Here’s a new one for me: I’m constantly pretending I am not home.
I park my car on the street or around the corner. Although I crave sunlight, I keep the blinds closed on one side of the house. I screen my phone calls. I leave the house through the back door.
This behavior has been going on in ernest for nearly four months now. My routine and actions are now defined by making sure it looks like I’m not home. I didn’t think I’d resort to this nonsense but after grappling with several options before the empty house ruse, I am happy to take this cowardly path.
We all may have experienced someone like her. The pathetic thing about my busybody is that we moved her right next door to us! She is my 90 year-old father-in-law’s “companion”. They met on-line, about a year after my mother-in-law died unexpectedly. They joke that they’ve been on one date, and they’re still on it because they don’t have any time to waste “at their age”.
I’m still in shock that my eighty something father-in-law went on-line, looking for love. I’m less shocked that she was out there, because I think she had been using all avenues of social network to find a new man.
Don’t get me wrong, it worked. They both seem very happy, especially when they were three hours away in the rural part of the state. But as my father-in-law got closer to the ninety year mark, his faculties and strength began telling on him and my husband was tryig to manage more and more from an unsafe distance.
They both loved the idea of relocating, moving closer to us instead of closer to her son and family. So we moved them right next door. And that’s when my life went from living a free life in my own home to constantly answering the phone and door bell.
Don’t get me wrong, I have a heart. I know how hard it is to relocate and settle into a new place. We did everything to make sure this was the right area for both of them: showing them the lay of the new land, introducing them to the very active and robust senior center, registering them with the Ride (senior bus system that will take 65+ residents shopping, to the mall, to their physicians. It also offers day trips to Cape Cod, Maine, casinos, Boston). My father-in-law was happy to be moving closer to family. His companion was over the moon to be starting new in “her own place” instead of wandering around in another woman’s home”. Sometime key phrases get missed when we should really pay attention.
Let me get right to the point: this woman is controlling and appears to want to flex her proverbial matriarch muscle beyond my father-in-law. She is constantly on the bell for issues that are non-existant. A daily visit does not fend off her urgent need to march over in the afternoon for…asking about the cardboard boxes stored in the basement. A daily phone call along with the daily visit only seemed to encourage her more. To add to my frustration, she has now decided that the Senior Center and it’s variety of activities is not to her liking (although she’s never been) because “it’s not right to lump all senior citizens into one category”. Whatever that means.
My husband has been masterful at deflecting her “pop-ins”. He is polite, makes sure there is no emergency and then tells her he’s in the middle of something and will visit later in the day. Me? I can’t seen to cut her off if I open the door. She begins talking immediately and drones on, somehow managing to search for a way to turn a four word idea into a twenty word paragraph.
My level of frustration has shot through the roof because I work, our son is in high school, there are two dogs to walk, I am training for a marathon, therefore my time at home is limited and precious. And all I want to do when I have free time is try to free my mind to write. But lately, the moment I sit down…BRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNG! My concentration is shot, my frustration is through the roof and the only thing I can see is straight up this womans nostrils as she dithers about some non-issue that I can do absolutely nothing about!
We have met her son. He has visited twice in the past year. Each visit lasted less than was civilly acceptable for a son who lives within driving distance. He thanked us profusely each visit for being so close to his mother. It was awkward. She has two grandsons who live less than one hour away. Neither has come for a visit. They are “just too busy”.
Her saving grace is that my father-in-law enjoys her company. I believe he doesn’t want to be alone and she is a “savior”–she nursed previous husbands (both deceased) through long, debilitating diseases. There are no plans for them to marry; for some reason, my father-in-law promised my mother-in-law that he would never re-marry. Perhaps she saw his future “companion” and her three needy adult children? Who knows. I do know that my father-in-law broke his hearing aids and has stated he has no desire to get them fixed.
So here I sit, venting away this secret. My car is parked around the corner and my phone is on silent mode. It’s peaceful and it’s worth it to keep up this ruse to keep my peace.
Can I Tell You a Secret? 