My friend Lisa is fascinated by my family. An only child, she does not understand that when you have a huge extended family you will never run out of dramatic stories to share over lunch. “You people belong on Jerry Springer,” she often tells me.
How could she understand? Lisa has no children, and no siblings, nieces or nephews of her own; her husband, Lloyd, is a Harvard educated lawyer with 2 respectable sisters, each of whom has a respectable husband and one respectable child . Lloyd’s family has never known the amount of drama mine can generate over Sunday dinner and until very recently his world was reserved, ordered and predictable .
But then Lloyd’s father passed away in a typically low-key fashion: in the middle of his 85th year he died in his sleep. And then things began to change, because for the first time in her life Lloyd’s mother, whom everyone calls , regrettably, “Miss Sissy,” was left alone. No one is quite sure what went first, but it’s indisputable that Lloyd’s family and Miss Sissy’s mind began to unravel simultaneously.
It started out when Miss Sissy forgot to clean the litter box of her cat, Joan, for several weeks, which meant that Joan used the entire house as her litter box. Then she cooked her smart phone in the microwave along with a Lean Cuisine. One day, out of the blue, Miss Sissy fired Luisa, her cleaning lady of many decades because “…she’s stealing me blind.”
The minor domestic dramas continued to escalate until the day that Miss Sissy called Lloyd at work frantic because Joan got out. Lloyd rushed right over.
“How did she get out?” he asked, when Joan was safely back in Miss Sissy’s arms
“One of the guys must not have closed the door,” Miss Sissy said absently, burying her face in Joan’s soft fur.
“One of the guys?” Lloyd said weakly, which is when he learned that the men on the construction crew that was remodeling the house next door were routinely using Miss Sissy’s bathroom, lounging on her patio during lunch and, on occasion, “borrowing” small sums for lunch, gasoline or child support.
Lloyd and his sisters moved quickly and Miss Sissy and Joan were in a respectable, high-end Assisted Living facility by the end of the week. That’s when things really started to head south, because Miss Sissy was not pleased, not pleased at all and she began calling the family at all hours of the day and night.
“Get me out of here,” she begged her granddaughter.
“I want to kill myself,” she told her son-in-law.
“They’re poisoning my food,” she told Lloyd’s younger sister.
“How do you expect me to live like this?” she asked Lloyd, as though she were in a tenement, and when Lloyd pointed out that her kids were spending $10,000 a month to keep her there she said, “I’m a bird in a gilded cage,” before adding, cruelly, “You were always rotten kids.” And she began to sob.
Things came to a head at the annual Easter Brunch at Comfort Pines. Lloyd, his sisters and their families dutifully trouped over to spend some time with their mournful matriarch and there, in the sunny common room surrounded by well-coiffed dowagers and their Armani-clad families , Lloyd’s spray-tanned, Botoxed sisters got into it.
“Let’s just take Mummy home and hire a full time nurse,” said Val. “She hates it here.”
“Mummy is better here,” said Vicki stoutly.
“You mean it’s better for you if she’s here,” accused Val. “You just don’t want to have to deal with her.”
“What’s the matter,” taunted Vicki. “Money tight?”
“We all know you’re just hoping she dies quickly …..” Val began which is when, right there in the middle of the Comfort Pines Easter Brunch Vicki bitch-slapped Val with enough force to knock her to the floor. Val, cursing, leaped up, grabbed a handful of Vicki’s hair and dragged her to the floor where they began to wrestle, both shrieking obscenities, while residents, staff, visitors and at least 2 pastors stood watching, mouths open in amazement.
My mouth was open too as Elizabeth finished her story. I gulped and was silent for a long moment.
“And my family should be on Jerry Springer?” I said.