Well, more or less. We returned from San Diego at about 11:30 last night, and it was a trip for the books. We stayed with Not-Crazy Cousin D-- and I spent a part of nearly every day for two weeks visiting my father. He's doing pretty well, but everything around him -- I'm not so sure.
When I got to my dad's place, I took his bank statements to look over, and that first evening I noticed that there were withdrawals that I didn't make. When my dad first fell back in December, the cousin that had been living with him took his checkbook and an envelope of cash "for safekeeping." In February, my sister was visiting Dad when that cousin called to ask for a loan of money, and Dad said that she could borrow a little bit, but when I visited in March and looked over his banking, I didn't see that he had given her anything. Fast forward to May, and I noted that his overall total had fallen quite a bit, more than could be accounted for by his expenses. Looking more closely, I found that nine out-of-sequence checks had been written, totaling almost nine thousand dollars. I asked Dad and he admitted that it was more than he'd intended to loan to her. That cousin was writing Dad's blank checks to herself.
According to Dad's caretaker, the cousin's daughter had visited Dad in late April (after my sister's April visit) and given Dad a check for $1200. Not-Crazy D-- insisted that we look for corresponding withdrawals, and there they were: the cousin had taken money out of the account so she could present a check to "pay him back."
According to our records, there was only one more blank check hanging out there, and I started checking Dad's bank account online to see if it would show, and the cousin did not disappoint: she wrote the final one for four thousand dollars. D-- had pointed out to me that since the cousin had all of Dad's account numbers, they could have more checks printed for his account and just write all his money for themselves, and I had a talk with Dad about it. He's unwilling to do anything about it, but I told him that he needed to call Cousin and tell her to stop. He did call, and all he'd say about it was "she told me that I had added to her worries."
More than all of that money being gone from Dad's fixed-income bank account, this "adding to her worries" comment infuriated me. How dare Dad not only notice that she'd stolen money from him, but have the temerity to point it out and ask that it stop? It beggars belief.
edited to add: This morning (Wednesday) I put the bank statements in order to file them, and discovered that there were five more checks that had been written, beginning in January, almost immediately after Dad entered the care home. Sis is incensed. I'm just exhausted.
On top of this, I've been aware for some time that all has not been quiet on the domestic front with Dad's caregivers. They're a man and wife team, and I've heard almighty rows going on in the private spaces of the home where Dad lives, and once I wondered if the man had actually struck his wife. That's with three doors closed between us and them! I wasn't sure Dad had heard them, but there were two fights while I was there last week, and during the last one the woman caregiver came into Dad's room and poured out her frustration and grief, along with "your Dad knows this, he's seen it."
Dad likes the woman, he sort of dismisses the man, but he hasn't indicated that he wants to move -- yet. Meanwhile, Sis and I have quietly begun researching alternative accommodations for Dad so we're ready if he says he needs to leave. As Sis said when I told her, "wow, this one came out of left field."
This is never going to be not-complicated.
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