So Long, Chester Wheeler(87)

Estelle spoke up, presumably in my defense.

“Because I’m dying, Einstein.”

“Of what?” her daughter barked back, turning that acid gaze onto her mother.

Estelle looked down at the napkin in her lap.

“I don’t remember,” she said.

The acid gaze returned to me.

“Of. What?”

“I can’t discuss details of her medical condition without her permission.”

“Go ahead and tell her,” Estelle said. “She needs to hear it. I just can’t think straight when she looks at me like that.”

“Non-Alzheimer’s age-related dementia. Advanced emphysema. A seizure disorder that remains undiagnosed because she won’t consent to an MRI, because no matter what it found she wouldn’t undergo brain surgery at her age anyway. Which nobody’s really arguing with her about. But it’s most likely some type of brain tumor, because she’s been tested for everything else. And congestive heart failure, which is why we came in a Winnebago instead of flying.”

The daughter seemed a bit chastened, yet still determined to hold my feet to the fire.

“You can’t fly with congestive heart failure?”

“Her doctor would have needed to sign off on it. And he advised against it.”

“Maybe she just needs to be with her family. Maybe she needs to come live with us.”

I looked over at Estelle to see if she cared to respond, but she only sat there in stony silence. She was looking at nothing, apparently. Maybe at the side of the barn.

It wasn’t until I saw her eyelids twitching violently that I realized she was having the beginnings of a stress-induced seizure.

I jumped to my feet just in time. She stiffened, pitched to the right, and fell out of her chair. But I caught her, and lowered her to the ground. I rolled her over until she was mostly facedown, so she couldn’t swallow her tongue or aspirate vomit. I got down on the ground with her and held her head gently but firmly against my chest, so she couldn’t injure herself banging it on the ground.

Then I waited for the crisis to subside.

She lurched and jerked, and my gut reacted to each violent spasm, but I knew my job was simply to ride it out. So that’s what I did. My emotions regarding the situation were beside the point.

It was only two or three minutes, but during that time I was fully focused on Estelle, and paying no attention to my surroundings. When I finally looked up, every single attendee, even the caterers, stood gathered in a tight circle around us, staring.

She struggled to rise, so I helped her into a sitting position, still holding her firmly.

All was silent as she gradually came back around. Nobody said a word. Also, unfortunately, nobody stopped staring, or moved their day along.

“Phew,” she said after a time.

At that moment, conveniently, knowing the crisis was over, her daughter tried to step in and physically push me out of the way.

“She needs family,” she shouted in my ear. “She needs her daughter.”

Estelle shouted right back, panicky and loud and sudden.

“Get away from me! No! I don’t need you! I don’t want you! I need Lewis! Only Lewis!”

My heart fell to hear it. Because I knew I had to tell her soon that I was leaving.

The daughter jumped back and stood upright. I could see from her face that she was mortified over that dressing-down. And in front of the entire family, too.

“After she has a seizure,” I said, “there could possibly be a period of dysphoria.”

The daughter nodded glumly.

Then she wandered away, and every other family member and caterer took it as their cue to wander away as well. It was just me and Estelle, sitting on the ground together, giving her a little time to feel like herself again.

“Dysphoria my ass,” she said near my ear. “I meant every word of it.”

“I was giving her a chance to save face.”

“You’re kind,” she said. “Too kind, in her case. So, listen. Lewis. Let’s get out of here.”

“You want to go back to the RV?”

“I want to go to Mount Rushmore. I’ve had enough of these people. I got what I came for.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. Never been more sure of anything in my life.”

“Care to share?”

“It’s a long drive. We’ll have plenty of time to talk on the way.”

I picked up her fallen beret and plunked it onto her head at a rakish angle, and she smiled at me. And I smiled back. I couldn’t help it.

“It’s a good thing you scraped off those bumper stickers,” she said as I lifted her to her feet, “because they’d get you an ass whipping where we’re going.”



Estelle’s granddaughter came to the driver’s side window as I was waiting for Estelle to buckle her own seat belt. I fired up the engine and powered the window down.

“I’m sorry about my mom,” she said.

“Yeah, what was going on with that?”

“She didn’t know Grandma had a full-time aide. She was hoping to inherit some money, and she just now got it that the money’s being spent while Grandma’s alive.”

“Well,” I said. And then I realized I didn’t know quite what to say. I went with gut honesty. “That’s just about the least magnanimous thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”