Too Far Under

a novel

by

Lynn Osterkamp

Smashwords Edition

Published by:

PMI Books

Boulder, Colorado

http://www.pmibooks.com

Too Far Under

Copyright © 2011 by Lynn Osterkamp

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal
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respecting the author's work.

This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 by Lynn Osterkamp

This book is available in print at most online
retailers.

Discover other titles by Lynn Osterkamp at
http://www.lynnosterkamp.com

The water can be deceptive.

Please be aware of strong undertow and
crashing waves.

Beach Sign

Mirabel’s last day on earth was a late August
scorcher, but the heat melted away when the sun slipped behind the
mountains. The evening air had a delicious mountain crispness and
piney smell. Mirabel was overdue for a soak. She dropped her
clothes in a pile on the bathroom floor and slipped into a terry
robe. On her way through the empty kitchen, she grabbed a chilled
bottle of Chenin Blanc, a wine glass, and her ipod. Then she headed
out to the secluded hot tub in the backyard of her house in the
outskirts of Boulder.

“My favorite part of the day,” she said to
herself as she turned on the jets, tossed her robe on a chair and
slid into the bubbling hot water. “Yes,” she sighed in relief as
the throbbing in her muscles and joints eased. Mirabel refused to
accept limitations to her active life, despite increasing arthritis
pain. Some days it was all she could do to get moving in the
morning, but she pushed through the fog and kept her commitments.
Mirabel was proud that people who knew her said that once she set
her mind on something she moved forward like a rocket and got
things accomplished.

Today she’d spent hours with the Prairie Dog
Action group she chaired, working on strategies to take action
against Hugh Symes, a vicious developer who plowed a colony of
prairie dogs under—killing them instead of relocating them. Then
she delivered meals-on-wheels, worked on promotional materials with
the Colorado Sierra Club, and had a short Scientology session with
India and Brian.

As usual, her husband Derrick wasn’t around
for dinner, so she and her daughter Angelica picked up some fruit
smoothies and black bean tempeh burgers at the Boulder Co-op café.
They ate downtown on the courthouse lawn while listening to a local
jazz group at the weekly Bands on the Bricks concert. It was after
9:00 when they got home and by the time she’d checked her phone
messages and had her usual bedtime heart-to-heart talk with
Angelica, it was about 10:30, which was slightly past her usual
soaking time.

Angelica, an unusually perceptive
ten-year-old, had offered to forgo the bedtime ritual so Mirabel
could get right to the hot water. But Mirabel treasured Angelica’s
nighttime confidences too much to miss one no matter how much her
body ached. She wished she had spent this quality time with her
three older children, but somehow life had gotten in the way and
that opportunity was long gone.

A familiar sadness overwhelmed her as she
thought about her older children, now all but lost to her. Her
ongoing arguments with her two oldest—Shane, twenty-four, and
Lacey, twenty-three, left her frustrated and disappointed. Somehow
neither of them had found a steady path in life. She had tried to
teach them the importance of contributing to the community, but
they insisted she had already contributed enough for all of them.
Had she neglected their emotional needs to serve her social causes?
She never meant to, but looking back she did have regrets.

Worst was Kari, dead at thirteen. It had been
two years now, but Mirabel still missed Kari every day and blamed
herself for not doing more to save her. Tears trickled down her
cheeks. Her precious babies. She may not have been the best mother,
but she loved them all so much. At least she was close to Angelica.
She vowed to do whatever she needed to do to keep that, and to
redouble her efforts to reach Lacey and Shane.

As Mirabel’s physical tension yielded to the
swirling water, she turned her thoughts away from her family. Other
worries nagged at her. Life was confusing lately and she didn’t
know who to trust or believe. She wasn’t naïve. She was quite aware
that money—or the desire for more of it—could motivate people to
evil. But until recently, she’d thought she was a good enough judge
of character that no one could take advantage of her or of people
she loved. Now she wasn’t so sure. Things were happening that she
knew she needed to stop. It was going to be an unpleasant
month.

As she soaked and sipped her wine, Mirabel
tried to quiet her reactive mind and move toward clear as she’d
learned to do as a student of Scientology. But it wasn’t
working—maybe because of a combination of alcohol and painkillers
in her system. She’d resisted taking any medications for at least a
year after her arthritis began to interfere with her daily life,
and even now hadn’t found the courage to tell her fellow
Scientologists that she was taking pills they believe to be poison.
Actually, she had other issues with them these days that had eroded
much of their mutual trust, so the pain killer thing was probably
minor.

She sat up to reach her wine bottle, poured
herself another glass, leaned back against the side of the tub, and
drank deeply. As the wine level dropped in her glass, Mirabel slid
down further into the water, focusing on relaxing her body and
again trying to clear her mind. Gradually her thoughts dimmed, her
body loosened, and she felt the floating calmness she sought.

She had almost lapsed into a stupor when she
felt a hand touch her head. She couldn’t see who it was, but in her
groggy state she didn’t really care. The hand squeezed her head
lightly, which felt soothing and she drowsily wiggled her head to
snuggle into it. But soon the touch felt too firm and aggressive.
She roused herself enough to push back and finally tried to turn
her head to see who was there. But the person behind her held her
head tightly in both hands, thrusting her face under the warm
water.

Mirabel kicked at the bottom and sides of the
tub, struggling to get a foothold to push herself up and raise her
head out of the water. But it was too late. The pills, the wine and
the hot water had left her body and her mind too slack to act
forcefully in her own defense. The hands pushed her head deeper
into the tub.

Fear and panic came over her in waves as
water gushed down her throat. Her chest burned and she gasped,
trying not to breathe in the water that surrounded her. But finally
the irresistible urge to breathe won out. Mirabel’s last thought
before the water filled her lungs and she lost consciousness was
that if she drowned she’d be letting down all the people who were
counting on her to show up tomorrow and the next day and all the
days after that.

Two months later

When I got the urgent early-morning call from
Shady Terrace Nursing Home, I thought it was my boyfriend Pablo
calling to say he missed me already. He had spent the night and was
on his way to work while I dozed lazily under my puffy down quilt
enjoying the afterglow and procrastinating getting up for a few
more minutes.

I flipped open my cell and saw the Shady
Terrace number instead of Pablo’s. My heart sank. “Cleo Sims,” I
answered, dreading what could only be bad news from the nursing
home calling so early. It was Tanya, one of the nurses on my
eighty-seven-year-old grandmother’s unit.

“Get ready for a shock, Cleo. Shady Terrace
is closing and all the residents have to move out! They just told
us, and the residents don’t even know yet. There’s a big family
meeting this morning at 9:00. Can you make it?”

Too stunned to ask for details, I said I’d be
there. I wanted to scream and throw my phone against the wall, but
instead I grabbed a robe and stepped out onto my front porch,
hoping my mountain view would have its usual calming effect.

It was a mild sun-drenched October morning,
but I shivered as if winter had arrived overnight with a blast of
arctic air. Tanya’s words bounced around in my head as I paced
around the porch, struggling to absorb the unwelcome news. Fury
prodded me to fight back, but at the same time I wanted to curl up
in a corner and cry. How could this be happening just when Shady
Terrace had finally gotten its act together and was providing such
good care? Where could Gramma go? Her Alzheimer’s disease has
progressed to the point that she doesn’t always recognize me, but
she’s been at Shady Terrace for eight years and the staff knows her
ups and downs and how to make her comfortable.

I was a wreck, and the mountain view wasn’t
soothing me at all. As a grief therapist I know there are times
when you need to stop and absorb bad news and there are times when
you need to take action. This moment called for action. So I went
back inside to grab a quick shower and get dressed. As I showered,
anger and sorrow continued to fight for control of my emotions,
while my saner professional side tried to start making a plan.

It was going to be a busy morning. It was
Friday and I had a class to teach at the university at 10:30. I
couldn’t be late for that. The department head had made it clear
that my paranormal psychology class was an experiment and that some
faculty did not approve of hiring an unorthodox therapist like me
to teach even as a lowly instructor. I was on trial and I wanted to
measure up.

For the moment, though, Gramma’s well-being
was my top priority, so I had to make this meeting. I jumped into
my Toyota and headed to the nursing home. Of course the main
parking lot was full and I wasted time looking for a space before I
went over to the auxiliary lot. The meeting was just getting
started in the central lobby when I dashed in, so I didn’t have
time to go to Gramma’s room and check on her. Instead, I found an
empty chair at the back of the room and sat down. This lobby was
designed to look like an old-fashioned town square with fake
storefronts, an ice cream parlor and a popcorn wagon. The theory is
that the residents will feel comforted by a setting that takes them
back to a happier time of their lives.

Maybe it is calming for them. But I felt like
I was sitting in Disneyland listening to Cruella De Vil. I’d never
seen the woman who was speaking, so I figured she was from
corporate headquarters. She was a tall, large-boned woman, dressed
in a snazzy black business suit that was overkill for a fake main
street in a Boulder nursing home but would have fit right in to
Donald Trump’s boardroom. Unfortunately, her message matched the
boardroom image.

“We know that Shady Terrace is a vibrant
community of seniors,” she began in an incongruously upbeat voice.
“But, our building is in need of significant and costly repairs
that we can’t afford to make with our current operating budget. So,
after careful deliberation, we have entered into a sales agreement
with Hugh Symes Development Company, which will require the closure
of the Shady Terrace skilled nursing center. You will be receiving
a letter this week that will be your official sixty-day notice of
closure as required by Colorado law. We know this decision will be
difficult for our residents and their families, but we assure you
that we will do everything possible to assist you in making a
smooth transition to another living situation.”