“What is it?” Maddie asked in a tired voice with her eyes closed.
“We’re looking for a venue for a cocktail party, as a benefit. Not a big deal. Just about a hundred people. The firehouse would be perfect for it, if that’s okay with you.” She assumed her mother would agree, but Maddie had done it for her before, and it had turned into a much bigger event, with twice as many people as Deanna said it would be, spilling out onto the sidewalk and going all over the house to explore. Maddie had promised herself she’d never do it again. She remembered it distinctly.
“Actually, it’s not okay,” Maddie said, feeling weak and dizzy. “The last time I agreed to it it was a mess.”
“This will be a much smaller deal,” Deanna assured her, sounding sure she could get her mother to consent. “I promise, we’ll keep it under better control. We’re going to have a gourmet food truck, so we don’t need to use your kitchen at all.”
“And if someone falls down the stairs, if they go upstairs even if they’re not supposed to, I’m the one they’re going to sue. Or if they go down the fireman’s pole and get hurt if they’re drunk.” Some people could never resist the temptation, particularly men, although some women had done it too. Maddie didn’t want the liability.
“We’ll rope it off. And no one is going to sue you, Mother,” Deanna said, sounding supercilious and annoyed. She hated the word “no.”
“I really don’t want to do it,” Maddie said, trying to sound firm, although she was feeling sick and woozy from the pill.
“It’s for a good cause. You don’t sound good, by the way. Are you sick?” Maddie sounded like she’d been drinking. She could hear it herself. Her words were slurring.
“Sort of. Not really,” Maddie said, suddenly feeling vulnerable. She needed to be in top form and have all her wits about her when she talked to Deanna. “I had a stupid accident on Friday night, but I’m fine.”
“What kind of accident?”
“I fell off a ladder and broke my ankle. It’s a clean break, I’m in a cast but it’ll be off in six weeks. And I’ll get a walking cast in a week or two.”
“For God’s sake, Mother, how stupid is that? You were on a ladder on Friday night? When you’re by yourself? What were you thinking?” The milk of human kindness, and compassion, did not run in Deanna’s veins.
“I was reorganizing a closet, trying to get some boxes down from a high shelf,” Maddie said simply, but feeling seriously stupid while faced with her daughter’s reaction and tone of voice.
“That’s exactly what I was afraid of when you bought the place. What if you fell down those stairs? They’re treacherous. You can’t use a ladder when you’re alone there, Mother. You’re lucky it was only your ankle, it could have been your hip.” It was hardly a cheering thought. “At your age, you shouldn’t be living there alone. You should hire someone to sleep in.”
“I’m not that far gone yet,” Maddie said, pushing back. She didn’t like the mention of a broken hip. She had thought of that too. It had a connotation of age.
“You should sell the place and get an apartment,” Deanna said firmly, as though Maddie had committed a crime and lost her right to live in a house alone.
“I don’t need someone sleeping here. I’m fine on my own. I was here all weekend with a broken ankle, and I’m managing.”
“You’re too old to live in a house like that. The place is a death trap, you could fall down the stairs or into the hole for the fire pole.”
“I haven’t done that yet. Anyone can break an ankle, at any age. Accidents happen. I shouldn’t have been on the ladder,” she conceded. “I won’t do it again.”
“I hope not. But I think you should start thinking of selling the place. You should have put in an elevator when you moved in.”
“I was forty-three years old when I bought the house. I didn’t need an elevator, and I don’t need one now. I’m not in a wheelchair, for God’s sake.” Deanna was annoying her, her tone was insulting, and so was what she said.
“You will be eventually,” she said nastily.
“I’ll figure it out then.”
“If you still can, Mother. A fall like this is the first sign that you’re not up to living there alone anymore. You should face that now, before something else happens. This is a warning to you. Either hire someone to live in or sell the house. That’s what people your age do.”
She had it all worked out in her own mind. And then she added insult to injury. “We’ll have to get you one of those alarms to wear around your neck in case you fall, if you insist on staying there. And no one is going to be able to carry you up and down those stairs if you get hurt. How did you manage this weekend?”
“I managed,” Maddie said succinctly. She wasn’t going to tell Deanna that she had slept on the studio couch on Saturday night, had gotten to her bedroom by going up the stairs backwards on her bottom, had been eating cookies all day because she couldn’t get to the kitchen, and had only had half a sandwich in the last thirty-six hours. It would have proven Deanna’s point. Maddie hoped she wasn’t right that this was the beginning of the end. “I’m not even sixty yet, for Heaven’s sake.”
“You’re not far from it. And that’s when some people start to fall apart, or get Alzheimer’s,” Deanna said ominously.
“I know people in their eighties who live alone and don’t have Alzheimer’s. I was on a ladder. Admittedly, that was stupid of me, but I’m not in a full body cast or on a respirator. I broke my ankle, not my hip.”
“No, but you will if you do dumb things like that.” She had no sympathy for her mother, and listening to her was driving Maddie’s spirits into the ground.
“I have a headache,” Maddie said quietly. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“What about the benefit?” Deanna pressed her, and Maddie dug her heels in after the conversation they’d just had.
“You can’t do it here. Besides, given what you think, I’m too old to have a hundred strangers in my house. Good night,” she said and hung up quickly before Deanna could come up with another round of arguments in favor of it. Maddie was not going to lend the firehouse to her, particularly if she was going to try to convince her to sell it, or hire live-in help she didn’t want, like some old woman who couldn’t take care of herself at fifty-eight. Maddie felt worse when she hung up, and she was seething. Deanna made her sound as though she were a hundred years old and losing her mind. And the prospect of no longer living alone was profoundly depressing, even if it didn’t happen for another ten years or longer.