The Goodbye

This is a flash story. It's a one off and everything you need to know is in it.

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Larry's final gift to his wife

People are very different. As I am in my 6th decade (Holy Shit Batman! How the fuck did that happen?) Other boomers and I have begun to deal with mortality issues. (For now forget about Viet Nam and that draft. If you weren't affected by it, you may not understand that sword that was hung over our heads and what it did to us.)

I've had several good friends and relatives deal with significant health problems. Some have passed. All of them, good marriages or not so good marriages, held together for each other.

This story was triggered by meeting some friends on mine after a couple of months of not seeing them. They are a couple in their early 50's and she has a serious neurological disease. It's unknown to me whether there is hope or it's just a holding pattern. Their daughter is away at college, the wife is wheelchair bound, and the husband is the primary care giver every hour he is not at work. They are not wealthy but they are not hand-to-mouth either. They are there for each other. Period. I've seen this play out several times with others. I am blessed with people that I know personally who are like this. I do not know if the people I know are special. I hope that everybody is special in this way.

A couple of months ago, I was told from my friends in the helping professions about a couple where the husband had a fatal neurological disease. Several years ago he was there totally for his wife when she came down with, and then beat, a nasty form of cancer.

When he got sick, this wife had distanced herself from him, 'working away' for several days a week. (Real work, a real 230 miles away). Economically she didn't need to do it. There was no evidence that unfaithfulness is involved, but who knows. She's was not there for him emotionally or physically in those final months. That is being unfaithful in my book.

His physical needs were taken care of with paid caregivers and a daughter that showed up once or twice a week. The wife was there only 2 to 3 nights each week. He was aware of what is happening with him and to him. Anger and hurt would be the mild way of putting it. Over 30 years of marriage and it came down to end like this.

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"Larry, what else can I get for you now?" I said as I adjusted his pillow. He's been physically declining, quicker and quicker. He decided to bring in hospice about 3 months ago. His wife Catherine was against it. She was present when the primary doctor and then the second opinion doctor said the same thing. It was only a matter of time. He wanted to be more comfortable. She only agreed to it when she realized it was going to save money on medical bills.

Larry looked up at me and smiled. We'd been friends for over 50 years, from grammar school till now. He'll never reach 60 years, he barely reached 59. His illness was just the luck of the draw, not divine retribution. Shit happens, friendships can be forever.

"Ed? Can you go over all that we've done? I want to make sure that everything's dddone right." I gripped his hand and my wife Sue leaned over and hugged him. Months ago as we saw Catherine pull away, we slowly stepped in. We were there for him.

I grabbed my notebook and turned to page 59. I learned a long time ago that putting things on the first page can be a problem. People look at the first pages of a book, not the middle pages. This could lead to people seeing what you've done if they come across your writings. There were only going to be three people that completely knew what we did. They were all in the room right now.

"First off, the house was put in a trust 15 years ago, 5 years after you married. That trust would have been very difficult to break without her knowing. So you took a second mortgage on it on it, the maximum second mortgage that you could get 6 months ago. The house was only worth $250K, now less in its current condition. You deferred payments on the second mortgage. You've deferred major maintenance too. Roof, furnace and major plumbing ... needs about $35K of work. You also stopped paying on the first mortgage and all the utilities 5 months ago when the loan came in. The bank still handled the property taxes so we couldn't touch that. From this point, the house is in current financial arrears to the tune of ...let me see... about $24,500. Today it would be able to net about $90K after all costs, repairs and selling costs. She's already taken a big hit to her credit score but she doesn't know it yet. You were in the high 700s a year ago. Yesterday she was at 510.

"Since you were moved here, you had all your mail forwarded here directly from the post office. Between that and paying on-line, she has no clue on what has been happening financially. Her checks are still being direct deposited from her job. Only that she'll be able to depend on.

"You've also been paying the minimum on her credit cards instead of paying them off every month like you normally did. That is, except fot the past 3 months. She's starting to rack up late fees and wonderful charges. Her rate is now at 24%. You're still doing the paperwork and paying the bills. She doesn't get it, does she?

"With not paying the cards off and the cash advances you took, she was only $50 from maxing out her two credit cards yesterday morning. I put a security alert on your credit cards at your request yesterday morning. This morning, I cancelled them completely and paid off the balances.

Sue spoke up. "You know Larry, it would have been hard for her to show up here yesterday afternoon like you asked. Yesterday morning we gave the pictures of Catherine and Jim to Shelia, Jim's wife. We also told them where they were going to be. They went to their usual place, that Hyatt in the western suburbs. That's far from your northwest side home. No one was supposed to know them there.

"For a petite woman, Shelia took him down with one kick to his groin. He shouldn't have been holding that chair like a weapon. Bad luck that their 'secret' outdoor cafe was covered by security cameras. The wronged wife is pressing charges against him for attempted assault. Catherine had to make police statements as well as explain how that chair in his hands ended up hitting her across the face. Very bad backhand on his part, wasn't it?

"At the restaurant, her credit cards were maxed out, yours were declined and the checking account was NSF, non-sufficient funds. Checks now get processed automatically, immediately. Your kids weren't answering her calls and somehow whenever she called me, we kept getting disconnected. You didn't get any calls?" Larry shook his head no. "I wonder who came through for her? Maybe one of her kids? Maybe not. They've been very pissed at how she's been treating you."

Sue paused then continued. "It's been really nice to see them all here every week. That human contact has been so good for you since she got you moved to this facility."

Larry smiled at us both. "Thank you, thank yyyou so much." He's been quickly losing the ability to speak. The disease has been advancing rapidly. We all knew what the progression was going to be.

"On the financial side, this is what we've done. In the past 3 years, you've been converting your older 401Ks to Roth IRAs, and paid the tax on it. That was costly, but as a Roth, you could take it out tax free. Your wife, Catherine was the primary beneficiary. As you asked, we've reduced the balances on all of those accounts to $1.02. I liked your reason for the 2 cents. It was all she was worth to you. So that'll be what she gets.

"With the gift tax laws, you've given $15K tax free to each of your children, their spouses and your grandchildren. You've also given the max to Catherine's two children and her grandchildren. That emptied your Roth accounts.

"On your current 401Ks, we had a slightly different problem. We took the distribution, paid the taxes and with the cash deposited into your bank account. You needed to spend it. You put a hefty chunk on both of your kid's mortgages and the rest on Catherine's kid's mortgages. Overall, it was only a couple of hundred different for each of the 4 of them if you factor in the gifts to the grandchildren. I don't feel that any of them will feel slighted.

"The checking account was nearly emptied, except for $1.02. I did that yesterday morning before her lunch date. I took it in the cash. It was only $4,300. I gave it to your Fr. Mike as you requested. He's been very helpful to you. I'm sure that he's helped others with anger over abandonment and unfaithfulness. Being at St Pats outside of the Loop, he's normally with a younger crowd. But he really understood you. He was wonderful.

"You both had $100K 25 year term life policies that you were going to carry till they ended. We were able to change the beneficiary to the four kids and leave your wife with .02%, down from 100%. Again, nice touch."

Larry chuckled. There was a sorrowful wry smile on his face.

"Larry, I'm proud of you for what you've done for the kids. Your wife may end up getting some of the extra money from her kids. But I think that you as a person showed them that you still loved and cared for all those kids, your kids and hers. Hopefully, hers will take after you, not Catherine. You were the real father to them.

"By the way, my lawyer friend said that your will was a masterpiece. Everything not in the trust that could possibly be claimed was named. Choosing your brother Jack as the executor is going to slowly bleed dry whatever she could have hoped to close quickly on. It will have to go to probate and you know the court system. It will crawl."

"My pre-paid funeral?"

"It's all set Larry. It's all that you wanted and you spent more than she wanted. I made sure that the notice in the paper will run in the Chicago Tribune on Sunday and for the rest of the week. She's mentioned as an estranged wife."

Sue spoke up, "I made the slide show for the wake. It will include shots of the credit card lines for Lovers Lane, the dinners and the Hyatt stays. There will be no family or individual pictures of her at all. Whenever there was a family shot, I photo shopped a black square over her face. The only pictures we had of her are her and her lover kissing and him feeling her up in that cafe they went to all the time. By the way, would you like to give Ed your wedding rings now?"

Larry took them off and gave then to me. The wedding ring and the 10 year anniversary ring... almost made it to 20. The youngest 'kid' is 25.

Sue motioned to Larry and me that she wanted to speak. "Larry, you've always taken care of the finance. It was real easy to do your next wish. You had all the accounts and passwords. You also converted everything to electronic notification, to an email address that only looks like hers, but wasn't. The security questions all revolved around Catherine. We accessed her accounts from outside your home on your password protected Wi-Fi using that old hand-me-down laptop your kids gave you and Catherine. Yesterday morning, we changed the password on your own email account too. It'll take time and many copies of your death certificate to open up each of your accounts and to transfer things to her name. She's going to hit the wall so often that there's going to be an outline of her body on it.

"While you were at doctor appointments and she was supposed to be home, I transferred the majority of her 401K funds to that non-tax deferred Mutual Fund she has. It's been more than 65 days. That means that federal taxes have to be paid on what was transferred out. We used a fund she had set up years ago. It only had $5,500 in it when we started. It has big upfront costs and fees and it's been losing money for years. Three years ago it was about $10K. By the end of the year and the tax statements come in, she will have a mess to clean up.

I didn't take money away from the 401K from her current job, just all the others. All the others had about $125,000 going in. Now with the taxes and penalties... Remember, she's still under 55...its worth about... $78,000 +/- $10,000." Larry smiled. She was going to share his pain.

"On her current work 401K, I switched her investments to the highest cost and most volatile. And I did it several times. You know, 4% upfront charge here, next month it was 5% there, repeat as needed. It brought down the value of her accounts quickly. She only had $34,000 to start off with and in the past 4 months, it's down to $20,000 or so.

"The nice thing was doing all the trading and withdrawals on her own machine outside of your home. It was always done when she was with him and was supposed to be at home or work. It has all her tech fingerprints covering each transaction, and you were in the hospital every time. It'll be hard to prove fraud. Financial companies have been dealing with this for quite a while. Even if she wins, it won't be worth the cost to recapture those funds."

Larry raised his finger to speak. "FFFor so many years..." Larry gasped for breath. With tears in his eyes he continued, "We built a life together. She got sick and got bbbbetter." He paused again. This was taking its toll on him physically. Taking about it was liberating, yet painful too.

"We were working class, we sssaved our money. I thought we were important to each other. SSShe knows what it was like to get deadly sick." He gasped for air and wiped his eyes. Sue got a tissue and finished the job for him.

"And she threw me away when I got sick. The first hospital admission told me about her. At first when there was some hope, she stayed around. When I felt that I may not get better, I attempted to clean up everything financially. Then I kept declining. She pulled away. I understand pulling away emotionally. I could even accept it. Not everybody can handle a spouse dying. I was prepared for that, I'd seen it before when my sister-in-law Terry died. It took years for me to even be in the same room with my brother Jack. It took months, but I learned how hard it was for him. I was willing to give her that. But Jack never was unfaithful.

"It wasn't like I came down with some form of dementia. I'm still here intellectually and emotionally although my body's been wasting away. Even if she would have asked I probably would have oked it. If only she remained emotionally with me. If only she'd been honest with me.

"Do you remember Carl?" We both nodded yes. His wife came down with some form of dementia in her mid 50's. It was his kids that urged him to start dating again a year after she was permanently hospitalized. She had become dangerous to be around. It was hard on everybody, but people understood and later became very supportive. His girlfriend Nancy was a gem.

"But when I saw the first Lover's Lane purchase, a fancy restaurant and a charge for the Hyatt on the same day... I was done. Then I kept seeing the Hyatt bills every week or two." He paused and took a slow breath, "I've not regretted anything we've done to her."

"I've declined as far as I want to now. I've said my good byes to my kids, and her kids too. Hell, they were my kids too. It was a real blended household. They are all good kids and it was a good life with them.

Larry closed his eyes and tried to take a couple of deep breaths. We waited until he was comfortable again. Sue was holding his hand. We knew what was coming next. The three of us agreed to it months ago. He brought it up again last week, saying that it was the time for it very soon.

"You both know what the disease will do to me from now on. I'm not willing to fight it any more.

"It's time to say good bye to you two. I don't know how I could have stayed sane without your help and love.

"Goodbye my dear friends."

Sue and I said goodbye and hugged him. We knew that the next time we were going to see him would be at the wake. It was prepaid so he knew it was going to happen. He asked us to pour us all some Jack Daniels. That's what he and I drank in high school together, and we got in a shit load of trouble for it back then. The three of us toasted. Then I gave him a packet of prescription meds that he'd been adding to for months. He did the research and knew that it would be more than enough. He wasn't going to be in pain anymore very soon, physical or emotional. It was going to be a quick falling asleep.

"Would you want us to stay until..."

At that, he popped a handful of pills and guzzled his ample glass of Jack. "No, I think that all is set now. Thanks for caring."

One of many copies of the properly signed "Do Not Resuscitate" order was placed prominently on the tray table. We followed his wishes, and wished him the best. It was right after dinner and the next time anyone would be checking on him would be at 9 PM, 4 hours away. There would be no autopsy.

I wonder what we would hear about Catherine after this? I don't know if I really care. The last thing we will need to do is give his wedding band to the funeral director. But it had to be visibly broken first for him to wear and everyone to see. It was his final gift to her.