Thank You for Listening(8)

“Amanda. Is everything okay?”

“Well, we had a bit of an incident.”

Sewanee turned around, leaned against the counter. She imagined spark-pluggy, capable Amanda behind the desk in her tidy office, Christmas sweater probably over the back of her chair, frizzy gray-black hair pushed back by a reindeer-antlered headband. “What happened?”

“Sorry to bother you. We reached out to your father, but he hasn’t returned our call.”

Typical. “It’s fine, what’s going on?”

“Well,” she sighed, “BlahBlah left her room last night.” Even the caretakers had adopted her grandmother’s nickname. Barbara had never wanted to be called “grandma” or “nana” or any other “ancient-sounding familiarity.” But a young Sewanee couldn’t say Barbara. The best she could manage was BlahBlah. Sewanee’s father had thought it fit his loquacious mother perfectly, so it stuck. “One of our orderlies found her in the common room at two thirty this morning. She believed she was at a hotel in Tennessee getting ready for her debutante ball. She thought the orderly was her escort.”

Sewanee closed her eye. “How is she this morning?”

“She woke up having no memory of last night. Was her usual bubbly self at breakfast.”

“Okay,” Sewanee breathed, tipping her head back. “That’s good. Right?”

“Yes, but the thing is, we had to put her on lockdown for the rest of the night, for her own safety. Her circumstances have advanced, necessitating we evaluate future care requirements.”

“What–what does that mean?”

“We believe that, in the somewhat near future, we’ll need to transition her to our memory care side.”

Sewanee had seen the big, locked door. She recalled vividly the red-lettered sign above it: MEMORY UNIT. KEEP DOOR CLOSED AT ALL TIMES. It was off the hallway that led to the bar. Yes, Seasons had a bar. And a yoga room. The place was designed to look like a Hollywood back-lot version of 1950s Americana: the main hallway, Main Street; the salon boasted a barber shop pole; the little market had a soda fountain counter and jukebox. It unnerved Sewanee, the Disneyfication of dissolution. But it made Blah happy. And being located in Burbank, right across from Warner Bros. Studios and next to the Smoke House, it was full of Show Folk like her grandmother.

That was why Blah had chosen it after her sister, Bitsy, with whom she’d been living, had died.

While other assisted living facilities took their residents on field trips to the mall or a museum, Seasons’ field trips consisted of movie nights at Hollywood Forever Cemetery to watch classic films outside (“and to visit old friends,” her grandmother liked to joke). They went to sitcom and talk show tapings. They had a happy hour Friday night that was open to the public and Swan would be there for most of them, drinking a martini with Blah and her pals.

When they’d first toured Seasons four years ago, Amanda had assured them if and when the time came for a transfer to memory care, Blah wouldn’t be isolated from the world she’d enjoyed; she would still participate in the activities of the assisted living side, if she wanted. If she could. Both Sewanee and Blah had brushed this off at the time. Neither seriously entertained the possibility of BlahBlah–gossipy, cackling, bright-eyed, sailor-mouthed, song-and-dance BlahBlah–needing locked doors and twenty-four-hour monitoring.

“Would you like me to keep trying your father or would you prefer to contact him?” Amanda asked.

“No, I’ll get hold of him.”

“Okay. Please have him call me as soon as you do.”

“Absolutely. Thank you, Amanda.”

Sewanee hung up and immediately brought up her father’s number.

She paused.

She sighed deeply and called.

“Sewanee, I don’t have time to chat, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Not that he was really asking. And not that he really didn’t have the time. Which made it impossible for Sewanee not to goad him by saying, “I just wanted to have a long heart-to-heart about our hopes and dreams, Dad.” Sarcasm was her best offense against his unrelenting self-protection and she wielded it expertly.

“Is there something you want?”

“Yes. When your mother’s assisted living facility calls, I want you to pick up.”

The smallest pause. “Is everything okay?” he asked, parroting exactly what Sewanee had asked Amanda. But the difference was in the tone. She knew tone. It was her job to know tone. His was distracted, impatient. But–and this was what struck her–almost hopeful everything wasn’t, in fact, okay. It turned her stomach.

“No,” she answered, swallowing. “There was an incident last night, nothing serious, but it prompted Amanda to tell me–tell you–that Blah needs to go into memory care. So, Amanda has to speak with you.”

“Why?”

Sewanee paused. “Why? To discuss . . . literally everything?”

“Her hopes and dreams?”

Sewanee didn’t respond to the quip and Henry didn’t continue. When the silence grew too long, Sewanee said, “I was planning to visit on Monday, for lunch.” Still nothing. “Why don’t we meet there?” If it weren’t for the sound of his swallowing–what Sewanee assumed was coffee–she would have thought they’d been disconnected. “Dad?”