The Place They Called Haven
Chapter 06 - The Place They Called Haven
There are places that look designed to make questions seem impolite. Lake County Continuing Care was one of them. Low brick buildings, clipped hedges, soft blue walls, and a receptionist who smiled without once quite meeting my eyes.
Luca had driven us himself, which unsettled his security chief more than anyone else. Ellen sat in the passenger seat with a folder of filings. Michael was in the back beside me, turning a photograph of his father over and over until I thought the paper would wear through.
"If he's there," Michael said, "he may not remember us."
"We won't know until we ask him," Teresa had told her sons that morning. She chose to remain at home with an independent nurse and a friend of forty years. Nobody suggested otherwise.
At the facility, the receptionist confirmed that an Andrew Bell had been admitted under a private guardianship contract. Then she claimed he had been discharged before breakfast. She could not provide a destination without authorization from the legal representative.
"Who is that?" Ellen asked.
The receptionist glanced down. "Warren Garrison, attorney-at-law."
Luca stood very still.
Ellen kept her voice level. "We are not here to remove a patient. We are establishing whether his identity and placement records are accurate. Please preserve his chart and transfer documentation. You'll receive a legal notice this afternoon."
A nurse watching from the hall caught my eye. She was broad-shouldered, in her sixties perhaps, with silver hair pinned under a surgical cap. She glanced at the receptionist and then toward the elevator. I knew that look. It was the look of somebody who had been told not to see what she saw.
I went to the vending machine to give myself a reason to stand near her. She followed a few minutes later, holding an empty paper cup.
"You're one of the family?" she asked.
"I was his wife's companion. My name's Hannah."
"I'm Anne Walsh. He spoke about a Hannah once, but I don't know if it was you. He had good days and days when he couldn't find the words."
"Is he alive?"
"He was yesterday. I helped him put on his cardigan. He asked if the lake was frozen. It isn't winter yet, but he remembers winters better."
My throat tightened. "Where is he now?"
She shook her head. "They told us to have him ready before dawn. Transfer by private vehicle. I asked about his medication list and the aide said she hadn't been given one. That's when I called Michael last night."
I remembered the nurse on the telephone. "It was you."
"I shouldn't have given that number to anyone, but he had no visitors. Except a lawyer who made him cry. A man doesn't lose his rights because his memory isn't reliable."
She reached into her pocket. "I made a copy of the transfer sheet for my own records. I can't simply hand over confidential medical papers, but I've reported my concerns to the facility's compliance officer and adult protective services. If an authorized investigator asks, I'll tell them everything."
"Was he taken to another hospital?"
"It said residential observation. Haven House, South Damen."
The address from my father's ledger.
I stood beside the vending machine without buying anything. Anne looked exhausted, the way my mother used to look after a double shift at the nursing home where she'd worked before she retired. I asked why she had risked making the call. She said Angelo had once asked her for a pencil so he could write his wife's name, and she'd watched him struggle until the paper tore. "He wasn't trying to leave a secret message," she said. "He was trying to remember something every person ought to be allowed to remember." I thought of Teresa standing at the dinner table, frightened that strangers could take her out of her own life with a signature.
Back in the car, I told Ellen what I'd learned. She called the compliance office, who confirmed an incident report had been opened. We had a destination, at least, and a growing pile of questions that somebody was legally obliged to answer.
We reached South Damen in late afternoon. The former Moretti house stood behind a high iron fence near the river. Its windows were boarded, but fresh tire tracks crossed the gravel. On the neighboring lot, a bright notice announced luxury apartments coming soon: RIVERSIDE RENEWAL, AN EXCLUSIVE BELLINI-MORETTI DEVELOPMENT.
I stood staring at it. My father had drawn that exact block in his notebook. Beside the sketch he wrote thirty-two families, twelve businesses, one promise.
A young woman emerged from the house next door carrying a bag of groceries. She introduced herself as Mrs. Alvarez's granddaughter, Rosa. Her grandmother had lived there since the 1960s.
"They sent another eviction letter this morning," she said. "We're supposed to be out in twenty-one days. They say the land never belonged to the tenants. My grandmother says that's a lie."
"It may be," Ellen said. "Would she speak with us?"
Rosa led us through a hall that smelled of onions, laundry soap, and fresh paint over old plaster. Along one wall the family had penciled children's heights for almost sixty years. The oldest marks belonged to Rosa's father; the newest was from a little girl who had learned to stand only recently. I wondered how a surveyor would describe that wall on a redevelopment plan. Probably as nonstructural interior finish.
Outside, the street was pocked with potholes, and a bus driver had to swing wide to avoid a broken curb. Nobody had come to repair either problem, but someone had found enough money for a handsome sign promising luxury apartments.
Inside the narrow house, Mrs. Alvarez sat under a photograph of her late husband in a union jacket. She was eighty-three, sharp-eyed, and unimpressed by Luca's expensive suit. She handed him a folder of rent receipts and documents showing a charitable housing trust.
"Your father told us nobody would move us without a vote," she said. "Then he disappeared, and suddenly everybody wanted us to hurry. We've been hurrying for fourteen years."
Luca looked at the receipts one by one. "I'm sorry."
"I don't want sorry from a man with demolition equipment," she answered. "I want a date I can expect my roof to stay over me."
"You'll have a written answer," Ellen said. "We're seeking an emergency injunction."
We left with copies, not the originals. Mrs. Alvarez was particular about that. My father would have liked her.
At the gate to Haven House, Michael's phone rang. He listened for a moment, and whatever he'd hoped to hear drained from his face.
"It's Garrison," he said. "He wants me to meet him alone. He says if Luca comes near the house, he'll tell Dad that Luca arranged his confinement."
"That's a lie," Luca said.
May you like
Michael looked at him with an expression that made my stomach drop.
"It is now," he answered. "But part of it wasn't always."
