Bingoed (4 page)

“Yes,” confirmed Rose. “We just returned.”

“How is he doing? We’re all so concerned about him.”

“I know,” said Rose. “Everyone here is worried. Bob is a favorite here.”

“Such a sweet man,” interjected Dora, the daughter.

“He’s still in a coma, but the doctors are hopeful.”

“They think he’ll recover?”

“I hope so. Although they did say that the longer he remains in the coma the worse things look.” She glanced quickly at her daughter. A tear rolled down her cheek. “I’m sorry. I sat with him and held his hand. I tried to cheer him up but I don’t know if he heard me or not.”

“I just don’t understand why he collapsed in the first place,” said Essie. “I always thought of Bob as a really sturdy fellow. You know, so athletic. He was always doing aerobic exercises.”

“I know,” agreed Rose. “He did sit-ups and push-ups regularly. He prided himself on taking really good care of himself.”

“Maybe it was stress,” offered Essie.

“Stress?” said Rose, her small nose twitching as she glanced again at her daughter.

“I mean, maybe something was bothering him. Sometimes, they say that stress can be just as dangerous as high cholesterol or lack of activity in causing heart attacks. . .”

“Oh, it wasn’t a heart attack,” noted Rose. “The doctors aren’t certain exactly what it was—or is—but Bob’s nurse said quite specifically that it’s not a heart attack—or a stroke.”

“But it could be stress?”

“I guess,” responded Rose. “I guess it could be anything else. Who knows?”

“Had Bob discussed anything with you that was bothering him?”

“No . . . ”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing he said,” said Rose, again looking towards her daughter.

“I sense a but,” offered Essie, glancing from one woman to another, sensing their discomfort.

“It’s funny, Essie. I was just telling my daughter. Bob did seem agitated at dinner.”

“At dinner?”

“Yes, last night. He was just fine at lunch—the regular old Bob—cheerful, friendly, outgoing. Then, at dinner, he was quiet. He seemed nervous, like something was bothering him.”

“Do you know what that something was?”

“No. I don’t have a clue. But I’m guessing that whatever it was, it was what led to his collapse during Bingo. You could ask Evelyn.”

“Evelyn?”

“Yes, our other tablemate. She might know. Sometimes, I think—I’m not sure—but sometimes Bob stayed after dinner. They talked. Evelyn is a very good listener.”

“Mom,” whispered Rose Lane’s daughter.

“I need to get going, Essie. If you want to talk to Evelyn, you can probably find her in the chapel around this time.”

“I wouldn’t want to disturb her.”

Rose beamed from ear to ear. “You wouldn’t disturb Evelyn. I promise.” She clutched Essie’s arm, then turned abruptly and transferred her weight to her daughter’s arm and the two walked slowly into the residents’ hallway.

Essie lost no time pushing her walker swiftly through the foyer and family room. Down the back entrance to the family room ran a narrow hallway that led to a small room which had been turned into a non-denominational chapel. As she guided her walker through the doorway, she noted one woman kneeling near the front altar. She assumed it was Evelyn Cudahy because the woman was wearing a bright flowered scarf wrapped around her head. Essie moved between the pews and up the central aisle of the chapel as quietly as possible. She seated herself behind and across from the kneeling woman.

Soon, the woman must have realized that someone else was in the small chapel, because she turned her head. When she saw Essie, she smiled and rose. Walking towards her, Essie was impressed with how her face seemed to glow—surprising for someone undergoing chemotherapy, she thought.

“Essie Cobb,” said the scarved woman.

“Evelyn Cudahy?” asked Essie.

“Yes,” she replied. “Are you looking for me?”

“I hate to intrude.”

“It’s fine. If you want to talk to me, we can talk here. No one else is around. If someone comes in, though, we’ll have to leave.”

“I understand.”

“You’re concerned about Bob,” said Evelyn as she sat beside Essie in the pew.

“How did you know?”

“I’m concerned about him too!”

“Oh,” said Essie, stammering, “I thought. . . I thought. . .”

“You thought I was here praying for myself?”

“I . . . I . . .”

“There’s nothing wrong with praying for yourself and—believe me—I do my share of it. But today, my prayers are primarily for Bob.”

“Rose Lane suggested I talk to you. She thought you might know what was bothering him.”

“I wish I did. Maybe I could have helped him. He has certainly helped me.”

“He has?”

“I mean, he was—is—a good . . . friend. He’s always there for me. He talks to me. He lets me talk to him. If I knew anything I could do or say to help him I surely would.”

“It sounds like the two of you have a very special relationship.”

“Yes. We do. I guess possibly because neither of us has any other family.”

“No family at all?”

“No. I never married and I was an only child. The same for Bob. We feel quite a kinship. Most everyone else here at Happy Haven has children—or at least nephews or nieces.”

“I can see how that might be,” answered Essie. She remained quiet, admiring the strong-minded and capable woman before her. Finally she spoke. “Rose suggested that Bob seemed particularly agitated at dinner last night.”

“Yes, he did.” She looked down, her forehead suddenly becoming a mass of wrinkles on her previously smooth face. “Even more so at Bingo. He even told me he needed to talk to me after Bingo. Not wanted to talk to me, but needed to talk to me. I’m guessing that whatever was bothering him was eating away at him so much that he felt the need to unburden himself to me.”

“And he’d done that before?”

“Yes, but, Essie, the things that typically bothered Bob were the things you would imagine. He was so lonely when he first came here—I guess—six years ago. Even so, he always tried to be cheerful. Happy Haven really became his family. Being here was probably the first time in his life that he finally felt as if he had a family. I can’t imagine what could have been bothering him last night, but it wasn’t just his typical loneliness.”

“Rose said he was fine at lunch but at supper he seemed upset.”

“That’s what I noticed too. Rose and I both did. Hazel too. It was very strange. I really expected to get some answers after Bingo, but then Bob collapsed and now I don’t know if we’ll ever know.”

“Rose visited him today at the hospital,” offered Essie.

“I know,” answered Evelyn. Then she said, “I so wish I could be there for him, but they won’t let me go anywhere near the hospital, particularly to any patient floors while I’m undergoing chemo. I really want to be there for him. This is like a substitute,” she said, indicating the chapel with her hand.

“And you can’t guess at what might have been bothering him?”

“I wish I knew,” said Evelyn, “but I just don’t. Whatever it was, though, it was something that came up suddenly. Because I know for certain that it wasn’t bothering him at all at lunch and by supper it was consuming him.”

“It’s too bad he didn’t confide in you at supper. Maybe there would be something we—you—some of us could have done to help him.”

“That’s what I keep wondering,” she sighed. “But it’s too late for fretting over that now. We just need to concentrate now on helping him to recover and come out of this coma.”

“I agree, Evelyn.” Essie grasped the woman’s hands in hers and squeezed them. “I’m going to leave you now so you can continue your efforts on Bob’s behalf.”

“Thank you, Essie, for your concern about Bob. I mean, you hardly knew him.”

“He’s one of us, Evelyn. As you said yourself, we’re all a family at Happy Haven.” She smiled as she stood up. Then grabbing the handles of her walker, she maneuvered the device around and headed out of the chapel and down the back hallway towards the family room.

Chapter Five

“Age is a high price to pay for maturity.”

—Tom Stoppard

As she rolled back down her hallway towards her apartment, she saw in the distance a man standing at her doorway, knocking. Who is that? she wondered. As she got closer, she realized that the young man (he was probably fifty-something, but when you’re over ninety as Essie was, someone in their fifties is young) was Darrell McKinney, her financial advisor. Oh, great! she thought. Just what I don’t need now. Darrell was a superb advisor and had done a spectacular job maintaining her portfolio and seeing to it that she didn’t go broke (as she phrased it—Darrell phrased it as “maximizing her assets and minimizing her liabilities”). Unfortunately, he pestered her. Every time she turned around, he was calling her or at her door wanting to make what she perceived as a miniscule change in her finances. She’d tried to tell him to do what he thought best. She’d tried to give him “carte blanche” but Darrell didn’t seem to get the message. He was determined to “advise” her just as he had “advised” her husband John for many years before his death. And feeling sorry for the man (after all, Darrell probably missed John as much as she did), she continued to foster their relationship.

“Darrell,” she called out. “Visiting again? So soon? Seems like you were just here the other day.” She smiled sweetly.

“Essie,” responded Darrell, briefcase in hand. “I dropped by to check on you and to go over a few changes I think we might like to make in your portfolio.” Essie opened her door (she never locked it unless she was actually leaving the facility which was hardly ever) and Darrell followed her into her small living room.

Essie rolled over to her favorite chair and plopped down, leaving her walker beside her. Darrell followed and took a position on the love seat directly across from her. He opened his case and brought out several folders and papers. Immediately he began talking about the various changes he wanted to make in Essie’s stock holdings.

To Essie, it sounded like, “waa, waa, waa. And then we could blah, blah, blah. On the other hand, we might duh, duh, duh.” She recalled how much her late husband had enjoyed playing the stock market and the times he and the then young Darrell had spent together at their kitchen table plotting their moves. Over the years, John’s efforts along with Darrell’s input had made Essie a comfortably well-to-do woman. She was certainly grateful for their efforts, but she didn’t share John’s intense fascination with the stock market. And she never was able to convey this message to Darrell. She just listened to him every time he brought her a new idea and hoped that her husband’s faith in the man had not been and would not be misplaced.

“And just how is my portfolio doing, Darrell?” she asked when Darrell stopped for air midway through his spiel.

“Magnificently, Essie!” replied Darrell, his warm brown eyes twinkling. “John knew what he was doing when he set up this portfolio for you. For example, we have this Cracked Liberty Bell Fund. Now you’ve had over 500 shares of CLBF for going on six years. My recommendation is to move at least half of that over to Mutual Imagine Longtime Investments. They’re a new company and their rate of return has tripled in just the last six months. This is something I think we want to get in on.”

“It sure sounds like something we should get in on. Lots of numbers there, Darrell. Very impressive.”

“And, Essie. Your LSD Bond Fund—the one we doubled last year. It really took off last month. Defied the market and the other market indicators. You know, I typically advise against bonds, but those bond funds can’t be beat. I’d recommend we add to our holdings with LSD and decrease our holdings in some fund that isn’t producing as well—say, maybe, the Tread Gently Exchange Traded Fund.”

“I’m all for LSD. I missed out on it back in the sixties.”

“I’m also going to recommend we put in place a stop-order at $5000 for all of our prime holdings. That means you’ll receive a notification when a fund reaches that level and we’ll have to decide whether or not we want to continue holding that particular fund above that level. If that happens, I’ll call you . . .”

“How about I just give you permission right now to do what you think is best? If that happens,” she suggested coyly.

“All right,” said Darrell slowly, peering at her, his long thick eyelashes totally wasted, she often thought, on a man so completely obsessed with money. “If that’s what you want to do, but I have no problem consulting with you about each of these decisions.”

“I know, Darrell,” she said, “and truly I appreciate it, but I trust you. I really do. I trust that you’ll do what’s best for my money—and for me!”

“Okay, Essie,” he agreed. “But you should know that I would never do anything to damage your trust in me. I consider the time I spent working with your husband, a wonderful period for me. John trusted me and helped me get established and I promised him I would take good care of you and I intend to do just that.”

“I know,” she responded. “Not all women are as lucky as I am. There are certainly many women right here in Happy Haven who struggle financially. I guess their husbands didn’t plan the way John did.”

“Believe me, Essie. I hear about them. I do. Actually, I have several clients who are residents here at Happy Haven. I try to get around to all of them when I visit. But visiting you is far and away the easiest of my duties because I always have good news for you. Not so for some of my other clients who started investing too late or made foolish decisions.”

“I didn’t know you had other clients here, Darrell.”

“Yes, indeed. Actually, the main reason I’m here today is because of what happened to one of them. I just dropped by to see you as an afterthought. You may know him—Bob Weiderley.”

“Bob? You’re Bob’s financial advisor?”

“I am. You know Bob?”

“I don’t know him well, but I was there last night when he collapsed.”

“Oh, dear. How awful for you!”

“Darrell, is Bob having financial difficulties? I know. I know. I have no business asking, but he was obviously in terrible distress last night when he collapsed at Bingo. Several of us were wondering what he was upset about. I was thinking if he’d lost a lot of money recently and that’s why you were coming over, maybe that’s what upset him . . .”

“Oh, no! No, Essie! It can’t be that. If Bob is—was—upset—it’s not about his finances. Actually, I shouldn’t say this. I have no business telling you this, but I can’t imagine Bob would object to your knowing, particularly as you’re so worried about him. But truthfully, Essie, Bob is not hurting financially. Not at all.”

“Oh? I’d never heard him talk about his career or anything so I didn’t know his situation.”

“Bob, I believe I can safely say, is—was—quite an inventor when he was younger and he secured patents on a number of very successful devices that are used in industry today. Nothing you’d have heard of, but devices that make the manufacturing of various computer components easier. Suffice it to say, Essie, Bob Weiderley is a very wealthy man.”

“He is?”

“Absolutely.”

“His tablemates claim he was horribly upset last night and they don’t know why . . .”

“It wasn’t because he’d lost any money or was in any financial trouble of any sort. That’s for sure.”

Essie sat in her chair trying to reconcile this new, amazing information with the reality of Bob’s hospitalization.

“I wonder what could have upset him so?”

“Not everything bad is related to money, Essie,” noted Darrell. Strange, thought Essie, that Darrell would make this observation seeing as how Darrell didn’t think about anything but money.

“He didn’t have any family,” she added.

“True,” agreed Darrell. “Sad, of course, but it certainly simplified his will. Family members often cause problems for rich people when they try to plan their wills.”

“You know about his will?” she asked carefully.

“He did discuss it with me from time to time. I am his financial advisor. Of course, I’m not his attorney, but as his financial advisor, he wanted me to be aware of where his money would go in the event of his death.”

“And where would it go?” asked Essie cautiously.

“You don’t know?” laughed Darrell. “I thought surely he would have told you all.”

“What do you mean, Darrell?”

“He left it to Happy Haven. All of it. All five million dollars of it. He left it here! To the Happy Haven Assisted Living Facility.”