PART 2
I called 911 from my kitchen floor with my mother wrapped in my coat.
The paramedics said her body temperature was dangerously low. Her feet had early frostbite. She was dehydrated and underweight.
At the hospital, the emergency doctor looked at the bruise on her cheek and the older bruises on her arms. Then he called a social worker. The social worker called Adult Protective Services.
My mother held my hand the whole night. Sometimes she knew me. Sometimes she called me “Mama.” Once, she sang a few lines of the bluebird song, and then fell asleep in the middle of it.
The next morning, two police officers and an investigator from Adult Protective Services went to the group home.
It wasn’t licensed. Six elderly residents in a small house, run by one woman named Monica Lusk. At night, she locked each of them in their rooms with a bolt on the outside of the door.
My mother’s bedroom window had a broken latch. She’d been climbing out of it every night for two months.
To walk two miles home. To her old house. To check on her baby.
In her confused mind, I was still six years old. And Mina was me.
Then the investigators looked at my stepfather.
My mother’s pension was $3,400 a month. Howard had been paying Monica Lusk $900 a month for her care.
He’d been keeping the rest.
For three years.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
My mother’s note said, “He says it’s almost over.”
The investigators found out what that meant. Howard had stopped taking her to her doctor. He’d canceled her heart medication refills in October. He’d told Monica not to call 911 “unless it was the end.”
“She’d want to go peacefully,” he’d told her.
My mother still had a small savings account and a life insurance policy. Howard was the only beneficiary.
He was arrested in January. Financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult. Neglect. Theft. Monica Lusk was charged too, for running an unlicensed care home and illegal restraint.
A judge removed Howard as guardian and appointed me.
My mother lives with us now. In the little room at the bottom of the stairs, my father’s old office, with a window that looks out at the bird feeder. A home health aide comes during the day while I’m at work.
She has good days and bad days. On bad days, she doesn’t know my name.
But she always knows Mina.
Every night at bedtime, Mina climbs into my mother’s bed. And my mother sings her the bluebird song. She never forgets the words to that one.
Then she reaches into her cardigan pocket and gives Mina a butterscotch candy.
We moved the spare key out from under the flowerpot.
My mother doesn’t need it anymore.
She’s already home.
THE END.
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Visit your parents. Even when someone tells you it confuses them. Especially then.
What would you have done if you found that note? Tell us in the replies.