Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO LEFT HER TWICE
By eight the next morning, Ivy’s bedroom belonged to Ivy again.
I moved Florence into our downstairs den for the day, where there were no stairs and a lock high enough on the exterior door that she could not wander out unnoticed. Then I called my sister to take Ivy to school.
Seth accused me of treating his mother like a problem to be managed.
“I’m treating her like a vulnerable adult who appeared without medication, records, or a safe care plan.”
“She’s terrified of facilities.”
“She’s also waking our daughter every night.”
“Ivy wanted to help.”
“Ivy is a child. Her kindness does not make her responsible for your mother’s dementia.”
The words landed harder than I intended.
Seth sat at the kitchen table and stared at the rabbit Florence had brought. He had barely slept in four days. Neither had Ivy.
I softened my voice.
“We need to find out where she came from.”
Grove Memory Center was outside Dayton, nearly eighty miles away. Its director, Melissa Crane, could not discuss details until Florence signed a release during a period of documented clarity.
A geriatric social worker came to the house that afternoon. Florence correctly named the president, the season, and Seth’s relationship to her. She could not say what year it was or explain how she reached Westerville.
When asked where she lived, she whispered, “Where Walter puts me.”
She signed the release.
Melissa called us back within the hour.
Florence had lived at Grove for three years. Walter placed her there after she left the stove burning in her apartment and wandered into traffic. He listed himself as financially responsible and instructed staff not to contact Seth.
“Why wasn’t my name in her file?” Seth asked.
“Mr. Mercer said you were estranged and wanted no involvement.”
“My last name is Hale.”
“Your father said you changed it to avoid her.”
Seth had taken Walter’s middle name as his surname after college because he wanted distance from the Mercer family. Walter turned that decision into proof that Seth rejected his mother.
Melissa continued carefully.
“Your father signed Florence out Monday morning for a family visit.”
“Was she capable of leaving unsupervised?”
“No. He was informed she required direct supervision.”
“What time did he bring her back?”
“He didn’t.”
Grove called Walter repeatedly. He answered once and said Florence had chosen to stay with relatives. When the facility requested an address, he hung up.
The police found her nine hours later at a Kroger less than two miles from our house.
Seth pushed away from the table.
“He left her there.”
“We don’t know that yet,” I said.
Melissa sent us a photograph taken from Grove’s parking-lot camera. Walter stood beside his dark sedan while Florence climbed into the passenger seat.
A second camera from the Kroger pharmacy drive-through showed the same car entering the lot shortly before Florence appeared near the store entrance.
Walter never got out.
He remained long enough to watch her walk toward the automatic doors.
Then he drove away.
Seth called him again.
This time Walter answered.
“You had no right to bring her into my home without warning,” Seth said.
“She is your mother.”
“She was your responsibility when you signed her out.”
“I’ve been responsible for forty years.”
“Why leave her at a grocery store?”
“I knew the police would find her.”
Florence was asleep in the den, the rabbit beneath her chin.
Seth lowered his voice. “You told me she abandoned us.”
“She did.”
“You just abandoned her.”
Walter breathed into the phone for several seconds.
Then he said, “Ask the hospital in Cincinnati what she did to you when you were six.”
The line disconnected.
Seth sat motionless.
“What hospital?” I asked.
He looked at me as if the answer were somewhere on my face.
“I don’t know.”
That afternoon, the county’s aging-services office arranged a temporary respite placement for Florence while we established whether she could safely remain with us. Seth resisted until Ivy fell asleep over her homework.
When the transport van arrived, Florence clung to the rabbit and begged Seth not to let Walter lock her away again.
He promised he would come the next morning.
After she left, he stood in Ivy’s empty doorway.
“My father said she walked out because she didn’t want to be a mother,” he said. “Now he says she did something to me.”
“What do you remember?”
“A red hallway. A winter coat. Her telling me we had to hide.”
He looked toward the kitchen where Ivy’s folded blanket still lay on the chair.
“If she was dangerous, he had a reason to keep her away.”
“And if she wasn’t?”
May you like
Seth picked up his car keys.
“Then I’ve spent thirty-five years hating the wrong person.”
