Chapter 2 - WHY THEY NEEDED HIM “CONFUSED”
At Eskenazi Hospital, an X-ray showed a nondisplaced fracture in Dad's left ulna and heavy soft-tissue bruising along his forearm.
The doctor asked him the standard orientation questions.
His full name.
The date.
Where he was.
Who the president was.
Why he'd come to the hospital.
Dad answered every question correctly.
When the physician asked whether he'd been hallucinating, feeling suicidal, or experiencing unusual confusion, Dad stared at him.
“My daughter forgets where she puts her coffee twice a week. Nobody tries to commit her.”
Under other circumstances, I might have laughed.
That night I didn't.
Dad's story came out in fragments.
Michael and Vanessa had been staying with him for six weeks while renovations were supposedly being completed on their house in Carmel.
Michael had begun “helping” with bills after Dad's hip replacement two years earlier.
Dad had signed a durable power of attorney then, giving Michael broad authority to deal with banks and routine property matters during his recovery.
He never formally revoked it because Michael was his son.
Three days before the attack, Dad had opened a brokerage statement Michael normally collected from the mailbox.
Something was wrong.
There were withdrawals Dad didn't recognize.
Transfers.
Large ones.
He called Michael that evening.
Michael said they were investments Dad had forgotten authorizing.
Dad told him to bring every financial record to the house Friday night.
Instead, Michael arrived with Vanessa.
The argument escalated.
Dad said he wanted his phone so he could call his attorney.
Michael picked it up first.
“He wouldn't give it back.”
“And Vanessa?” I asked.
Dad looked down at his splinted arm.
“She kept telling me to calm down.”
Then he gave a dry, humorless laugh.
“I told her the only person who needed to calm down was the woman yelling in my kitchen.”
Vanessa grabbed the baseball bat Dad kept near the mudroom door.
Not for burglars.
For grandsons.
He'd used it to hit practice balls with neighborhood kids for years.
“She told me if I came any closer, she'd defend herself.”
“Did you?”
“I reached for my phone.”
Vanessa swung.
Dad raised his arm.
The bat struck him.
He fell against the kitchen cabinet.
Michael still did nothing.
Then Vanessa screamed.
Not because Dad had touched her.
Because Dad had started crawling toward the landline.
Michael unplugged it.
I felt something cold settle behind my ribs.
“What happened next?”
“They called 911.”
“Who?”
“Michael.”
Dad looked directly at me.
“He told them I was violent and mentally unstable before the dispatcher even asked what happened.”
That explained the station.
It did not explain Dad's strangest sentence.
“Why did you say they needed you crazy before morning?”
Dad swallowed.
“Because at nine o'clock, I was supposed to meet my lawyer and the bank.”
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“For what?”
“To revoke Michael's power of attorney.”
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