It all began with a phone call from Horace, Alex's 91 year old stepfather, saying "Alex, your mom is losing her mind".
When Alex asked why, he said that she walked out of the supermarket and was wandering around the parking lot.
Whereas Alex didn't think that wandering around the parking lot (as he had done himself many times looking for his car) was a sure sign of losing one's mind, he expressed concern and told Horace that he would call her in the morning.
.....
Alex's mom Lucille was 86 and lived in Florida with her second husband Horace. They married shortly after Alex's dad passed away.
Alex first met Horace when he flew out from NYC to visit his mom when his dad died. She had him over for breakfast, saying he was a friend that she went to church with regularly.
Before Horace arrived for breakfast that day, Lucille told Alex that Horace was incredibly cheap and selfish, saying that he showed up for dinner one night "empty handed" and expected to be "served" and didn't offer to help cleaning up.
Alex had been suspicious of Horace's intentions, thinking he was "waiting in the wing" for his dad to die, and for a while this introduction relieved Alex's fear that she would get involved with Horace.
But that all changed when 6 months later his mom called saying she married Horace and that he was selling his house and moving in with her.
Alex was starting to think that that this guy was a scoundrel, sweeping in on his mom's fortune and literally sleeping in his dad's bed.
But it had been a long time since Alex had seen his mom so happy, and this pleased him greatly.
.....
The next morning when Alex called his mom, she told him that she had Alzheimer's disease. Alex inquired about how she knew this and she said the doctor told her.
In reality the doctor gave her a verbal test for dementia. It reveled a passibility for Alzheimer's. He recommended further testing to confirm her type of dementia, thereby determine how to treat it.
Unfortunately she refused further testing and against Alex's insisting on her getting a second opinion, she decided to "own" the diagnosis of Alzheimers.
.....
It raised another flag of suspicion when the very next day Alex got a call from Horace, saying that she wasn't able to pay the bills anymore, and he needed to have access to a joint account that was Alex's and his moms. Instead, Alex ( not wanting Horace to have access to this money) recommended that they open a separate joint account and pay the bills from that new account.
He took the recommendation, and immediately moved $25,000 from his moms account into this new account.
.....
Alex's weekly call to mom became a daily call. His mom would have good days and bad days. On one morning a week later, Horace answered the phone saying his mom was asleep and couldn't come to the phone.
But when Alex heard a feint screaming of "HELP! " in the background, he knew it was time to go to Florida to see for himself what was going on.
.....
To be continued.
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