“To deal with the negligence suit against the caregiver who let you fall down the stairs, and the outfit he works for.”
“Oh, no, you don’t. It was just a stupid accident,” she said. “Nobody’s fault.”
“Mom, you fell down a flight of stairs with a three-hundred-pound motorized chair. It’s a miracle you weren’t crushed. Somebody was negligent—”
“That would be me,” she stated. “I leaned on the control and drove myself off the rails.”
“Then the chair manufacturer is at fault.”
“No lawyers,” she said. “What I— What happened was no one’s fault. There will be no lawsuit. End of story.”
“Mom, you’re entitled to a settlement.” If there was one thing Mason couldn’t stand, it was people failing to take responsibility for their actions.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “I won’t hear another word about it.”
He sent Brenda a text message to cancel the lawyer. “Whatever you say. That gives us more time to meet with potential new caregivers.”
“Lovely.”
“Adam warned me that you were going to be a sourpuss.”
“I bet he didn’t say sourpuss. He’s a firefighter. I’m sure he has a more colorful term for me, like hell-bitch.”
Adam is a saint, thought Mason. St. Adam. He silently cursed the saint for having left already. Adam and Ivy had stuck around until their mom was discharged, then they both had to leave; Adam to his training and Ivy back to Santa Barbara to prepare for her move to Europe.
“I printed out the résumés of the candidates we’re meeting with,” he said. “You want to go over them now, or—”
“I think I’d like to go out into the garden now.”
He gritted his teeth, looking away so she wouldn’t see his annoyance.
“You’re annoyed,” she said. “You can’t wait to leave. You’ve got one foot out the door.”
Damn. Busted. He schooled his face into a pleasant expression. “Don’t be silly. I’m glad I’m here to spend some time with you.”
“Right.” She nudged a lever on her chair and rolled toward the French doors. “Let’s go inspect the property you bought. You’ve never even seen it in the summer.”
He stood aside, impressed by how nimbly she used her chair to operate the switch plate, which opened the doors. When he stepped out on the deck, the view and the cool clarity of the air stole his breath. “Wow,” he said.
“You did well,” she told him. “I do appreciate everything you’ve done for me—moving me to Avalon, getting this house adapted for my needs, hiring a staff. If I’m going to be a cripple the rest of my life, I might as well do it in style.”
“I thought we weren’t going to say cripple.”
“Not when I’m being polite. I don’t feel terribly polite these days.”
“Let me savor the view for a few minutes, okay?” The last time he’d seen the property, it had been blanketed in snow. The estate had been known as the Webster House, having been built in the 1920s by descendants of Daniel Webster himself. For Mason, the decision to acquire and restore the house had not been based on historical significance, prestige or even investment value. He wanted his mother to have a nice place to live, near Adam—aka her favorite—that could be quickly adapted for her special needs.
During that process, he had come to appreciate the benefit of having a big extended family living in a small town. His cousin Olivia was married to the contractor who had restored the fanciful timber-and-stone mansion to its original gloss as a grand summer residence from days gone by. His cousin Ross was married to a nurse who specialized in adaptive living. Another cousin, Greg, was a landscape architect. Olivia was a talented designer in her own right, so in a matter of months, the place was ready for his mother and Adam, and their staff of live-in help.
Mason had spared no expense. In his position, there was no need to. For the past decade, he had run his own private equities-and-lending firm, and business was good. He had all the money in the world. But of course, wealth had its limits. He couldn’t buy his mother her mobility. He couldn’t buy a way to make her smile again.
He took a deep breath of the morning air. “It’s sweet,” he said.
“I beg your pardon.”
“The air here. It’s sweet.”
“I suppose it is.”
“The landscaping looks great. Are you happy with it?”
“Your cousin Greg sent a crew to take care of the mowing and gardening,” she said, nodding in the direction of a long swath of grass sloping down to the water’s edge. There was a dock and a timber-and-stone boathouse, home to kayaks, a catboat and a 1940s Chris-Craft. When not on duty at the fire station, Adam lived in the upstairs quarters.
A fringe of ancient willow trees dipped their budding branches into the placid, sunlit water. The word that came immediately to mind was unspoiled. Willow Lake was one of the prettiest lakes in a landscape full of pretty lakes. The green-clad hills, with a few puffy clouds riding on their shoulders, rose gently upward from the shore. On the north end of the lake was a grand old summer camp, a hundred years in the making—Camp Kioga.
At the south end was the town called Avalon, as picture-perfect as a storybook setting, with its whistle-stop train station, old-fashioned town square, stone-built Greek revival library and shady shoreline parks. Its outskirts were equally attractive—a mountain road leading to a ski resort, a ball field for the local bush-league baseball team, white-steepled churches, their spires seeming to thrust through the new-leafed trees. The cliffs of the Shawangunks attracted climbers from all over the world. Somewhere not so far away, there was probably suburban blight—shotgun shacks and mobile homes, ramshackle farms and big-box stores. But he couldn’t see any of that from here. And more important, neither could his mother.
The place he’d acquired for her was on the western shore of the lake, so it caught the sunrise every morning, something his real-estate agent had pointed out when he had bought the property. The agent had babbled on about the attributes of the historic mansion, not knowing Mason was already sold on getting the place. He was looking for security for his mother, not for a return on investment.
“Why do they keep quitting?” he asked her, paging through the printouts of the candidates for the job of primary caregiver. “Is it the living quarters?”
“Have you seen the living quarters?”
He’d looked at pictures after the remodel was done. The living quarters, located in a private wing of the house, featured a suite of rooms with a view of the lake, new furnishings and luxurious fixtures. “Okay, good point. So?”
“I haven’t been conducting exit interviews. I’m sure Adam gave you an earful. Nobody wants to live with a miserable old woman who can barely change the channel on The Price Is Right.”
Oh, boy. “You’re not old,” he said. “Your parents would freak out if they heard you say that. And being miserable is optional. So is watching The Price Is Right.”
“Thank you, Sigmund Freud. I’ll remember that next time I’m lying in bed, pissing into a plastic tube—”
“Mom.”
“Oh, sorry. I don’t mean to trouble you with the reality of my body functions.”
Now he understood why they all quit.
* * *
“Where should I put your things, Mr. Bellamy?” asked the housekeeper.
Mason