Map · Establishments · Lakeview Memory Care
An establishment near Harmon
The room where his mother hummed by the window and held his hands and didn’t always know his name but knew his hands, and that was enough, had to be enough.
— The Good Father
Lakeview is a one-story brick memory-care facility built in the nineties, set back from Route 9 behind a parking lot that is always half-empty because the residents don’t drive and the visitors come in shifts: mornings for the guilty ones, afternoons for the ones who can only face it after lunch, evenings for the ones who need to be seen by the staff. The lobby smells of industrial lavender and warmed plastic, a manufactured smell designed to cover other smells. The sign reads LAKEVIEW MEMORY CARE: DIGNITY, COMPASSION, EXCELLENCE. It is twenty-two minutes from the North End if you catch the light at the junction and don’t get stuck behind the grain trucks.
Helen Marsh lives in Room 14B, in the faded green wingback David brought from her apartment, the chair that still smells of coffee and lavender lotion. She hums “You Are My Sunshine”; she does not always know David’s name but she knows his hands. Maria the receptionist knows David by name and tells him whether it is a good day so far.
Lakeview is the original wound of The Good Father. Helen’s monthly rate is $6,200, of which insurance covers $3,400, leaving David’s share at $2,800. On November 1 the rate jumps to $7,800 and David’s share becomes $4,400, the gap that opens the whole book, the gap he tries to close with a betting model rather than move Helen to the cheaper place, Pine Ridge. He drives Route 9 to sit with her every Sunday. Lakeview is the cost the warning is really about.