Mary and her two care-givers, unpaid and like loving mothers who never had children of their own, lived very happily together for several years in the care-givers' little house, a time during which Mary's mental decline leveled out and seemed to stabilize. Then one calm, hot summer night of a season with an intensity of black flies much, much worse than any other year, a swift strong wind blew, bringing heavy dark clouds that covered the sky in minutes and a lightening storm erupted setting many a treetop afire. The town panicked and every able body sprang into action to put out the flames. Luckily a torrential downpour started that saved the town, rain so heavy that it bruised the skin, and all ran for cover. After the rain ceased, many birds were found littering the streets, dead from the force of the downpour. After that, Mary's dementia worsened dramatically. She had no idea who her care-givers were. She did not recognize anything. She couldn't do anything. She wouldn't eat. She had to be rudely nudged to breathe. She had no identity or any memory at all. Her past was completely inaccessible to her. At this time, one of her care-givers came down with what started as a bad flu, most unusual for the season, and the two care-givers decided it best that the sick one isolate herself in one room, away from Mary, and leaving all the work to be done by the other for the time being. Mary was excruciatingly thin and weak and was always in her bed, too weak to even sit, gazing mindlessly before her at the things there that she could not even distinguish as things - what her eyes perceived was an indescribable nothing without any understanding to make sense of it. One night the totally unexpected happened. Mary gained an identity, but it was not the one she had been, but of someone domineering and physically powerful. Believing she was being held prisoner, she rose, intent on breaking out of the prison. She knocked her care-givers to the ground and strode out of the house, not to be seen again, until her body was discovered under water about two weeks later, near the shore of the lake, by some teenagers who were swimming. It was remarked by both care-givers and others when her body was pulled out from the water, that she had a beautiful, serene expression on her face, as though she reached the state of freedom she so desired, or perhaps as also speculated, she was with her beloved husband, Ross, again.
Lisa organized the memorial service for Mary, and the entire village, except Lisa's son, Bruce, attended; his reason, unbeknownst to him, was out of spite. Lisa wanted him there and therefore he did not go. Bruce hated living in the modest house, cared for by his grandmother and who seemed to him to be more his mother than Lisa. The stately Mayer mansion where his father had grown up was rented out to various people and families, some on short-term basis and others on longer term. Lisa wanted Bruce to experience the same conditions she had while she grew up, believing this would develop the qualities in Bruce she relied on in herself, but she did not take into account the differences in what had been her situation and that of Bruce. Bruce was not lazy as Phillip had been nor was he the hard-worker that his father, Michael, was. Bruce struggled with the other children of his age that he went to school with. The very fact that he was a Mayer set him apart and he was teased out of jealousy when he was young. As he grew older and he let all who crossed him know that vengeance would come for them when he became of age, the teasing stopped because the parents recognized the power he would have over their children who would eventually have to submit to Bruce or leave the area. So while many pretended to be Bruce's friends, none of them were. When he did reach the age of eighteen and the Mayer estate was now exclusively his, he got the revenge he dreamed of for years and fired everyone in the families of those who had teased him. Lisa was shocked to see the man her son was growing into. Bruce hated her more and more as the years accumulated and vowed to get rid of his mother and her influence as well. Bruce was ultra-sensitive and often misunderstood the intentions of those around him. He fired the lawyer and the accountant who had worked for the Mayers for their entire careers. It was when Bruce fired Kayliff, the top manager, that the business began to fall apart. Bruce moved into the Mayer mansion into a room there and began to harass the tenants until they all left. He prohibited Lisa from coming to the business office or having anything to do with the affairs of the Mayer estate.
