Three photographers and one video cameraman were camped out across the street from the house I was visiting in Brentwood, more paparazzi than I’d had at my curb that morning. The story was moving in another direction. Usually, I would stop and take a close look at anyone milling around near me, but I didn’t want to be photographed at that house. I’d never expected to visit the Brentwood house again, wading through the overgrown pathway of orange trees. The lawn needed watering, dotted with fragrant, rotting fruit. The gardener was a week late. Mother’s house was purposely modest on the outside, but Mother had kept her yard meticulous; she would be horrified by its condition. To her neighbors, she had been the quiet old lady down the street, and now the ruse was real. I wasn’t surprised when a uniformed male nursing assistant in his late twenties answered her door. He looked as if he spent more time in a weight room than at a nursing station. I realized I didn’t know what to call Mother.
