Diana Darby ** "I V" ** Intravenous

The Parent Trap

At night
my mind spins out of control,
running the numbers
like a bookie.
If I had just bought a thousand shares
of Baidu
we’d have five hundred thousand dollars now.
If I bought five hundred shares we’d have two fifty.
And on and on.
Different combinations.
Different outcomes.
If ‘x’ then ‘y’.
If ‘p’ then ‘z’.
In all of the scenarios we are much wealthier than we are now.
I tell myself if I had done this,
everything would be fine now.
We’d have enough money
for them to stay in one of those
really nice assisted living places.
The kind with the fireplaces,
and real dining rooms,
and libraries full of hard cover books,
not cheap paperback romances
thumbed through a thousand times,
smelling of perfume and ham.
They’d be groomed and waited on like prized poodles,
by people who would really care about them,
or at least be really good at acting like they care.
Now, with the funds we have,
I feel like we are bargain bin shopping,
searching the aisles of Wal-Mart for price cuts
and rollbacks.
Hoping we can give them brie
on a Kraft-singles-budget.
It is all so awful.
I know I should be happy
that they can even afford to even go to one of these places,
but I’m not.
It doesn’t feel like it’s good enough.
I guess the bigger question is
why I have taken all of this on in the first place?
In the last few months, I have decided I must transform myself into Warren Buffett,
doubling and quadrupling what they have,
watching it grow on paper,
and then racing in at the last minute with cash in hand to save the day.
Why I think I must do all of this I don’t know.
I didn’t cause their problems and I can’t cure them,
but I still want to.
I want to
swoop in
and change the numbers.
Change the facts.
Change the last thirty years into something healthy and good.
Rewrite history and their choices with my pen.
Fix it all.
Her diabetes.
His Alzheimer’s.
Their lack of preparation for their “golden years.”
Make everything perfect.
I know I can do it.
Now, If I could just find my damn cape.