Turn of Mind - Alice LaPlante [25]
The fact that you decided to give Fiona financial control was on one hand a wise one. You recognized that you could no longer act in your own best interest financially. You have substantial assets, and you should not risk them. That was the right thing to do—almost.
This is a long-winded way of saying that I would like to declare you mentally incompetent to get some legal protection for you. Just in case.
And an equally long-winded way of saying that I’m not sure that Fiona is the best person to control your money. She’s certainly capable. But is she trustworthy? I would feel more comfortable if I were also getting copies of your account statements. Can we perhaps arrange this?
Try to read this letter knowing of my concern for your well-being. Mental competency is a label. It doesn’t have anything to do with your actual abilities. You won’t suddenly deteriorate because some court of law has ruled. You’ll still be the same person. But you may possibly avoid a lot of trouble and expense by making this move now rather than waiting until you are pulled in again by the police or even charged.
I’ll come by tomorrow and try again. Believe me, I truly wish to be of service.
Your loving son,
Mark
Today my mother died. I am not crying, it was her time. So it goes. So it always goes.
Oh Mary! My father would say when my mother did something outrageous—danced the cancan on top of a chair at a formal dinner party, stoned a pigeon to death in front of horrified passersby. Oh Mary! Their love duet.
Such a lovely man, my father. He had a quiet mind, as Thoreau would say. How did he end up with my mother? She flirted with homosexual priests, told audacious lies, uncorked the whiskey at four o’clock every day. And now, finally, gone.
My flight to Philadelphia is delayed, and so when I arrive at the hospice the bed is already empty—someone failed to pass on the news that I was coming. I sit on the stripped bed. Does it matter? No. I don’t know if she would have known me in any case.
She wandered at the end. A devout Catholic always, in the last months of her life she forsook Christ and the Blessed Mother for the virgin martyrs. Theresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena, and Lucy were her constant companions. She would giggle, swat at the air with a Kleenex, offer them bits of food. A hungry, witty lot, to judge from the constant feeding they required and my mother’s constant laughing at their repartee.
She retained her mischievousness. She never lost that. Once, she secreted a ketchup package from her lunch tray and dotted it on her wrists at the lunocapitate joints, on her ankles at the talonaviculars. Bitter, vinegary stigmata. The nurse’s assistant screamed, to my mother’s obvious delight. She gave a high five to an invisible coconspirator.
Ultimately what did her in was a fall. An innocuous one. Her knees buckled as she hobbled from her bed to the toilet. She collapsed onto the floor, was helped up, and that was the end of her.
That evening, she was running a high fever. Throughout the night she remained deep in conversation with her saints. It was a different kind of delirium than usual: She was saying her good-byes. She kissed the virgins good-bye, gave them long, loving embraces. She waved goodbye to the doctors, the nurses, the orderlies. She waved to the hospice visitors passing by in the hall. She asked for, and received, a large glass of Scotch whiskey. She was given her last rites. Good-bye, good-bye.
My father wasn’t mentioned. I wasn’t either.
She was a lover of practical jokes until the end. When the orderlies came to remove her body, one noticed an oddly shaped lump between her breasts. Gingerly fishing his hand down the front of her hospital gown, he gave a shriek, jumped back, and shook his hand. Something bite you? his coworker said, grinning. Yes, indeed: my mother