My father called me after I got home from visiting my mother at the nursing home. He wasn't calling to make sure I got home ok as he sometimes did. "Someone's been in this house", couldn't have surprised me more. My quick littany of the police, checking doors and windows, etc. was quickly silenced. He can tell that my sister had been there. She has a key. He is remarkably observant, noticing a chair pulled away from the table, a box in a closet at an odd angle from the wall, and most of all, dirt on the floor by the china cabinet and closet. The dirt is even stranger because we are all conditioned to take off our shoes at their house. It's always been that way. My father and my daughter think that she was saving time by leaving her shoes on. They may be right, but I think it's another sign of her losing it. In the past, she would occasionally drop by (I guess the telephone company's "Phone First" campaign was lost on her) by, but she would leave a note. I've come to the difficult conclusion that she is not after money. It seems strange, because nearly everybody is after money, particularly if one is in her situation. My guess is that she was after momentos. Those sort of things he would give her if she asked. There were a few nicknacks in my grandmother's china cabinet that we always liked to play with when we were kids, for example. I never mentioned that there were a couple meetings at the nursing home. On one occasion, she walked into the day room, saw him, turned around, and did not return until the meeting actually started. What's up with that? She held it together well during the meeting I attended, her occasional flashes of anger went unnoticed. She is really unhinged.

I think he should change the locks.