They didn’t say, “We’re locking you in.” They said, “You’ll be safe here, Mom.” That’s the thing about betrayal—it never wears the right name. It comes dressed in concern, wrapped in love, packaged as best interests. I didn’t scream when my son Thomas took my keys from my purse and dropped them into his jacket pocket with a casual motion, as if confiscating car keys from a teenager who’d missed curfew.
I didn’t beg when he emptied my handbag—wallet, checkbook, the little address book with forty years of phone numbers written in fading ink—and left everything on the hallway table of Rose Hill Care like abandoned luggage. I just stood there in the lobby with its artificial plants and motivational posters about aging gracefully, trying to understand what had just happened to my life. Thomas kissed my cheek, his cologne too strong, his smile too practiced.
“It’s temporary, Mom. Just until we make sure you’re okay.” Then he walked out through the automatic doors into the October sunshine, and I watched his Mercedes pull away, taking with it the last shred of pretense that I had any say in my own existence. I waited ten minutes.
Then fifteen. Then twenty-five, standing near the reception desk like a visitor who’d arrived too early, hoping someone would realize a mistake had been made. Finally, I approached the woman behind the desk—young, maybe thirty, with red lipstick and a nursing badge that read SANDRA in cheerful blue letters.
“Excuse me,” I said, keeping my voice steady despite the trembling in my chest. “When will I be allowed to leave?”
She looked up from her computer with an expression of polite confusion. “You’re checked in, Mrs.
Leland. You’re a full resident now.”
“But I didn’t sign anything,” I said, though my voice was already losing its certainty. Sandra gave me the kind of patient smile people reserve for children and the elderly.
“Your son signed the admission papers. He has power of attorney for your health and financial decisions.”
The words hit me like cold water. Power of attorney.
I’d signed those papers two years ago when Thomas insisted it was just a precaution, something every responsible adult should have in case of emergency. I’d trusted him. I’d believed the emergency would have to actually happen before the power would be used.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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