Stretched

My foster father Ray is dying. In a nursing home in a small city in northern California. He is demented and cancer-ridden. He started hospice yesterday.

I am planning to fly out there on Wednesday. His (much younger, half) sister Colleen is discouraging the trip. He probably sexually abused her two daughters -- certainly took pictures of them in their panties when they were in elementary school, which some would already consider abuse. I think Colleen was present, though. (Fuck the seventies.)

Marina left Ricky a few weeks ago -- and good for her, but he is falling apart. She waited until he'd paid off his multiyear debt consolidation loan, then disappeared, with all her stuff, while he was at work. She's living in Queens, presumably with friends. I have refused to give him money to pay his rent. I am sort of seriously considering going to New York and breaking into the apartment while he's out driving his taxi (70 hours per week) to save -- no, to take, they're his according to the will -- the family pictures: little miniatures on porcelain of my grandmother's grandparents, and of her as an infant; photo albums from when her family was rich.