No. Of course not.” Peter wouldn’t look at her. His jaw was clenched and shoved out. He breathed through flared nostrils. She knew what it meant: he was in far more pain that he could show in front of a stranger.
“Can she stay with you?”
“Yes.”
“It’s just procedure, but I’m going to have to come along and check out where she’ll be living. Is that a problem?”
“No. My wife keeps a very neat house.”
“Great. Now, the big question is, how easily will your mother go with you?”
Peter barked out a sharp, humorless laugh, and still wouldn’t meet her eyes. “It’ll be about as easy as dragging a badger out of its hole.” Then a stark sadness crossed his face.
“That’s what I thought. But you have to do it. This house is unfit for human habitation, and there’s going to be a lot of hoops to jump through before it’ll be otherwise, if it ever will.”
“God…”
“I’m just trying to be straight with you. In situations like this, it’s very common that the inspectors find that it would take far more money to fix the residence than the residence is worth. There’s often termites, dry rot, mold in the walls, water damage… The good news is that I’m kind of the local hoarding specialist. They call me in for these cases specifically. So I’ve got ins with all the right people and we can get this sorted out ASAP so that you can figure out your next step, whether it’s getting this place fixed up, having your mother move in with you permanently or finding a nice retirement home for her.”
Peter nodded.
“But,” Rebecca said, “you have to get your mother out and keep her out, or she’ll have to be taken to a state facility.”
“I’ll go talk to her. Just give me a minute.”
“I’ll be in my car.”
Rebecca ran her AC on full blast, the only thing worse than feeling filthy was feeling filthy, hot and sweaty. The house was bad. Maybe not the worst she’d ever seen, but close. The overall situation, though, wasn’t entirely disheartening. Quite a few of the people she dealt with had no one to help them. Rebecca could tell that Peter would do his best to help, though whether his personality would be an advantage or a liability was yet to be seen.
He was as accommodating a person as Rebecca had ever met. Most people put up some sort of fight. Looking at his mother, she figured that he’d been henpecked his whole life. When a woman spoke with any authority, he listened. That posed a big, troubling question: could he keep control of that cantankerous old woman?
* * *
From the outside, Peter Grish’s house looked a lot like Anna Grish’s, except better kept up. Inside, though, Rebecca was relieved to find a flawlessly tidy, comfortable home. Though they had two young boys, Katherine Grish managed to keep the toys and chaos contained within their rooms. Well, the younger’s room. Junior, the older boy, kept his toys neat. The larger ones were even kept in their boxes. Rebecca had never seen a slot racer track that didn’t take up half the floor.
“This is where Anna’s been staying?” Rebecca asked.
“Yes,” Katherine replied. “Both of the boys are sleeping in Teddy’s room.”
“Great. And it’s alright for Anna to continue staying here?” The two women were alone. Peter was dealing with his mother in the living room.
“Temporarily, it’s fine. I guess I don’t have a choice.”
That was the third time in an hour that Rebecca had heard a variation on her least favorite phrase. Peter, Anna and Katherine had all stated that they didn’t have a choice. If Rebecca could strike one phrase from the English language—no, from human consciousness—it would be that.
More than anyone she knew, Rebecca empathized with these people. She constantly heard that adults like Anna—those who hoarded and fiercely defended their hoards, those with other mental problems that made them unpleasant—should be left to die in their holes. More than anyone, Rebecca believed that Anna behaved in the only way that made sense to her, and that that wasn’t her fault. But she had choices. They were choices made while under the effects of reality-skewing brain chemistry, but they were choices all the same.
Peter had choices. Those with problems like Anna always had enablers, because they’d otherwise be dead or in state custody, or would have already gotten help. Peter brought her the groceries and meals that allowed her to live isolated in her own personal hell. And at any time he could have called the authorities to have done what he knew was right. But that was a hard choice to make when you’d lived your entire life, from the moment you were an infant, under the thumb of a protective and loving but also willful and unyielding mother.
Though Katherine seemed unyielding in her own right, as an outsider she probably had the least say in the matter of any of them. She wasn’t blood, and her opinion would be dismissed. Rebecca saw it all the time, and felt bad for people in situations like Katherine’s. The spouses of enablers who made the hoarding lifestyle possible. The stepparents of drug addicts whose blood parents funded their habits and kept the real repercussions at bay.
Still, Katherine had been given choices, and she’d made them.
“It’s a good thing you’re doing. It’ll give us time to get things sorted out without having to jump to drastic measures.”
Katherine nodded. “I know. And Anna is a good mother and grandmother. I can just foresee a lot of problems when we don’t have our own corners to retire to.”
“I totally understand, and as I told Peter, I’ve got the connections to fast-track this. We’ll get it taken care of. Just hang in there.”
Katherine smiled a bit sadly and nodded. “Thanks a lot. I’m glad this is finally getting taken care of.”
“This is what I do.”
Rebecca followed Katherine to the living rom. She handed her card to Peter and Katherine, and set one on the couch arm beside Anna.
“If you need anything, just give me a call. I’ll drop by in a day or two to see how things are going.”
Without ever acknowledging Anna Grish’s death glare, Rebecca left.
CHAPTER 7
Pete listened to the weather on the kitchen radio as he made coffee, toast and three hardboiled eggs. The newscaster told tales of drought, of sinking lakes and vanishing ponds. Of land that couldn’t be farmed for a decade due to topsoil blowing completely away after desperate farmers had pushed it as far as it could
go. They interviewed good old boys who’d grown up during the great depression, the dust bowl, and who saw foreshadowing.
Pete thought of his mortgage payments. Farm equipment wasn’t cheap. Keeping up with the huge agri-business corporations wasn’t cheap.
And Pete thought of his mother, and her house. When it rained it poured.
When it rained…Pete could have laughed if it wasn’t the saddest thing in the goddamn world.
But that had to be shoved away. There was nothing to do but keep his head down and push on. What happened, happened, but no one could say it was for his lack of effort.
Pete took his cup of coffee and walked down the dark hallway to Teddy’s room.
He tried to wake Junior without waking Teddy, but Teddy had wrapped himself halfway around his older brother.
“Junior, do you want to help me in the garden this morning?” Pete whispered.
“Sure.”
“I want to help,” Teddy said, in a whisper you could have heard from the kitchen.
Teddy was certainly an enthusiastic helper, but he was a few years from reliably knowing the difference between a weed and a good plant. He’d once proudly cleared out a row of melon vines in the two minutes Pete hadn’t kept his eyes directly on him.
“This time I need you to keep Grandma company. She needs you to play with her so that she doesn’t get lonely. Okay?”
Teddy thought about it for a moment. It could go either way. If he didn’t agree to the plan, Pete would have to wake Kathy to occupy him.
“Okay.”
“Don’t wake her up yet. Wait until Power Rangers is over.” Between a few different stations that Pete had programmed into the remote control, Power Rangers ran continuously from 6 AM until 9 AM, and kept Teddy glued to the set.
People who thought you shouldn’t use the TV as a babysitter didn’t have children like Teddy.
In the kitchen, Junior ate his hardboiled egg and toast. Although the boy was different from him in many ways, Pete could tell that he loved nothing more than being treated as an equal by his father. Pete had been the same way.
Mostly, though, Junior reminded Pete of his own older brother, Victor, who had died when they were children. He fought constantly to push away that sorrow when he looked at Junior.
They straightened up after themselves, except that they swept their toast crumbs into a neat little pile in the center of the table for Katherine to find later. They chuckled, though Junior looked nervous until Pete promised he’d take the blame.
The morning air was moist and cool, as the sun had only just begun to peek over the hedgerow to the east.
The garden wasn’t huge—only half an acre—but unlike the rest of his farming endeavors which provided only the barest sliver of profit, and only if things went well, the garden always provided a healthy profit margin. On Saturday morning, Pete would load his pickup with bushels of his ripest, freshest vegetables and herbs. Many he’d sell to Richard Taylor to in turn sell at the Wichita farmers’ market. The rest he’d drive into Lockton to sell himself, with the help of his pretty and popular wife, Katherine.
The garden required a lot of careful manual labor, but not hard labor, so Pete could take advantage of his eldest’s son’s help, and looked forward to Teddy one day being able to help as well. And the farmers’ market angle wasn’t one the huge agricorps were interested in competing in.
“The ground is really dry,” Junior said, turning a clump of turned earth into a cloud of dust with a single kick.
“Yes it is. We’ll let the hose run for a good, long while after we weed. Let’s get to it.”
Within ten minutes Pete’s lower back ached. He dropped to his haunches, transferring the ache to his knees. Pete could tell that Junior got a real kick out of clearing his rows nearly twice as fast as his dad. Pete had always enjoyed being a bit taller than average, but weeding made him envy his son’s proximity to the ground.
He was concentrating on distinguishing tomato plants from young milk thistles when a high-pitched voice shouted, “Dad! Grandma!”
Pete turned to see Teddy running towards him, but pointing backwards.
Following his finger, he saw his mother just before she disappeared into the tall grasses of the reserve pasture.
Pete barely acknowledged the creaking of his knees as he stood and ran. At the edge of the pasture he stopped and scanned for a white head. He couldn’t believe how far she’d made it.
Then he noticed his sons standing at his side.
“Go tell your mother. And stay with her.”
With that he pressed into the pasture.
The grasses pulled at his boots as he ran. It felt like running with weights on his ankles, and his thighs soon burned in acidic protest. But he gained on his mother quickly.
“Mom!”
She didn’t stop. He reached out to grab her shoulder, but something made him hesitate. The way she didn’t acknowledge his presence at all scared him, though he couldn’t say exactly why.
He fell into step beside her. Though her legs were short, she walked at a pace he never would have expected from her. Especially barefoot, and in a housedress.
“Mom, stop.”
When she didn’t respond, he moved in front of her and walked backwards. Finally, she looked at him and stood still. Confusion filled her face.
“Peter?”
“Mom, what are you doing out here?” He took off his cap and wiped the sweat from his brow with the arm of his western shirt. His mom showed no signs of exertion.
“I don’t know. I was watching Teddy play in his sandbox. He asked me to smash his sandcastle with him. The sand was so dry…” She looked at her fingers and rubbed them together. “And then I was here.”
“You don’t remember walking here?”
“No. Well…” Her brow wrinkled. “I don’t know.”
This wasn’t good. Dementia didn’t run in her family, but this sounded like dementia to Pete.
“Let’s head back to the house. You shouldn’t be out here barefoot.”
“I know that,” she snapped. “We were making footprints in the sand.”
Pete followed her back, watching her walk. She’d had pain in her knees for half his life. She normally shuffled, barely lifting her feet from the ground. Now she moved as easily as she had when he was a child. And she stood straight. And her feet, ankle and hand had completely healed.
What the hell was going on?
* * *
That night, in bed, Katherine and Pete sat propped up against their headboard. Pete stared at a book about the fall of the Roman Empire. History had always been his favorite subject in school. But while his eyes stared at the pages, in his head, he saw his childhood home transformed into an enormous trash bin. He thought of his mother living in that, and couldn’t believe he’d stood by and let things get to that point.
Katherine leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “You okay? You haven’t turned a single page yet.”
“Not really.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Then whose fault is it? She obviously needs help, and I couldn’t live any closer.”
“It’s a hard transition, when you have to start thinking about being responsible for your parents. Especially with a woman as—independent as your mother.”
Pete nodded.
“Everything will turn out fine. You found out in time. You’re a good son.” Katherine wrapped an arm around his broad chest and squeezed.
Still, Pete couldn’t sleep. His brain wouldn’t stop working. Hours passed. Then he felt an ever-so-slight pressure in his bladder. Not enough to get up for. But then he couldn’t stop thinking about it and finally he huffed and headed to the bathroom to take a leak.
Afterward, he paused outside of Junior’s bedroom. His mother had the door shut. Not surprising. She liked privacy. He knew she must be suffering, wanting to hole up. He loved his family so much, but at that moment, with everything that was going wrong, he could understand her de
sire to isolate herself. He had so much to worry about financially and so much work to do, he didn’t have enough energy to lay awake at night thinking about his mother, and the effect his mother staying with them was having on his relationship with his wife, and how that would continue in the future, and the effect it was having on his sons.
But he worried anyway. Worrying accomplished nothing good, but Pete had found that didn’t keep a person from doing a lot of it.
His mother hadn’t been in her right mind that morning. Maybe Rebecca would know what to do. On the one hand, he didn’t want to admit that he needed help because he didn’t want them to take her away. On the other, he really needed help. Maybe she needed therapy, or medication.
Yeah, that would go over well. If one of her arms fell off, he’d still have to argue and cajole to get her to the doctor.
He reached for the doorknob to Junior’s room. His mother would resent an invasion of her already limited privacy, but maybe he could sleep if he saw that she was resting soundly.
Slowly he turned the knob and opened the door.
The hallway was dark, but the bedroom was darker. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, and another for his brain to interpret what he saw.
Pete flipped the light switch.
Junior was a neat boy. He took after his mother in that way. But his room just then was complete chaos. Everything the boy owned had been pulled from the shelves and from out of the closet and piled around the bed in heaps. Books, action figures, toy cars, building sets...
How had she managed that without making any noise? More importantly, where was she? Because the bed was empty.
He went through the house, flipping on lights as he went. She wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen, leaving one, obvious possibility: she’d walked home.
Pete turned and ran back to his bedroom. “Kathy,” he hissed. He tried not to startle her, but she sat up as if he’d stuck her finger in a socket. The new living situation had her on edge, too.
“What? Pete?”
