A Perfect Mistake by Laura Brown

Author:Laura Brown [Brown, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780648347293
Publisher: Lakewater Press
Published: 2019-11-11T16:00:00+00:00

*****

Cam

I had to admit, dinner started off better than expected. Even Nica relaxed as the conversation stayed determinedly on current events, and my parents didn’t flinch at her signing. Mom kept conversation light, smiling at appropriate intervals, even allowing her face to crease at one point. I couldn’t remember a time when she’d been this nice to any of my dates. The sudden change of heart worried me.

Empty dishes were waiting to be cleared when, without warning, the conversation shifted. “Do you have… clients, Nica?” My mother’s face was cool and calm. It wasn’t a good sign.

Nica’s cheeks turned pink. But she held herself confidently. “I have almost a hundred clients.” Whether my parents realized it or not, Nica did her best to find some way to work the question into her answer, no doubt to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.

Dad’s mouth movements were gibberish, but his face telegraphed bafflement.

Nica relaxed a bit. “I do what I can to manage them all. It’s not easy. The caseloads have been getting larger and larger in the past few years. The clients are also getting frailer. It’s a juggling game. I only see my clients once or twice a year. At any given time I have quite a few who are quiet, giving me time to devote to the rest.”

“You help them…?”

I understood the sentence to be a question, based on years of studying Mom’s face. Pain radiated from the back of my eye sockets as I tried to piece together the rest of her words. I hadn’t recovered from the past few days. How had I ever survived the constant lip-reading of my childhood?

I rubbed my temples, grateful Nica insisted on signing as she spoke. “Not quite. All my clients are receiving services in their homes. These services range from cleaning, to shopping, to personal care, and beyond. The goal is to take an elder that would otherwise be at risk for nursing-home placement, or struggling to meet their daily needs, and keep them safe at home.”

She turned to Dad. “Your mother started off having trouble with cleaning, her body unable to perform the tasks. She never had an issue with food shopping, thanks to Cam. Closer to the end she no longer could bathe herself, and we started with a personal care worker. At that point I shared the case with a nurse, who wrote the care plan to make sure Cassie would be safe in the shower. Then we stepped back once Hospice started.”

My parents stared at me. Dad’s eyes bulged while Mom scowled, both perplexed by what had gone on. I held up my hands. “Don’t look at me. I was there for the whole thing.”

“It was Cam who noticed showering was becoming an issue. He e-mailed me and I was able to step in. Then we both had to talk Cassie into accepting it.”

I remembered Grandma’s dramatic plea to die “smelling like a cheap whore.” “She was stubborn. Nica worked hard to get a worker Grandma would like.

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