“Do you remember who I am?” asked Charles Bennett, smiling at his 93-year-old mother.
Linda Bennett, sitting in her wheelchair opposite him, returned his smile and said, “What?”
Charles repeated his question more slowly and in a slightly louder voice.
“Oh, yes. You’re—my—my—brother.”
“Do you remember your husband? James Bennett? A lawyer?” Charles asked.
“What?” said his mother.
“Do you remember being married—married to James Bennett?”
“No.”
“Well, you’re my mother. I’m Charles, your son—your 71-year-old son. Charlie—all grown up—getting old now. Your son—not your brother. You were an only child, Mother.”
“I was?”
“Yes, Mother. You used to joke that you were so big at birth that you ‘broke the mold’—your mother, Doris Potter, couldn’t have any more children. That’s what you used to tell me and Carol, my kid sister, way back when we were little.”
Linda Bennett tugged on the zipper of her large cloth purse. Although Charles had recently lubricated it with candle wax for her, she pulled it in the wrong direction for half a minute, mystified that it remained closed.
“You do it,” she said, pushing her purse off her lap, onto the floor.
Charles retrieved her purse, opened it, and handed his mother a small, used facial tissue.
“Is this what you needed, Mother? Your nose is a little bit runny, I see.”
She took the tissue and rubbed her jaw, chin, and earlobe with it.
“I want to go home. When can I go home?”
“You’re not well enough to leave here yet, Mother. I’ve got you on a list for a single room here. I don’t know how long it will take, but I think you’d like a single room instead of having a roommate, right?”
His mother stared down at the tissue in her hand and said nothing.
“So,” said Charles, “I spy with my little eye—a woman with a new hair-do. I bet you went to the hairdresser this morning, right? You had Mrs. Schumaker do your hair.”
“What?”
“You had your hair done today, Mother. It looks very nice. Have you looked at it in a mirror yet?”
“No.”
“Well, you have one in your purse. There’s a mirror in your purse.”
“There is?”
“Yes. You can look at your hair-do right now—if you want to. Let me get it out for you. I’ll get your mirror out for you.”
He handed her a small oval mirror with a pale green plastic handle and said, “Look at the good job your hairdresser did today, Mother. Very nice!”
Linda Bennett stared at her reflection for a minute and then smiled slightly. She did not look up when another elderly woman suddenly appeared at the doorway and said in a loud, fearful, whining voice, “What am I doing here? What am I doing here? What—what—what am I doing here?”
Charles stood and walked to this newcomer, patted her shoulder, and said, “You’re doing fine here. Just fine.”
The woman smiled at him.
“Oh. Is my mother—is my mother worried I’m not home?”
“No—she knows you’re here. She knows you are doing fine here.”
The woman smiled again, said “Oh,” and continued down the halway. Charles went back to his seat next to his mother.
“Do you like your hair-do, Mother?”
“Yes. It’s—curly. Here—you look.”
She held out the mirror to her son.
“I can see it from here, Mother—without the mirror. Your hair looks nice from here.”
Linda cocked her head to one side and frowned slightly and blinked.
“That’s your room over to the left, Mother,” he said, pointing above the short plum tree on the east side of the courtyard. “Can you see it there, over your tree there?”
“That’s my room,” she said smiling.
“I’ve got to use that little restroom over there for a minute or so, Mother. Don’t try to get out of your wheelchair while I’m away, please, okay? You can look at the flowers in the courtyard and at your window up over your plum tree, and I’ll be right back. We’ll visit some more before I go home. I’ll need to do a little grocery shopping on the way. I’ll buy some salmon and squash and lettuce to make myself some nice supper. Okay? I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
2
Eighty-five minutes later, Sarah Johnson, a nurse’s aide, saw Linda Bennett still in Lounge C, staring out of the window at the hillside and clouds beyond the low roof on the southern side of the courtyard.
“Hey there, Miz B,” she called from the doorway. “Your son gone home? Gone an’ lef’ you ‘lone in here?”
When Linda didn’t respond, the aide continued on her errand. Twelve minutes later, returning from the west ward, Sarah Johnson entered the lounge, tapped Linda’s arm, and repeated her questions twice more.
“I guess so,” said Linda, tugging on the zipper of her purse.
“Well, Hon, why don’t we jus’ take you back to your bingo games? You like bingo, don’ you, Hon?”
Linda smiled up at Sarah’s large friendly face.
“When can I go home?”
“Lor’ knows, Hon! When’s any of us goin’ home? Tha’s one o’ life’s big mysteries! Right now, we’s goin’ t’ your dinin’ hall f’ your bingo games. Tha’s all I kin say.”
3
At 8:00 p.m. that Saturday night, Bess Turner, the receptionist in the lobby of Hartford’s Walter P. Trudeau Center for Health and Rehabilitation, paged through the sign-in book and noted that seven visitors had not yet signed out. Charles Bennett, most uncharacteristically, was among them. Bess, thinking nothing of this, hit the switch so that the front door would no longer open automatically from the outside and went off duty.
Sunday came and went without Charles Bennett appearing at the front desk to sign in, as had been his custom for the past two years and four months. No one thought this unusual.
At 10:26 a.m. on Monday, Nina Hastert, Assistant to the Social Worker, attempted to use the restroom of Lounge C but found the door locked. Two and a half hours later, Bethany Glover, Special Medicare Counselor, tried the same restroom door and found it still locked.
At 3:18 p.m., Carlos Hernandez of Housekeeping attempted to enter the restroom of Lounge C to clean it. He knocked, got no response, then used his passkey to enter. Despite the strong odor of decay that presented itself, Carlos took one quick glance inside and determined that a large white-haired man was sprawled across the floor. He relocked the door, opened three of the windows of Lounge C, and quite properly went downstairs to notify his supervisor.
