My parents told Grandma they were taking her out to lunch.
Three hours later, a nursing facility called me.
Her suitcase was sitting in their lobby, and my parents were nowhere to be found.
I drove 190 miles to bring her back with me.
She clicked her seatbelt into place, looked straight ahead, and said, “Don’t call them.
I’ll tell you exactly where we’re going.”
—
My parents told Grandma Eleanor they were taking her to lunch.
Three hours later, a nursing facility in Ohio called me.
“Is this Ivan Sterling?” the woman asked.
“Your grandmother listed you as her emergency contact.
Her suitcase is still here in our lobby, but the family members who brought her left before the admission paperwork was finished.”
I was standing in the kitchen of my apartment, holding a cup of coffee I suddenly had no desire to drink.
“What do you mean, they left?”
The administrator hesitated.
“They said they had to retrieve some paperwork from their car.
They never came back.”
I called my father, Arthur.
It went straight to voicemail.
Then my mother, Wendy.
Same thing.
I drove 190 miles with both hands gripped around the steering wheel.
When I arrived, Grandma was seated beside a single brown suitcase and a grocery bag packed with medications.
She was still wearing her church coat even though the lobby was warm.
Her gray hair remained carefully pinned, and her face held that calm, stone-cold expression it always took on whenever she was furious.
I crouched beside her.
“Grandma.”
She looked at me for several long seconds.
Then she got to her feet.
No tears.
No questions.
She walked out toward my car, climbed into the passenger seat, and buckled her seatbelt.
“Don’t call them,” she said.
I looked at her.
“I’ll tell you where to drive.”
“Where?”
“First, the county courthouse.”
That got my attention immediately.
Once we were back on the highway, she opened her purse and handed me a folded bank statement.
Three withdrawals had been circled in red.
Twelve thousand dollars.
Eighteen thousand.
Twenty-five thousand.
All taken within six weeks.
