We felt a little guilty -- just a little -- but for the life of us we couldn't work up any sympathy or compassion. After all, she had shown none to Laura with her relentless persecution.
I heard the news first. I was standing outside the front door of my house contemplating climbing the ladder I had place in front of it in order to scrape peeling paint before priming and repainting it. I saw a woman walking down the road in my direction with a small dog on a leash. It looked like Goneral's dog, but it wasn't Goneral. I decided to ignore her.
I gingerly climbed the ladder and began scraping. After a minute I heard a voice behind me. "She's fascinated by what you're doing." I turned to look at the source. The woman was standing on the road and the little dog was watching me. The woman looked like Goneral but it definitely wasn't her. I made some short reply.
She spoke again. "Do you know Goneral and Fred?"
I replied that I did. The woman went on to tell me that Goneral was seriously ill in the hospital in Bangor and Fred was with her. She said Goneral had been there for a couple of weeks. The woman herself was giving the dog some exercise.
"I'm sorry to hear that." I had to say something. I wasn't sorry at all but I couldn't say that to this stranger who might not know anything about what had been going on in our neighborhood.
The woman said something else that I don't recall, then went on her way. I turned back to my scraping, chewing on this new information.
"What goes around comes around," is the saying. How could it be more true? I knew Goneral had trouble with her lungs, but didn't know the nature of her present illness.
When I was finished with the scraping, I went inside to call Laura with this bit of news. We were both curious to know what had happened but would have to wait for more details.
The wait was short. The next day Laura called me all excited. A friend who knew Goneral had told her that Goneral had sustained two heart attacks during which oxygen to her brain had been cut off for some time. She was reportedly demented. A vegetable was what Laura said. But she continued on to say that the friend said there was a fight between Fred and Goneral's family from Massachusetts. He wanted to care for her at home, but they were afraid of her wandering off and wanted her in a facility.
I explained to Laura that Goneral was not a vegetable if there was danger that she would wander off. Vegetables don't wander. She was equating demented with vegetable and had difficulty understanding the difference. I would have to clarify this point a few times in other conversations before it sank in.
We were surprised about a week later to see Goneral at home. Laura saw her get out of the car and make her way, somewhat spastically, to the mailbox. Laura subsequently heard from Jen, her case manager, that she had seen Goneral and Fred in the supermarket and reported that Goneral had been hanging on Fred, "flopping around," and acting like a child. Fred steered Goneral away when he spotted Jen.
A few days later, Laura saw Goneral get into her car with Fred's help and proceed to clean out the seats. Fred went off to rotorill their garden. When Goneral finished taking the trash out of the car, she proceeded to get into the driver's seat, turn on the engine and drive around on the lawn, running over a door in the process. (We have no idea why there was a door lying in their yard.)
Goneral did not drive out of the yard, but she could have. Obviously that would have posed a great threat to anyone on the road. Very careless of Fred to leave a key in the ignition.
Through all this, whenever we spoke about it, we expressed our guilt at not being able to work up any sympathy. On the contrary, we must admit to feeling rather gleeful.
The big question now is how much does Goneral even remember about her persecution of Laura? There is still one more court incident to deal with -- we don't even know the specifics of the charge. Laura feels it should be dropped because Goneral is apparently not fit to testify in the matter, whatever it is. But the occurrence was from before Goneral's cardiac event so will they try it anyway?
It's a mystery.
Jean, Somewhere in Maine
