Vultures at Twilight by Charles Atkins Read Free Book Online Page A

examining. ‘Been doing it for thirty years.’
    â€˜But do you like it?’ I persisted.
    â€˜I suppose, but it gets to wear you down. ‘Specially now where I’m not sure how much longer I want to lug around furniture . . . Rheumatoid.’ He held up his hands, displaying a double row of swollen knuckles.
    â€˜How terrible,’ Ada said. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
    â€˜No thanks, I should probably get going.’
    After a final look around, where he counted and weighted the pieces of Evie’s sterling flatware and looked through her jewelry, Mr Caputo said goodbye and headed to his truck.
    â€˜That’s three,’ said Ada, closing the door behind her. ‘What do you think?’
    â€˜I liked Tolliver best, although that Mr Caputo seemed to know what he was talking about. And that Potts woman is nothing more than a crook.’
    â€˜Agreed,’ she said, sitting down at the dining room table. ‘Let’s see what they come back with.’ She stared into the living room, deep in thought.
    â€˜What is it?’ I asked, sensing something wrong.
    â€˜Well,’ she started slowly, ‘I didn’t think I was going to tell you this, but you are my best friend.’
    I braced for the worst.
    â€˜I have another appointment this afternoon.’
    â€˜What is it? Is something wrong?’
    She looked up and smiled. ‘No, I mean nothing aside from the usual. It’s my mother, I’m getting a lot of grief from my brothers and sisters.’
    â€˜Because?’ I asked, thinking of Rose Rimmelman, who I’d met following her cardiac catheterization and subsequent angioplasty last year when she’d recuperated at Ada’s for six weeks. Small and feisty, Rose was fiercely independent, and her ability to care for herself had become an issue.
    â€˜Because she’s over ninety; she’s living alone and her visiting nurse says she’s not safe in her own apartment and Mom adamantly refuses to move, or have a live-in aide. The nurse is threatening to bring in adult protective services if I don’t do something. So I’m meeting with the administrator at Nillewaug Village. I can’t keep running back and forth like this, and if my siblings had their way I’d have her move in with me, or vice versa; which, given a choice between living with my mother and having a sharp stick poked in the eye, I’d go for the second.’
    â€˜Do you think she’d go for it?’
    â€˜When pigs fly, but I have to try something. I was planning to take a cab, but I thought . . .’
    â€˜Of course I’ll go with you,’ I said. ‘You know Bradley was their medical director when they opened that place.’
    â€˜You’d mentioned. But he didn’t stay long.’
    â€˜No, and I could never get him to tell me why, other than he didn’t agree with their business practices.’
    â€˜Great, so you’re telling me that I’m about to try and put my mother into some kind of snake pit?’
    â€˜Ada,’ I said, looking at the concern on her face, and feeling such affection, wishing she didn’t have to go through this. ‘We’ll check it out. Like you said, you’ve got to do something. We just need to keep our eyes open.’
    â€˜I know. I hate to say it, but I’ve even thought of moving back to the city. Someone’s got to look after her. And apparently as the youngest daughter . . . I just don’t know what to do.’
    Something caught in my throat at the thought of losing her, of not seeing her every day, and, if I were being honest, which I was trying to desperately not to be, I knew that the feelings I had for Ada had somehow passed the ‘best friends’ point. And how was that possible? I was a married woman for thirty-seven years, raised two children and had successfully stomped down any feelings I might have had for