…get paid family leave for six weeks. She told HR she was your full-time caregiver.”
Patricia slid a folder across the table. Inside were copies of my surgery records, my medication list and a letter, supposedly from my surgeon, saying I needed round-the-clock care after a “complicated recovery.” My recovery had been textbook. I was walking without a cane by week three.
“She submitted all this to get paid leave,” Patricia said. “Then she told the office the leave was for your ‘transition to a nursing home.’ She even asked her coworkers to chip in for a farewell gift basket for you.”
My daughter-in-law, Stephanie, had gone the color of the mashed potatoes.
And there was more. Patricia had found a printed application in Stephanie’s work email for a memory care facility. My name. My records. A “family consent” form, with my son’s signature and mine. I hadn’t signed anything.
My son, Andrew, put down his fork. “What is this, Steph?”
It all came out at that dinner table. Stephanie and Andrew were behind on their mortgage. Stephanie had decided that if I went into a facility, they could move into my house “temporarily” and rent out their own. She locked the refrigerator so I’d seem confused and difficult when the facility’s assessor visited next week. She threw away my clothes so I’d look unkempt.
Andrew hadn’t known about the facility. He’d known about the money troubles. He’d chosen not to ask questions about everything else.
Patricia, who has never lost an argument in thirty years, said calmly, “Stephanie, you’re on administrative leave as of tonight. Unpaid.”
Stephanie was fired two weeks later for falsifying medical documentation. The memory care application was cancelled. I filed a police report, mostly so there would be a record.
Andrew moved back home with the kids while he figured out his marriage. On their first night back, I took the lock off the refrigerator and handed it to my grandson. He threw it in the trash with great ceremony. Then we made ice cream sundaes at nine p.m., just because we could.
