Old Money
by Kenneth Radu

Everyone’s parents died sooner or later, but later was arousing anxieties among teachers gathered for an afternoon chat and coffee in their lounge. It seemed that daddies got a head start, well on their way to dust before joined by mothers. Three college teachers were talking about their ancient parents, not a living father among them.

Not accurate, Cassandra of the Math department corrected herself: Marie-Claire’s father still breathed, his brain petrified by Alzheimer’s for the last ten years. He didn’t know anyone he once knew, not even himself. Marie-Claire described how the old man stared over a single candle on the cake that she and her mother had brought to the institution devoted to victims of mental incapacitation of one kind or another.

“We had to blow out the candle, poor dear.”

Her father Rejean sat in a chair, seeing, but comprehending what exactly? To all intents and purposes, he was dead. That’s how Cassandra saw it. For the past five years, her own mother was living in a quasi-luxurious retirement suite that drained her estate of a whopping four thousand dollars a month. Despite osteoporosis that degenerated her spine, shrunk her height and crowded her internal organs, Cassandra’s mother at eighty showed every sign of vitality and excessive longevity.

“After she sold the family home, she invested the proceeds and along with insurance policies and the widow’s share of my father’s pension, she is managing well enough.”

“Gracious,” Bertrand piped up, famous for speaking the first thing that entered his less than disciplined mind, “at that rate of expenditure, if she lives another ten years, your mother will wake up one day, her finances drained, and say, “dear me, I’m still alive, the rent’s due and I’m out of money.”

The teachers laughed, including Cassandra who secretly winced under words sharp as a dire warning. Of course she loved her mother, everybody loved their elderly mother, although they had fallen into the habit of gentle mockery and believed themselves exempt from ridicule. No one in the group favoured euthanasia or voluntary suicide like the Dutch or, if they did, they weren’t confessing. Unless extremity dictated otherwise. Then, of course, compassion demanded compliance and merciful measures. Without terminal illness or appalling vacuity of mind, only a heartless child would suggest that one’s mother, healthy in most regards except for some mild decrepitude, had lived long enough, that her antediluvian body was supported at the expense of her children’s inheritance which she risked depleting if she continued beyond normal expectations.

They all had credit cards to pay and a great desire to retire well, better than a teacher’s pension or their own piddling investments could sustain. Not to mention the ravaging of their financial portfolios by recent economic downturns. Two mothers saw their savings diminished, which only lessened the amount available for all concerned. The question of how much money a teacher needed to live happily and well did not arise, nor did the idea of possessing more money than necessary to make ends meet, except Bertrand piped up in his insouciant way.

“It’s a truth universally acknowledged that those in possession of a fortune, must want more.”

“You’re always bringing Jane Austen into the conversation, Bertie.”

“Well, she’s honest about families and money. I’m the lucky one here. Both my parents had the good sense to die before my fiftieth birthday. They didn’t live long enough to go broke, not that they left all that much. I mean, really, what’s the point of living to ninety when the it costs a fortune to live well and at that age there’s not much to do?”

Not wanting to sound callous, Bertrand never expressed his relief publicly that parental demise enriched his bank accounts and paid off his debts which, thanks to chronic gambling, expensive wines, costly vacations, and Italian-made shoes for his small feet were considerable. Cassandra had never been fooled by Bertrand’s portliness: beneath a Santa Claus exterior and affability lurked a ravenous, self-serving appetite. He gave to himself first and foremost. He always lied when the subject of family fortunes came up, rather frequently since the economic meltdown in the States, that he had inherited less than he had hoped for. He remembered, he told them, driving behind an RV with a bumper stick blazoning in yellow: “WE’RE SPENDING OUR CHILDREN’S INHERITANCE.” He had shuddered as he sped past the happy superannuated campers.

The teachers exchanging jokes and nightmares about their prehistoric mothers were under sixty, quietly uneasy about the likelihood of physical problems as age drained vitality and good health. Despite obligatory admiration for how well, how hale and hearty, how independent and wonderfully athletic their mothers, Cassandra knew the teachers, herself included, could use more cash pronto. Drinking green tea instead of coffee, sitting in her jersey slacks on the sofa, she thought of her own needs. Well, not selfishly her own. Her two sons, medical students both, required assistance. Her husband, hopeless at finance, had trusted their savings to a broker who had risked too much too far and lost more than she cared to know in the stock market debacle and ensuing recession. Her parents, always obeying the Golden Rule that “you can never be too careful,” had squirreled away sums into government bonds and painfully safe guaranteed investment certificates, which earned low interest rates, but moved along steadily over the years like the tortoise that eventually overcame the footloose and fancy-free hare and won the race.

Listening to Marie-Claire talk about her own mother, who now lived with her daughter, handing over her pension check and the widow’s portion of late husband’s, Cassandra thanked the God in whom she did not believe that she had been spared that at least. She couldn’t imagine living with an extremely old mother, the aging looking after the aged. Not a realistic option to her mind. What were retirement and nursing homes for? The difficulty lay in their cost and the persistence of life. No one should live much past 80, as far as Cassandra was concerned.

“My mother,” she informed her colleagues, “had a close friend who made a living will, but reached the point, a philosophic and wise decision, that she didn’t want to wait to suffer and go through the unpleasant hospital business. She went to Switzerland where assisted suicide is permissible, or did she go to the Netherlands? No matter. In one of those countries she died in peace. And left a fortune to her grown children, I might add. Come to think of it, she was only in her late seventies.”

“That’s rather early to choose to die if you’re not suffering,” Marie-Claire said.

“Well, considering we’re not all that far off the mark ourselves, perhaps we might think so. Just wait until we hit the seventies and our bodies begin to collapse. What will our children say? Go to the Alps and die. Give us the money now. We need it more than you do.”

“You don’t have any children, Bertrand.”

“True, Marie-Claire, but if I did, I wouldn’t be so quick to pull the plug so they could pay off their mortgage and credit card debts. They should not to live on their expectations, which given my finances, would not be great, I assure you.”

 

On Friday she had no classes. Sitting in her mother’s two-room apartment, private bath with an Italian ceramic-tiled wheelchair-accessible shower, Cassandra ate one of the shortbread cookies she had brought in a tin. Her mother’s favourite which she used to bake herself, but the kitchenette here lacked an oven. Besides, her mother had signed up for the meal plan, which increased the monthly rent by several hundred dollars. She used the tiny kitchenette to toast bread and boil an egg for breakfast, the one meal she ate privately.

“Breakfast is served at eight and you know, dear, how I like to get up later and putter about in my robe, so I don’t pay for breakfast, anyway I enjoy my own company in the morning.”

Well, that was a savings at least. Cassandra quickly calculated at the rate of five dollars times 365 days a year, times ten years for the sake of argument (surely, not longer!) meant $18,250 more in the estate than there would have been if mother had preferred to breakfast in the dining hall. She couldn’t very well ask her mother to reduce the expense even more by preparing simple meals herself in the microwave. Soup heated in a bowl and sandwich: a matter of a few dollars at most. Forty-two hundred dollars a month, all services included, a swimming pool with hydrotherapy classes, a doctor and nurse on staff, a lounge open twenty-four hours with fresh coffee and muffins should an octogenarian wake up with unnatural cravings at three in the morning, a small private balcony where her mother could sit on a summer afternoon and watch ships sailing by on the St. Lawrence. If she sat facing north, she could see the illuminated cross on Mount Royal at night. Behind the building she could sit or stroll in a garden as precisely planted as a cemetery. Over fifty thousand and four hundred dollars a year; in nine years, should her mother live to be ninety, Cassandra and her brother would have lost four hundred and fifty-three thousand and six hundred dollars. Just how much money did her mother think she possessed?

Walking through a soft-carpeted corridor of beige walls hung with Group of Seven paintings, sidestepping nonagenarians supported by their walkers, Cassandra couldn’t even begin to see herself here. Old age happened to these residents, not to her, but clearly a lot of thought and money had gone into décor. If her mother declined into debility (more than likely) and required extensive nursing care in extreme old age, then she’d have to move to a nursing home which would consume the rest of the estate. At this rate, Cassandra had calculated that should her mother die at 90 (and why not?), she and her brother would only inherit about fifty thousand dollars each, and that would vanish if mother persisted in living a few years longer. Her brother, who had chosen to rebel when young and despised capitalism, lost what little he owned in a counter-culture agrarian fantasy. Now a good carpenter, he made ends meet like two by fours at right angles, built his own home, but had overextended himself by many thousands of dollars to keep his independent company afloat. He was facing bankruptcy.

“Down the hall, two doors, lives Becky Thornbury who celebrated her 100th birthday last week. They gave a party, everyone came. And the dear soul can still walk by herself, although they deliver breakfast to her every morning on a tray.”

“I bet she has to pay for the privilege.”

“Well, everything’s included, you see.”

Her mother walked slowly, burdened by a dowager’s hump. At one time they could look each other in the eyes; now Cassandra stood several inches higher above the woman who had raised and cared for her, had even paid her university tuition fees. Mother had been generous. Would that she were more so. What did she need with such luxurious surroundings? Having investigated, Cassandra knew of several residences that charged half the rate of her mother’s present accommodation. True, they lacked pools and twenty-four hour coffee houses and Italian tile in the shower stalls. The dining hall of one residence consisted of cafeteria style tables and chairs on a floor of grey, chipped linoleum. So much easier to keep clean, the supervisor had told her. The place also smelled of disinfectant and musty sweaters, but one could get used to that the way people got used to the smell of their cat’s litter box.

“I’m thinking of going on a cruise, dear.”

“A cruise? What on earth for?”

“Just a fancy. We’re planning a trip to Russia, a cruise on the Volga. Several ladies and I have been thinking of doing something different.”

“That can’t come cheap.”

“Well, what’s money for if not to spend, Cassie?”

That was a question to which she had several answers, and she got up because suddenly she found it difficult to breathe. It was raining so she couldn’t go out on to the balcony. Suppose she were to ask her mother for cash point blank, a sizable cheque, large enough to wipe out her own debts and those of her struggling brother? A trip to Russia would cost several thousand dollars. For what? Seemed rather selfish, really, and she was surprised that her mother who had spent her life sacrificing, could now be insensitive to her children’s problems. To be fair, which Cassandra liked to be, her mother was not entirely privy to the seriousness of her children’s financial losses. They had already talked of Jeremy’s business difficulties, and she had hinted about her own misfortune in the stock market.

“Times are hard, I know. Some residents have lost their life savings. They might have to move out. Where they will go, I don’t know.”

“There are government homes.”

“They take all your money, dear, if you move into one of them.”

“If they have no money anyway, that’s hardly a consideration, is it? About this trip mother, I wish you had at least discussed the idea with me.”

“Whatever for, my dear? I’m capable of making my own decisions.”

 

When she returned home that afternoon, Cassandra walked into her walk-in closet and changed her clothes. Her husband, involved in meetings at his office and working tonight, left a message on the phone. Would she please call the bank about their line of credit and second mortgage? Her sons’ tuition fees for next year were due, a neat sum to say the least, which diverting funds from a costly cruise along the Volga would help pay. The boys might have to get a bank loan to finance their own education, she supposed. And this house! Granite counter tops, stainless steel appliances, more toilets than inhabitants, and an unnecessary pool in the back yard. In her purse she removed the brochures depicting the Alps and Dutch canals. Another brochure described the options available to people who joined a certain society that assisted one to die with dignity, who to call, where to go. The challenge lay in introducing a potentially explosive topic. She could foresee her mother’s distress and panic. As a general topic of conversation, no specific suggestions, say over dinner at the residence, get a few other ladies involved, a gabfest among old hens: that just might work to broach the subject.

It rained hard even as the sun tried to break through cumulus clouds. Catching the light, drops fell like liquid diamonds. Cassandra watched until the rain stopped and the sun blazoned forth. Usually this kind of atmospheric condition produced rainbows. None appeared.

 

KENNETH RADU is a writer living in a French village in Quebec where he writes obsessively in English. Recent stories have appeared or are forthcoming online in Foundling Review, Thirst for Fire, Black Lantern, Two Hawks Quarterly, and others.

t o p
short story short stories poem poetry fiction nonfiction non fiction flash fiction creative writing publish publisher photography