The Messenger

It was "Sayonara, Amber/Carol." But, not before my Veteran’s Day holiday, when she sashayed into the living room, with one hand on her hip, sliding her head side to side Egyptian-style.

“You know,” she started in, “Miss Jack hasn’t been feeling well.”

Dramatic pause.

I knew as much and offered that I also knew that Jack was heading to the doctor that afternoon. “Well, she hasn’t been sleeping in her bed all week!” That I didn’t know, but precisely because Jack doesn’t want me to know. I stammered out something, but it didn’t really suffice for Dr. Amber /Carol’s purposes. “Well,” she continued, “her son should be blah, blah, blah…..”

The best card I could play was that I would let my sister-in-law-the-nurse know about her concerns. I did in fact telephone my husband at work and asked him to call his sister, and as it turned out he had just learned about the nights she spent sleeping in her wheelchair and was in communication with his siblings. When Jack found out that Amber/Carol had tattled (I swear without any prompting from me,) she was angry. I don’t know if that set in motion something bigger, or if what was in the offing would have happened all the same.

A day later, I had to leave town on last minute business. Although he was reluctant to leave his mother, my husband agreed to accompany me once he established that Jack would have some friends and family looking in on her. The rest I have gleaned from various sources.

The first change was the unexpected appearance of the blessed Wanda. Apparently, Wanda had been one of Jack’s hired workers prior to our arrival in LA. Her tenure must have been brief though because I had never even heard her name in passing. When we came back home on Sunday night, the house was tidy and the floor was mopped, and clearly not by the grace of Amber/Carol.

Jack didn’t let on much to my husband, even after the doctor visit, except to say that her arm or hand wasn’t working well, and that Wanda had called out of the blue, and that Amber/Carol had been dismissed upon her insistence that she’d mop the floor, the next week. We were also to discover later that Jack had a party that weekend. I’m glad that she did.

On Monday we thought we were back into our routine and that Jack was being treated for whatever was ailing her. On Tuesday, my husband got a call at work from Jack informing him that she was checking herself into the hospital, and not much more. There was a strange car in the driveway when we got home from work, and no sign of Jack, Wanda, or Jack’s dog.

Wanda knocked on the front door late that evening. Once she caught her breath from running from the bus stop, she introduced herself and filled us in on the odyssey from which she had just returned. She had been given an hour’s notice that she was going to be accompanying Jack to the hospital. But, before they hitched a ride in that ambulance, she needed to help Jack take her sickly dog back to the (non-kill) shelter from whence he came.

It’s so easy trust Wanda, and to take in what she shares in her lovely, lilting voice. She’s sensible, and calm and insightful. She told us more than Jack would have wanted us to know about how she had endured the days before the hospitalization. But, she also unfolded her wisdom about how she has a gift when it comes to persuading Jack do what is in Jack’s best interest, and that to her mind, family cannot be good caretakers. She has seen many stubborn folks like my mother-in-law she said, and there’s no convincing them to do the right thing if you’re related.

So, Jack has been discharged into residential rehab where my husband visits daily. She frets about her raggedy cat, who I promise is doing well under our watch. We wait, we breathe and thank our lucky stars for Wanda.