A Bittersweet Goodnight Read online

  I’m grateful for Susan’s help during that week but standing in the middle of this mess, I’m annoyed by what she didn’t do for June. Susan didn’t know what June liked and disliked, what made her happy or sad. She left behind her favorite clothes. I’m the one who spent time with her, saw what she wore most often and the groceries she bought. I’m the only one who could do this job the way June wanted it done but I worried I didn’t have the mental fortitude to accomplish it by myself. I knew many small details about her yet I felt I didn’t know anything about how she lived her life.

  “I told my kids, if anything happens to me, not to call my sisters. The two of you would have me moved out and the house sold in a blink of an eye,” Martha rattled on.

  “Then let’s hope they have the smarts to find someone to take care of you when the time comes.” I replied. “And I hope you aren’t screaming at them a hundred times a day to leave you alone and go away.”

  Out of my frustration with my sister, came a rare twinkling of brilliance.

  “June as you knew her is gone,” Martha reminded me.

  “I know. But when I talk to her on the phone, I want to believe she still knows who I am.”

  I needed Martha to tell me those very words at that very moment. I would, however, struggle to remember them. June didn’t want to walk down this different path, and I didn’t want to go with her. Change is the only certainty in life, and it’s hard to accept especially when the end of the journey is going to be death.

  I never bothered to ask my brother for help, nor did Susan, who lived nearby him in Ohio, saying it would be useless to ask. He’d never outgrown the emotionally unresponsive state we’d been raised in. I know in my heart he appreciates the unpleasant tasks his sisters have taken on for our stepmother, but it’s not in him to participate. I’m OK with that.

  Even though June never vocalized her feelings, she wanted only me to take care of her. Although my siblings maintained a relationship with her over the years, calling at the holidays, sending photos of their families and occasionally making a visit to see her, it was me she spent the most time with. I lived nearby until only recently and took her out to eat on every birthday, learned how to fix her vodka just the way she liked it, and years ago drove her back and forth to the hospital to see her beloved Paul when he was sick. June thought I had the experience to make decisions the way she wanted them.

  In the middle of June’s once neat and orderly life, I stood playing God. She wasn’t dead, only walking down a road that could be short or long, only time would tell. Years ago, without telling me, she assigned me the job of dividing up her memories and sending them off into the great unknown. The recipients however, may never hear the charming and romantic tales of my father bringing home a complete set of Waterford wine glasses as a surprise for his wife’s birthday or the three miniature Lenox swans trimmed in gold he had wrapped in separate boxes to give to her for Valentine’s Day, the day of love.

  Maybe they would take one look and say “What the hell is this?” before tossing it in the trash or hauling it off to the Goodwill. What June wanted was what I was going to do my best to give her. The warmth of my tears trickled down my cheeks and I quickly rubbed them away. Wasting time crying would not get this smelly apartment cleaned out any faster and move June and me onto the next phase of our lives.

  “Everything is going to be alright. Maybe not today but eventually.” - Anonymous

  Chapter Three

  On a gloomy and gray Sunday afternoon in May, my brother, Steve and I settled in to watch television in the basement of our large suburban home in Cleveland. In 1967 we had only three channels to choose from and if we manipulated the rabbit ears just right, we might be able to get the roller derby on UHF. Otherwise we were stuck watching Bishop Sheen. Mom dragged us to church that morning so we didn’t feel we needed any more saving. Today we lucked out. The Three Stooges came on.

  These were also the days before TV remote controls. Since I was only eleven and Steve, thirteen, he ordered me to change the stations while he stretched out on the sofa and barked out the instructions. The door at the top of the stairs creaked open. My mother’s heavy foot landed on the steps.

  “Quick!” Steve whispered. “Change the channel. Hurry.”

  You see, we weren’t allowed to watch the Three Stooges. My mother declared them too violent and off limits. I was young and fast and we rarely got caught. If we did, it would result in no television for the rest of the day. Boring! So we avoided punishment at all costs. Tarzan and Jane were swinging through the jungle by the time Mom reached the bottom step.

  “I need to talk to you,” she said. “Turn off the TV.”

  I obeyed, cutting off Tarzan’s jungle cry midstream.

  She sat down in a chair facing us and took in a deep breath. At that moment, clouds covered the tiny bit of sunshine available that day, changing the light coming through the large windows in the walkout basement from dull to dark.

  Mom let out her breath. “Your father has married again. I was hoping I could get him back but I can’t.”

  My mother stared at us, I think, looking for some kind of reaction. Neither my brother nor I were the reactive types. From our point of view, nothing about our lives had changed since our parent’s divorce. We still lived in our large sprawling home, went to the same school, played with the same friends and my father wasn’t home. That was no different from when my parents were married.

  Dad worked as a merchandise manager for the May Company, a department store chain in Cleveland. He traveled a lot, and worked late on Mondays and Thursdays. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas we never saw him unless my mother dressed us up, packed us in the car and drove us to the Rapid Transit for a trip downtown to his office. We got paraded around and all the ladies who worked for him would ooh and ahh over us. In fact June probably led the charge in order to impress my father on at least some of those occasions. We had no idea who she was or any recollection of meeting her. My mother was most likely clueless about June too, but smart enough to know this was the only way her children would spend any time with their father. The meaning of the term Black Friday had been drilled into our tiny child brains from a very early age. It’s what kept us clothed, fed and housed in a very nice manner.

  Dad changed jobs a lot too. In my eleven years of life I lived in Pittsburgh, Detroit, Minneapolis and now Cleveland. When we arrived here in January 1961, I was enrolled in Mrs. Deming’s first grade class. They had only made it to the letter “M” in the alphabet, but knew how to count by 5. In my old school, I had completed the entire alphabet but hadn’t made it much past two plus two in the math department. Steve had to get some tutoring he was so far behind his third grade class in math.

  As a little girl, I was very shy so being thrust into a new school frightened me. I never made friends easily and here the other kids made fun of me when they found out I couldn’t add. At an early age I learned not to get myself too attached to anything especially people, fearing they’d tease me. With a moving truck waiting around the corner, I knew any friends I did make would soon be yanked away from me with no hope of ever returning. That my parents were no more as a couple was not as earth shattering to us as children as I’m sure it was to Mom.

  “Her name is June. They met at the store,” she said. “Your father has started a new job in Seattle and June will be moving there soon. I’m hoping you can get to meet her before she leaves.”

  At that moment Mom’s life had already changed dramatically. She had to sell a house, find a new one for us to live in and look for a job. She never worked outside the home but she had four children to take care of with probably only some court decided child support to rely on.

  Our lives hadn’t changed yet, at least not that we took the time to worry about. As children, we weren’t aware of the full impact of my parents’ divorce and the addition of a new stepmother into our fractured family circle. W
e had no idea of what kind of real change was yet to come into our lives. Changing the channel on the television was about as far into the future as we could see.

  Neither Steve nor I responded. We only did what was normal for us. Nothing. Mom got up from her chair and trudged back up the stairs. Once we heard the basement door close, we turned the Three Stooges back on just as Moe tweaked Curly’s nose.

  “It is only those who never do anything, who never make mistakes.” - A. Favre

  Chapter Four

  Rummaging through the pile of notes on the dining room table, I pulled out a list I received from the lawyer. When I called him for some advice after the incident, what I got was this inventory June painstakingly wrote on a yellow legal pad several years ago and added to her will. He mailed the amendment to me along with a bill for his time. I added lawyers to the succession of people wanting money from me. He can get in line behind the rest who now think I’m an easy target to get to June’s money.

  Only a month ago did June finally agreed to allow me to become joint owner on her bank accounts.

  “Just in case,” I told her.

  She wouldn’t go to the bank with me to sign the papers, so I went alone. I showed the bank employee the power of attorney document and asked to be added to her checking account. He typed on his keyboard then stared at his screen for a few minutes before announcing June was an old woman and I needed to be added to all of her accounts. I didn’t argue even though I didn’t really think it was necessary at the time. She had one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the bank and now it was my job to make that last, however long that might be.

  Slowly unfolding it, I read the lawyer’s paper for the first time.

  Stephen

  Wedgewood china pieces, Lenox swans and small vase

  Susan

  Toby and Hummel mugs and figurines

  Martha

  Diamond engagement ring with white gold band

  Linda

  Miscellaneous Wright family papers, pictures, albums.

  I stopped reading. The paper fell from my hands while my thoughts ran like thoroughbreds in the Kentucky Derby being feverishly whipped by their jockeys to go faster and faster. Except with each stride the finish line moved further and further out of sight. I’m the one sitting in this hot, stinky apartment in charge of disposing of an old woman’s possessions and all the pretty trinkets I adored being surrounded with every time I came to visit, are now the property of someone else. Maybe I didn’t say often enough how much I’d grown to admire her things. Maybe she never listened. Maybe she had a bigger plan for me.

  “Why does Susan get the Hummels?” I said out loud. “She’ll never think to dust them off once she puts them on a shelf. And Martha doesn’t wear any jewelry. What’s she going to do with June’s diamond ring?”

  I’m the one who knew all the stories of how she came to own most of these things. June loved to tell them. Every time she did, I said,

  “My father went to the store and actually picked out the Lenox swans for you?”

  June smiled, “He did. And he had them gift wrapped each in a separate box.”

  For many years, the mother and her cygnets were perfectly positioned to appear to be swimming across a shimmering pond on the glass topped coffee table. The thought of my brother adoring the flock of elegant, gold trimmed porcelain birds became more than my cluttered mind could fathom.

  What woman wouldn’t want to be given diamonds, regardless of whom they came from? The jewelry I often admired because it was handsome and tasteful, not because I wanted to wear it, too old lady-ish for me, would now be worn on someone else’s hands. I wouldn’t get the chance to reset any of it into a piece that would remind me of June and our good times together. Even worse, the rings and bracelets would be tucked away never to see the light of day, and most likely sold at the pawnshop for pennies on the dollar. The gifts Dad had chosen for his wife were being tossed out into the universe, never to be seen or heard from again. I would never see, hold or admire any of these precious keepsakes ever again.

  None of these were feelings I was used to having. I never had a temper, preferring instead to keep my emotions inside, like I was trained to do as a child. I wanted to think I let go of at least some of what I had tucked away when June and I had our frequent gossip sessions with my glass of white wine and hers of vodka and a splash of water. The secrets about my life I divulged to her meant nothing. Maybe I let her order too many of the half price happy hour drinks and once drunk and she forgot everything I said minutes after I said it. I think she wanted to tell me something she never got around to saying.

  During those meals we never talked about how much our lives intertwined, what we meant to each other. We never spoke of the keepsakes adorning our homes silently admired before each home cooked meal served at well-used dining room tables over the years. Trashy gossip about neighbors and coworkers fueled our conversations. Friendship, love and family never entered in. If we had spoken of these things, I might not be so surprised at this moment at the loss of her material possessions, things I thought I held dear.

  The bigger point however, June still lived. Assisted living care was expensive and I took a big leap when I selected her new home. I’d be spending down what was left of her money at a lightening fast clip just to pay the monthly rent. I wanted to be certain she’d be well taken care, and that comes at a steep price. Would I have to move her again when she ran out of funds and went on Medicaid? It all depended on how long she would live. The mere thought made me break out in a sweat. The palm of my hands became clammy, leaving their damp, sticky imprint on the infamous list.

  My own mother dwindled down her meager savings and after a year or so in a nursing home she was forced onto Medicaid. That left her a prepaid funeral plan and approximately three thousand dollars to her name. Kidney failure, osteoporosis and dementia made her helpless, spending the last five years of her life in a New York City skilled care facility before she succumbed to blood poisoning one week after her eightieth birthday.

  Mom had more health issues, less money and was much younger than June when she faced long term nursing care. She also went kicking and screaming to a place she didn’t want to be. Martha and her husband, Tom navigated Medicaid with the nursing home via long distance from Michigan. Every couple of months, I joined Martha in New York City to check on Mom but after awhile she didn’t know who we were when we came to visit.

  Mom had a boyfriend, also named Paul, like my father, who worked as a doorman at a fancy apartment building in the city. He was much younger, more like the age of her children, and didn’t want to know us. We knew he came to see her regularly because the nurses rolled their eyes when we asked about him. As long as he kept Mom entertained, we didn’t have to. She’d rather have been with Paul than any of her children even before she stopped recognizing our faces. None of us had a close or loving relationship with her, or she with us. If this Paul made her happy, that was the best thing we could ask for.

  “I know!” I said aloud after a flash of brilliance lit up my brain. “I won’t tell anyone about the list and I’ll sell it all on EBay.” A plausible idea since the lawyer knew how to contact only me in June’s case.

  I used to be familiar with the markings for Hummels and Royal Doulton Toby mugs when I sold them while working in Gimbels Pittsburgh china and gifts department, my first job out of college. Long ago, however, I filed that mundane information away. Millenials didn’t bother drinking their wine out of fancy cut crystal glasses or polish sterling silver flatware so the market for these things would probably be pretty small. The energy needed to do an extensive Internet search on the value of June’s collectibles drained me at the moment. So how much money could all this stuff generate? Probably not enough to cover the fee for a box of Depends for more than a couple of months.

  A salty tear landed on my lip. Reading the list again, I prayed the wate
r in my eyes had clouded the words on the page. I wanted desperately for it to say something else. Something that wouldn’t bring tears to my eyes and put a lump in my throat.

  I read it again. The words on the page hadn’t changed. This time my tears splattered with a plop on the damp sheet of paper. I wanted badly to give up the idea of trying to hold on to what didn’t belong to me and move on to my next task.

  “We don’t meet people by accident. They are meant to cross our path for a reason.”

  Chapter Five

  Soon after that day in the basement when my mother announced my father had remarried, our large house in the suburbs went up for sale. With Susan and Martha off at college and determined to keep my brother and me in the same school district, Mom rented a spacious apartment in a brand new complex on busy Chagrin Boulevard about three miles away. Downstairs it had a living room, dining room and kitchen, and upstairs three bedrooms and a bath. The dining room had a large picture window overlooking the parking lot.

  That first summer Steve and I figured out how to keep tabs on the coming and goings of everyone important who lived in the new neighborhood which turned out to be an exciting change from our usual traipsing through the woods and wading in the creek behind the old house. If there was news to be spread, we knew it first. From the rich divorcee who lived across the hall with her poufy hair and bright orange lipstick with a parade of boyfriends through her door, to the slick, leather clad greaser kids who picked a fight with anyone who looked at them cross-eyed. Steve and I could have written the neighborhood gossip column.