Margot was the senior administrator at Bestlife, my point person when it came to Kelli’s care. She had walked me through my mother’s schedule and expressed her condolences in the same harassed tones that she was using now. I had appreciated this about her — I’d been on the receiving end of a lot of syrupy consolation the week of my mother’s funeral, but Margot hadn’t a drop of syrup in her. She was, if anything, vinegary. I hadn’t doubted that her sympathy was genuine; it was just that she’d made it very clear my problems were my own, and very sad, and meanwhile the important business of seeing to the needs of my sister would be supervised and competently handled. It was nice to hear from her again.

“Hi, Margot! I’m good, thanks. How are you?”

“I’m fine, dear,” Margot huffed. I think she had been hoping I wouldn’t bother to reciprocate the time-wasting inquiry into her well-being. “I’m just calling to check in with you about the workers we currently have coming out to see Kelli. How has everyone been working out?”

“The workers? Everyone’s been great.”

“You’re happy with them?”

“We’re really happy.”

“Miz Petrie I’d like you to know that you are welcome to request a worker be taken out of Kelli’s rotation at any time, for any reason.”

I hesitated.

“Ok,” I said. “That’s good to know.”

“If a worker,” continued Margot, “makes any requests or demands of you not relating to the care of your loved one, you should feel under no obligation whatsoever and you should feel free to call me to discuss these matters.”

I laughed a bit. “You sound like you’re reading off a form, Margot.”

“I assure you I am not reading off a form,” said Margot, sounding offended.

“No, I just mean,” I said, “what’s this all about?”

Margot sighed briefly. Even her sighs were clipped and efficient. “We encourage our workers to be friendly. And sometimes people come to think of them as friends.”

“I understand.”

“But we’ve occasionally had issues where — oh, say, for example, just recently. We have a client who’s an older gentleman. We send a worker out to administer his medication every day. But one day this gentleman decides he needs his gutters cleaned. So when his caregiver arrives, he offers him fifty dollars, maybe, to get up on a ladder and clean his gutters while he’s there.”

“I see,” I said.

“You’re new to all this, Miz Petrie.”

“Yes,” I said, “I am.”

“And god bless you, your mother dying was such a shock, I hope you are doing all right.”

“Oh,” I said, flustered by this abrupt, officious expression of sympathy. “Thank you. I’m ok.”

“And I am not saying that you are offering anybody fifty dollars to clean your gutters. I am just saying that it is inappropriate for a worker to be crossing those lines.”

“I get it,” I said.

“It’s because,” said Margot, “we come into your homes. We prepare your food. We give you medicine. We give you baths. We help you exercise. Sometimes we even go to the bathroom with you.”