Edith lived with Sharon and Josh for almost six days, which, incidentally, was four days less than I predicted. Sharon has been a dear friend of mine since college; Josh is her husband of over 30 years. Edith is Josh’s 88 year-old mother.
Josh is the classic middle-aged Good Boy who does everything in his power to try to make Edith happy, but it’s never enough. He’s hampered because Edith has never forgiven him for marrying Sharon, who made the fatal mistake of keeping her maiden name after she and Josh got married.
Edith’s health has been deteriorating since the death of her husband, Wally, in 2009 and she lives in a state of squalor that would disgust beggars in Mumbai . Josh goes over every Saturday to clean up but Edith fights him every step of the way. “Big Shot,” she says. “What’s wrong? My house not clean enough for you?”
Josh tries, feebly, to protest that he is just trying to help but Edith goes for the kill. “If you’re so concerned, why not get your wife over here to clean it? Or is cleaning too good for that fancy-pants lawyer?”
The ending was always the same. Josh would defend Sharon, Edith would break down in tears and Josh would storm home; then he would pick a fight with Sharon about why she didn’t “make more of an effort” with Edith. Eventually, infuriating Sharon, he would head back to Edith’s house so he could apologize profusely and Edith could tell him he would never be the man Wally had been.
The fact that these three people, who could not get through a brunch without bloodshed, thought they could live happily together is testimony to the triumph of optimism over experience. But Edith had fallen a couple of times, and one day she almost burned the house down making a bowl of soup, and even Sharon, who loathed her mother-in-law, admitted Edith could not live alone any longer. Sharon made a persuasive case for assisted living but Josh said he could never put his mother in an Institution. Edith cried and cried and said A) Josh did not love her and B) this was all Sharon’s fault and C) she’d rather die than leave the house Wally built for her.
Josh and Sharon have a big house on the water in Lighthouse Point and they gave Edith their master suite: a huge bedroom, sitting room and bathroom with a private balcony. Edith cried and cried, asking how they could expect her to live “like this.” This was on Sunday afternoon.
By Friday night Edith was still crying. Things came to ahead when Edith said that the picture over her sofa was too high and that it needed to be lowered post-haste. Josh good naturedly ran for the hammer, but when he returned Edith said she was too exhausted to get off the sofa. The result was an impasse, with Josh begging his mother to get off the sofa so he could move the picture and Edith tearfully maintaining that he could move the picture with her on the sofa. Sharon, drinking heavily by this point, wandered into the room long enough to A) tell Edith what she could do with the picture and B) tell Josh what he could do with the hammer.
The evening ended poorly and by Saturday afternoon, with impressive haste, Edith had been established at an assisted living facility in Hillsboro Beach. Three weeks later Edith is still crying. Josh visits her twice a day; twice a day Edith tells him how she curses her fate to have given birth to such a son.