The Good Life (2 page)

“Nobody needs this right now,” said Ann. “This would affect me the most. I have no interest in playing nursemaid.”

“So say no,” said Mike, getting up from the couch to make himself another scotch. “It’s as simple as that.”

“It’s not as simple as that,” said Ann, downing the rest of her champagne, then setting the empty glass back down on the watchful owl in front of her. “They’re my parents.”

“Whom you’ve had very little to do with for the last twenty years. We see them at Christmastime and that’s it,” said Mike, his massive back to her. “And every year, you moan and groan, along with the kids, about spending three days on the farm.”

Ann thought back to the previous Christmas, trying to remember their visit. “What was my dad like last Christmas?” she asked.

“He was okay,” said Mike, returning to the couch with his drink and the bottle of champagne, which he emptied into Ann’s glass. “He interacted with the kids a bit. He was certainly a part of the celebration.”

“He was quiet.”

“Yes,” said Mike, “he was quiet. But your dad’s always chosen his words carefully.”

Ann swallowed half her glass and then said, “They would live here for six months.”

Mike set his glass down on the Scarlet Ibis and looked searchingly at his wife. “Are you even entertaining this?”

“Hear me out,” said Ann, scrambling. “We could give them the guesthouse.”

“We
use
the guesthouse,” said Mike. “That’s why we have one.”

“Mike, we don’t have a lot of overnight visitors, especially during the winter,” said Ann. “Our entertaining is ninety percent drinks and dinner, with overnights thrown in occasionally. That guesthouse is underused. You know that.” Mike picked up his glass and took a sip. Three feet from Ann, he was miles away. “There are two bedrooms back there,” she said, talking faster. “One could be for my parents and the other could be for the live-in help, quality help, which I would get in place before their arrival. And they would be all set. They would live their lives and we would live ours. Of course, I would spend a bit of time with them every day, and we would ask them here for dinner once a week—maybe on Sunday afternoon—and that would be that.”

Mike scratched his head, then finger-combed his tight black curls back into place. His eyes roamed the room, as if the secret to ending this discussion lay underneath a chair cushion or behind a burlap drapery panel. His gaze returned to his wife’s face, bright and focused on his. He could see, anyone could, that she wanted this, as much as she wanted another vacation in Tuscany or a Tiffany necklace at Christmas. “You’re kidding yourself if you think a live-in aide is the only cost of your parents living in your backyard for six months,” he said, not ready to surrender. “First of all, they have to leave their home. Someone—most likely you—has to help them pack up whatever they might want or need at this Meadowbrook, and then you’ll need to sell the house. Then, we’ll need to get your parents here. Then we’ll have to assess their needs and hire the right people. The list is endless. You can’t just fix this, Ann. This is not like organizing a Christmas party.”

“I know that,” said Ann, softer and slower. “But I also know we can get through this.”

“Then you’ve decided,” said Mike, stiffening.

“No, honey,” said Ann, extending her legs so her bare feet touched Mike’s thigh. “I’m still trying to decide. But you tell me what you’d do if you were the only child and your seventy-two-year-old mother, who has been single-handedly taking care of your seventy-two-year-old father, called you and asked for help.”

Mike’s concept of parents and what they represented had become clouded and dark since their accident and death. Their untimely passing had made him a very wealthy twenty-two-year-old man, and he wasn’t sure he would give up everything to have them back. “I don’t know,” he said, looking at the melting ice cubes in his glass.

“I know,” she said, gently digging her toes into his leg. “You would help them. And though you can no longer help your parents, you can help mine.” Mike rubbed his forehead with his thumb and index finger. “You know this falls on my shoulders, Mike,” said Ann. “I will do everything. You will have to do nothing.”

“This is bigger than you think.”

Sensing a slip in his defenses, Ann began making a mental list. Mike stood and crossed the room. He dumped the remaining half of his drink in the bar sink, and then faced her again. “This conversation is not over.”

“I know,” said Ann, hiding an inner smile.

“I’ve got some more work to do before turning in,” he said. “Let’s sleep on this and talk more about it tomorrow.”

“Come here,” said Ann, standing. And when Mike again crossed the room to stand beside her, she wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head momentarily on his chest. “You’re a good man.”

“Not necessarily,” he said. “I’m a businessman. What, if anything, is in this for me?”

“My happiness,” said Ann, the champagne working its way through her system like electricity through a circuit.

“Umm,” said Mike, kissing her on the mouth.

As soon as he left the room, she scurried over to the bar and silently opened another bottle. She downed half a glass, then ran to the kitchen for a legal pad and mechanical pencil. Back on the couch with her champagne in arm’s reach, she started her list. She scribbled notes and drank for an hour, then she turned out the lamp beside her and lay down for a moment. She awoke early in the morning, with the cashmere blanket from the armchair draped over her.

 

Two hours and three Advils later, Ann showered, dressed, drank a supplement shake, and drove her fifteen-year-old daughter, Lauren, to the public high school. They rarely talked on the ten-minute drive, so it was easy not to tell her the news. Ann would tell her and Nate, sixteen, as soon as everything was in place. She would also have to tell their housekeeper, Emma, whose duties would be affected, at least temporarily. After the drop-off, Ann called her mother on her cell phone, fumbling the numbers twice in her haste. She kept meaning to add her phone number to her contact list; this new arrangement would finally prompt her to actually do it.

“I hope we won’t be too much trouble,” said Eileen, picking up on the third ring as she always did.

“No trouble at all,” said Ann. “I’m going to set you up in the guesthouse, with your own caregiver.”

“Oh, we don’t need all that,” said Eileen, sucking in her stomach. “We’ll be fine. And we can come to you if we need help.”

“This will be better for both of us, Mother,” said Ann. “The only thing you’ll have to come to us for is dinner on a Sunday afternoon.” On her way to the coffee drive-through, Ann told her mother to pack winter clothes for herself and Sam. “We’ll arrange to have more sent as we need them,” she said. “And you won’t need anything else. The guesthouse is completely furnished.”

“This is all happening so quickly,” said Eileen.

“I thought this was what you wanted,” said Ann.

“It
is
what I want, what I need,” said Eileen. “There are just so many details to work out.”

“Like what?” said Ann, switching lanes.

“Like the house,” said Eileen. “What do we do with our house while we are living with you?”

Ann told her mother they had a couple of options. They could rent the house. It was only ten minutes from the local agricultural college and would certainly attract a professor or staff member with a family. Or, they could simply sell it. Since they would be moving from Ann’s guesthouse to Meadowbrook, they wouldn’t need it anymore. Eileen could think about it, and then Ann would call a Realtor, either way. All Eileen had to do was tag the pieces of furniture she would take with them to Meadowbrook. The rest would stay with the house as part of the package. “Meaning we’ll be moving from Meadowbrook to Oakdale Cemetery,” said Eileen, grimly.

“Oh God, Mother,” said Ann. “There’s no need to get morbid here. Hold on a moment. Yes, I’ll have a large low-fat caramel latte. And make it hot.”

“Are you still there?”

“Mother, I’m ordering a coffee.”

“In the middle of our conversation?”

“Welcome to the twenty-first century.”

“I miss the twentieth,” said Eileen. “Life was simpler. I can barely find what I need in the grocery store, there are so many products crowding the shelves. The other day, I was looking for a block of cheddar cheese, you know, to grate onto my tuna casserole? Well, the blocks are gone, replaced by bags of already shredded cheese, coated with something to prevent the pieces from sticking to one another—corn starch, I think it is. Who in the world needs that?”

“Many people prefer that, Mother. It saves time.”

“What are people so busy doing they can’t grate cheese?”

Ann breathed heavily into the phone as she took the cardboard cup from the girl with a nose ring at the window. She immediately set the latte down in her cup holder, handed the girl a dollar, and then cradled the phone between her shoulder and neck so she could sanitize her hands with Purell. “Thank you,” she called as she zoomed out of the drive-through lane.

“Well, thank
you,
Ann,” said Eileen.

“For what?”

“For taking us in,” said Eileen. “Are you talking to me again, or are you still distracted?”

“Yes, I’m talking to you,” said Ann, pulling the car out into traffic. She blew the horn at a teenage driver who tried to pass her on the right.

“Ann?”

“I’ve got to run, Mother,” said Ann. “People drive like maniacs in this town. I’ll call again in a few days to see how you’re doing. Try not to worry. Everything is going to be okay.”

As soon as Ann got off the phone with her mother, she called her decorator and asked her to come immediately. Dede Devore expeditiously rescheduled all of her appointments that morning and arrived at Ann’s front door, fabric books in hand and lipstick retouched, forty-five minutes later. “My parents are coming,” said Ann by way of greeting, leading Dede quickly through the foyer and into the kitchen.

“So, you want to redo one of your spare bedrooms?” asked Dede, trying to hide her disappointment.

“I want to redo the guesthouse,” said Ann, handing her an espresso.

“For a weekend visit?” she asked, taking a sip.

“For a prolonged stay,” said Ann. “Let’s take those books out back.”

Ann and Mike had built the guesthouse along with the main house three years earlier. The combined 8,500-square-foot structures stood majestically at the end of Foxwood Lane, number sixteen, accessed by a divided crushed shell driveway. The house was a white 7,000-square-foot stucco box, with a semicircular, columned portico attached to the front. Looking at the house from the street, the living room was on the left, the dining room was on the right. The kitchen, Mike’s study, and a den ran along the back of the house, as well as a bathroom large enough to hold a sauna, which, in the end, Ann decided belonged in the basement next to the workout room. It looked remarkably like the White House in Washington, D.C., so much so that everyone in town referred to it as White House West. The guesthouse was less grand in appearance, but spacious enough to accommodate two couples or a family of four for a weekend.

Before moving to Foxwood Lane, the Baronses lived on the other side of town, adding onto an aging house in an old neighborhood three times in ten years. The house eventually outgrew the neighborhood, as did the Baronses when Mike became CEO of Dilloway. The construction of the new house took nine months, but everything was ready when they moved in, from the landscaped flagstone patio and pool area to the painted walls, window coverings, and furniture Ann had meticulously chosen with Dede. The guesthouse matched the main house in its traditional decor—Ann loved floral chintzes, subtle stripes, and rich colors—but it would never do for simple, elderly people like her parents. Ann was convinced they needed a country look if they were going to feel at home. “The walls should be a cream color, I think,” said Ann, opening the guesthouse door and walking down the hallway into the living room. “Something soft and soothing, an antique white maybe.”

“How about some stenciling on the kitchen walls along the ceiling?” asked Dede, laying her books down on the coffee table in front of the couch and adjusting the waistline of her shirt, making sure the fabric camouflaged the small mound of flesh at her middle. “Some hearts or ducks, something pastoral.”

“That sounds great,” said Ann. “My mother would
love
that. Let’s go with hearts.”

The living room furniture, they decided, was too formal and would have to be put in storage. Dede would replace it with inexpensive wood composite furniture that Ann could simply donate to the Salvation Army after her parents’ departure. The furniture in the bedrooms could stay, but the duvets would be replaced with quilted, washable bedspreads, and the window treatments would be scaled back to simple, pinch-pleat panels that could be drawn closed in the evenings. Dede jotted down notes as they walked back into the living room, where she asked Ann about a budget. “Don’t worry about that,” said Ann. “I don’t want you to go overboard, of course. Keep in mind these are farm people. Spend more time and energy on the larger bedroom, where my parents will stay, than the other one. And make sure the fabrics you select are washable. God only knows what kind of spills and accidents will happen back here.”