Chapter 2 - The Thirty Days
|
The question hung over the long dining table like smoke.
No one reached for a glass.
Thirty-six guests stared at their untouched plates and waited for Vanessa Bellini to answer her fiancé.
Vanessa stood at Luca Moretti's right in her red silk gown with her chin lifted and her smile fixed in place.
She said the thirty days were not a secret.
She said every reputable residential care facility outside Chicago used the same rule for new residents.
Hannah Collins stood against the wall with a water pitcher in her hands and felt her heart hammer against her ribs.
She had worked in the Moretti mansion for eleven months.
Teresa sat at the far end of the table with her hands hidden in her lap.
Her red hands were trembling so badly that the edge of her napkin shook.
Her painful wrist was swollen inside her sleeve.
Luca did not raise his voice.
He looked at Vanessa the way he looked at a contract that did not add up.
He asked her to say the name of the doctor who had recommended the rule.
Vanessa named Dr. Elias Grant without blinking.
She said Dr. Grant had reviewed Teresa's case in full.
She said he had agreed that a quiet month without visitors would help Teresa accept the move.
Luca turned his head toward the man standing near the side door.
Mr. Whitmore stepped forward with a brown intake file pressed against his chest.
He was the administrator Vanessa had arranged from the facility.
He had not expected Luca Moretti to read every page.
Luca asked him if a thirty-day ban on family visits was standard at his facility.
Mr. Whitmore swallowed hard.
He said it was not.
He said the facility encouraged daily visits during the first month.
He said separation usually increased confusion and distress in older residents.
He told Mr. Whitmore to choose his words carefully.
Mr. Whitmore opened the file with shaking fingers.
He said the no-visit request had not come from any doctor.
He said the request had come specifically from Vanessa.
He read the note aloud because Luca told him to read it aloud.
The note said no family visits for the first thirty days under any circumstances.
The note said all calls from the son were to be directed to Vanessa first.
The note said Teresa was not to have access to a private telephone during that time.
She did not move because Luca lifted one hand without looking at her.
He asked Mr. Whitmore what else the file contained.
He read a summary signed by Dr. Elias Grant.
The summary said Teresa had been found wandering outside at night in her nightclothes.
The summary said she had left the stove on three times in one week.
The summary said she had shown marked confusion about the year and about her own address.
The summary said she had become agitated and unsafe when corrected.
Teresa lifted her head.
She said none of that had happened.
She said she had never left the house at night alone.
She said she had not cooked on the stove in more than a year because her wrist would not let her lift a pan.
She said Hannah could tell them.
Every face turned toward Hannah.
Vanessa looked at her with a warning so clear that Hannah felt it like a hand on her throat.
Hannah thought of her mother Ruth Collins at home in her small apartment.
She thought of Ruth recovering from hip surgery and trying to be brave about the pain.
She thought of the morning home aide Hannah paid for out of her own wages.
She set the pitcher down so her hands would stop shaking.
She said Teresa had never wandered.
She said Teresa had never left the stove on.
She said Teresa knew the date and the address and the names of everyone at the table.
She said Teresa's only trouble was the arthritis in her wrist and hands.
Vanessa called Hannah a liar in front of the whole room.
She said a housekeeper should not speak about medical matters she did not understand.
Luca stood up.
He told Vanessa that Hannah had answered his mother's call for help that evening.
He told her that Hannah was the only person at the table who had done so without asking what it would cost her.
Luca's uncle Sal rose halfway from his seat and then sat down again.
He asked Teresa directly if anyone had examined her before Dr. Grant signed that summary.
Teresa shook her head.
She said she had never met Dr. Elias Grant.
She said she had never spoken to him on the telephone.
She said no one had examined her at all.
He said the facility had accepted the summary in good faith.
He said transport had been scheduled for dawn tomorrow.
He said a nurse and a driver would arrive at six in the morning.
Luca asked who had paid the deposit.
Mr. Whitmore said Vanessa had paid it two weeks earlier.
Two weeks earlier Vanessa had toasted Teresa at Sunday lunch and called her a second mother.
Two weeks earlier she had helped Teresa fasten a bracelet around that painful wrist.
She said she had only been trying to spare Luca a painful decision.
She said everyone could see that Teresa was declining.
She said a son in Luca's position could not be expected to watch his mother fail in his own house.
Marco tried to speak for his daughter.
He said there had clearly been a misunderstanding among staff.
He said the families should discuss private medical matters in private.
Luca agreed with him.
Then he ended the dinner.
Thirty-six people rose in near silence.
Vanessa tried to take Luca's arm in the doorway.
He stepped away from her touch where everyone could see him do it.
When the last car left the drive, Luca closed the front doors himself.
He told Vanessa that the wedding was suspended.
Vanessa said he was humiliating her because a servant had caused a scene.
Luca said no wedding would be planned in a house where his mother was afraid.
He told her to leave the mansion for the night.
He told her not to call Teresa.
He told her not to call anyone on his staff.
Marco protested that his daughter was Luca's fiancée.
Luca said that title gave her no authority over his mother.
She looked at Hannah on her way out.
She promised Hannah that this night was not finished.
Teresa began to cry without covering her face.
Luca knelt beside his mother's chair so she would not have to look up at him.
He asked if he could see her wrist.
She pulled her hand back.
She asked him if he was checking her before he sent her away.
The question broke something open in his face that Hannah had never seen before.
He said he was calling Dr. Nathan Cole.
Dr. Cole arrived within the hour with his bag and his reading glasses.
He examined Teresa's wrist at the dining table under the bright light.
He found swelling and bruising where the joint had been gripped and twisted.
He said the injury was recent.
He said it had not come from arthritis alone.
Teresa would not say who had held her wrist that hard.
She only looked toward the empty doorway where Vanessa had gone.
He asked Hannah to stay with Teresa while he spoke to Mr. Whitmore in the study.
Hannah sat in the chair Luca had left empty.
Teresa took her hand with the uninjured one and held on tightly.
She whispered that Luca had sent Vanessa out for tonight.
She whispered that tonight was not the same as forever.
She asked Hannah if a son could still love his mother and sign the papers in the morning.
Hannah had no honest answer that would comfort her.
May you like
She promised Teresa that she would not leave the room.
The transport was still coming at dawn unless Luca stopped it himself.
