Bill got the call from the home just as he was getting ready to meet Gwen at the motel. “Mistah Pollitt, this is Bobby from Promised Years. We need you to come down and meet with our care team for a family consult about Big Frank.”

There went Bill’s appetite. The last thing he wanted to do was drive to the nursing home and see what kinds of hell Dad was raising this time. Damn Betsy for getting married and moving to Colorado. She was probably having stoned sex with her “marketing dude” and not giving a thought about Dad.

Okay, that was probably unfair. Betsy had done all of the research and made all the arrangements for their father after Mom died and Dad went - somewhere inside himself. And Betsy had spent seven years dealing with insurance hassles and a succession of nursing home owners and administrators without once trying to have Bill take her place. So Bill couldn’t fault her for grabbing any golden ticket out of that responsibility.

Now he’d have to call Gwen back, apologize, kiss her ass, and buy her something expensive to keep his chances open with her. And then take his aging pickup truck for a two-hour drive.

Damn Dad, and damn Betsy!

Gwen didn’t understand why Bill would leave her in the lurch, but she didn’t threaten to cut him off, so that wasn’t too bad. Traffic wasn’t bad this afternoon, so Bill had plenty of time to think on the drive. Fucking Frank. Fucking Big Frank.

Dad’s given name was Franklin, but he was always “Big Frank” as if to distinguish himself from some other member of the family. Not that anyone else in the family was named Frank. No, Bill knew damn well Dad had invented “Big Frank” to emphasize his dominance over “Little Billy”. Bastard.

But of course the attendants at the nursing home didn’t know that, and Betsy hadn’t corrected them. So those people all called him “Big Frank”, and none of them had real names – just cutesy ones like Julie and Nancy and Robbie and Willie, and Bobby who’d called today. Bill couldn’t keep track of all the turnover, but this was one of the few nursing homes they could afford.

His brow furrowed. Wasn’t Willie the one who was dealing with Dad after Robbie disappeared? Where did this Bobby come from? Oh well, he’d just have to meet everyone and get that straightened out after he found out what Dad was up to.

Dad had gone into the mental care unit at Promised Years on day one, and there was no expectation that he’d ever come out. Unfortunately for his family, Dad wasn’t one of those patients who quietly deteriorate. In the early years, Betsy had somehow made complaints from three female attendants go away. Since then the nursing home calls had been about anger issues or refusal to cooperate.

Bill’s phone buzzed. He lifted it from the cup holder and opened the text. It was from Gwen – thighs wide, fingering herself, dripping wet. FUCK – he dropped the phone onto the floorboard as he nearly sideswiped a fancy SUV. He sweated to get control of the pickup, and ignored the further buzzing of the phone all the way to the Promised Years parking lot.

Safely parked, he picked up the phone and scrolled through the texts. God, what a hot piece Gwen was, and he wouldn’t have time to whack off before meeting with the staff here. Growling, he shoved the phone into his pocket, picked up the folder that used to be Betsy’s, and headed into the nursing home.

Bill signed the register – William Pollitt, for Franklin Pollitt, Memory Care, meeting with Care Team. He checked his watch and added “3:45pm”, then slid the register across the welcoming desk. The woman looked at the line and said “Who’s Franklin Pol-”, then her eyes widened and she chirped “Oh, you’re here for Big Frank!”

Bill was saved from saying something unwise by the appearance of the Care Team leader. “Mistah Pollitt? I’m Bobby, pleased to see you, we’ve got the big conference room in the Mental Care unit all set up, I’ll walk you over.” For all of the Southern accent and aw-shucks attitude, Bobby looked more like a sturdy Alabama halfback than any kind of mental health professional, and he was definitely in a hurry to get Bill into this meeting. That couldn’t be a good thing.

The conference room had lousy coffee, and it went downhill from there. Besides Bobby and Bill, there was the director of the mental care unit, the medical practices head, the assistant director of Human Resources, and the acting head of the nursing staff. Bobby and Bill sat on one side of the large conference table, the others sat opposite them. The way Bill saw it, this had all the hallmarks of a well-planned ambush.

The head of HR threw the first pitch. “Mr. Pollitt, as I’m sure you know, we’ve had issues with your father and how he interacts with our employees. Now, we appreciate that people with dementia often have deficits in interpersonal relations, but we do have a responsibility to our own staff.” He nodded to the head nurse like a quarterback handing off the football.

This woman glared at Bill as if he’d been caught molesting her daughters. “Your father CANNOT be allowed to be along with any of MY staff, Mr. Pollitt. I’ve read the reports of the nurses and orderlies we’ve lost over the past six years, and frankly, I don’t understand why you haven’t already been asked to find another facility.”

The human resources asshole had just been annoying, but this woman got Bill’s dander up. “Excuse me, miss,” Bill leaned forward and peered at the woman’s name badge.

She corrected him with an utterly disgusted glare. “It’s DOCTOR Miller, Mr. Pollitt. DOCTOR.”

“Whatever.” Bill was tired of this show, and he wasn’t going to roll over and play dead just because the money people at Promised Years were pissed off at Dad. Dad was a bully and a rat bastard, but he was family for all that.

“I get that you all have issues with Dad. And I know there’s been a lot of turnover through the years with his care team. But as far as I know, none of you have ever seen fit to formally notify our family that Dad’s anywhere out of the range of people you deal with daily. My sister, when she was handling Dad’s affairs, kept VERY thorough correspondence files.”