An incomplete work of fiction (2 of 3): Complication

We fast-forward a few years to the household where the middle brother, (let’s call him Hardy) is the primary caregiver for the bed-ridden mother. Hardy has always seemed a bit lost—thrice divorced with five kids by the different women, and due to an incarceration for failure to pay child support after being laid off, unable to hold gainful employment without losing all his wages. Let’s make this situation sad, but serendipitous, as the act that saves the mother from having to go to a nursing home.

Let’s throw in a minor climax in this flashback, where all six siblings together agree that the house should be sold to one of their number, as a means of protecting the mothers assets should she ever be hospitalized, or forced to go into a home. The consensus is that the house go to Felix to take care of. The understanding would be that any of the siblings would have the right to buy the house from that brother for a reasonable rate—right of first refusal.

Then, let’s introduce the next twist to propel the plot. Let’s say that Felix, the lawyer, tries to get the mother to sign a power of attorney, giving the eldest authority. There’d be a lot of subtext about the eldest wanting this responsibility, but then also undertones of what the father had said about Felix before the father died. More layers, more uncertainty. Now, Felix does this while he lives far away, so leaves the papers with the mother, to address on his return.

Now, the next twist. On a visit to the mother, Oscar finds the papers and, suspicious, and more than a little angry, takes them. He has them changed, re-written so that Oscar gets the power of attorney, and mastery over all the mothers affairs. On his return, Felix is disconcerted, but does not challenge this change. Again, this is based on the mother’s stated wishes, not his own.

Okay, more back story. The eldest brother, Felix, is followed by the eldest sister (let’s call her Electra) and there is bad blood between them—the kind of bad blood that can only arise from strained familial bonds. Oscar bonds with Electra, and the same fell swoop that gives Oscar the power of attorney, makes Elektra the health proxy.

There’s an inherent conflict here amongst the key players Electra and Felix. They are the oldest male and the oldest female. As the eldest male, Felix took on the role of father to the family as a boy, when the father left the family for another relationship. When he later returned, the boy had functioned as father figure for too long to simply give the role up. Echo this with the role of Electra as the surrogate mother to the family, acting as caretaker for a mother forced to be away from home often, at work as a career woman, and sole support for the family. This is the root of their conflict, with the parents at the core. The key being that the parent’s created the problem, but never took the time or the responsibility to resolve it.

Now the stage is set for a replaying of that rivalry, surrogate father against surrogate mother, Hyper-paternalism against hyper-maternalism, both directing anger and aggression against the other, as they had seen the parents do in the latter years of their married lives.

Flash forward. Electra and Felix say they are doing this, assuming responsibility for their mothers affairs, for the mother’s sake and by her wishes, and that seems reasonable. The only problem is that the yare unwilling to provide any transparency. There is no accountability for the mother’s finances. They adopt a “my way or the highway” attitude. The mother has a monthly check for Social Security, a monthly check from her pension, and a monthly check from the father’s pension. The checks are automatically deposited into an account which the mother shares with Ovid (that is, which the mother put Ovid’s name onto). Because his name is on the account, Ovid has access to the account, but that access is limited to essentially checking on the balance regularly, and seeing the money transferred in, and the next day transferred out into a separate account maintained by Oscar. But Ovid has the ability at least to track how much money is going in. And he has a growing awareness that the money is not being spent on his mother’s care. The plot thickens. What to do?

The overwhelming undercurrent through this part of the story is the mother’s insistence that the siblings not fight. We can cap this and typify it with a heart felt one-on-one scene where Ovid tries to reach the mother, and tries to tell her that if she does not sort the affairs of her life and her children before she dies, these issues will never be sorted. It needs to read as poignant, and prophetic. Very prophetic, as it will be revealed.

At the end of the scene we see the core dilemma. With a single call to action, Ovid would galvanize to action, and be at the ready to demand accountability, and take care of the mother. But he wants—needs, really—her participation in at least the call to action. He needs her to say it is what she wants. And she will not, for the rest of her life.

And the stage is set, as we build to the climax.

To be continued.