The table we sat around, shaped like a dolphin minus the fins, took up most of the conference room. The walls were predominantly windows that looked out onto the parkway. But we were not there for the view. A few weeks back, my husband, Greg took a rendezvous to Plam Springs and that night, like a mosquito buzzing around my head, I awoke. (Where’s the will, I thought, and I don’t have Greg’s pin number to his account. I might have to beg, borrow or steal, if something happens to him).
As mosquitoes do, my brain kept buzzing for a bit. (And so many people our age are getting sick with cancer. I counted them, called them by name – four in six months. And there are others, one with a crushed hip, one with a collapsed shoulder). The omnipotence of our youth is fleeting, and I, too, was sliding down the slope.
Four days later when Greg came home, I said, “So, how was the trip and where’s the will.”
“What?”
“We need to update it, and I also need your pin.”
“Let me unpack, please.”
With a sip of chardonnay, I calmed myself down to a walk. The next day he found the fifteen-year-old will in the closet, locked in a tin box with a bent key. Holding the multiple copies in his hand, he sighed, “You know Andrew, if I die first. I think you’ll have a harder time than I will.”
“Really, how thoughtful,” I tapped his head. He grinned. A grin of love.
So, there we were in this glass coffin with an industrial view and Lisa. Lisa, the lawyer who was well kempt in a tucked-in blouse and linen pants. Her waist was small like a dancer’s. She gave my husband and me a copy of our current will, and she kept one. Holding a pen in her hand, she said, “Look through, and tell me what needs changing?”
Greg put on his glasses and scanned the first page, “I think we are good except my legal name is John Gregory, so that’s an edit. It’s both our page three that needs changing. We decided just to leave all our assets to each other, well, whoever is still here.”
“You know, Lisa,” I piped up, “We are projected to live until ninety-one, so that’s over twenty years. As you can see, we have small potatoes.” She winked at Greg.
“Yes, that’s the projection.” He pushed up his glasses.
“Lisa,” I leaned in; “We only have enough money until we each turn eighty-three. Somehow, we must get out of here by then—cross over to the other side.”
Greg chuckled, “That’s what our financial planner predicts and one of us saved more for the future than the other.” I almost let the comment fly by me because it wasn’t the first time I’d heard it.
“Greg’s always telling me things have to change around here.”
“I won’t get into that.” Lisa smiled again. I liked her. She was calm, relatable and genuinely shared her smile. She moved us ahead, “On page four, are there any changes from regarding alternate executor if you become unable to help or manage each other’s disbursement of assets?”
Greg looked down then up, “Mine stays with my sister as written.”
I tapped my pen, “Oh, I don’t know if I want to put that burden on someone. My friend, Jack made me his. I am telling you he has a house full of pictures, figurines, and two hundred dolls. He is always crocheting, so there are afghans everywhere. And he paints, so there are at least seventy-five portraits on the walls. I told him, he will have to leave me 20,000, if wants me to do the job”
Lisa’s eyes were moving, as if they were talking, but not her mouth.
“Okay. I tapped my head, “You can remove my sister’s name, and you can make it, Barbara Allen. She will probably not love the job. I will break it to her next week over a Capaccino.”
The rest of changes in the will moved quickly until we got to the Medial power of attorney—healthcare directive. Greg and I looked at each other and then at the line that says, In the case of being unable to make my own decisions. “Well, Greg said, “We have each other’s back if we are both, clear-minded or one of us is. Lisa, keep mine as is. No extreme measures.”
“Yes indeed, Greg, but in case you’re not here or I am, we each need a second, an alternate.”
“See, I have a second, Hon; but maybe I should rethink who.”
“Well, while he is thinking, Lisa, take out extreme measures and put any measures, for me.”
I watched her cross out extreme and hoped I was certain. I felt a little rush around my brain; it quickly passed Yet, without Greg, whom do I want? I went down a list in my head and tapped my right foot then my left.
“You know, everyone we know is already our age or older.”
Greg laughed and sat up.
“He’s right—the dilemma of living.”
“But I have to pick someone.” I took a few breaths then looked at Greg.
“Mel is too wishy washy, right?”
Greg nodded, “For sure. They kept his mother alive so long, flat on her back so she could turn a hundred. Just shoot me now, as our friend, Donna says. That’s what she says, right Andrew?”
“Yep.”
I sat up and straightened my back, “Okay, Lisa. I got it. Mel is much too melancholy around these types of things, but Jack would kill me off in a second. So, Jack Daniel; you got that, Lisa?” And she wrote it down.
In the elevator, Greg took my hand, “Not so bad, huh!”
“Easy, actually.”
And then I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirrored side panel, “Look at me Greg, in the mirror. I look like death took a holiday.”
Then I pressed the down button.
Andrew Pelfini has been writing in multiple genres for many years. He continues to be a member of the Intergenerational Writers in San Francisco for over twenty years. He published an anthology of their works. Andrew is a psychotherapist, graduate educator and supervisonow by trade.
