Don’t Look Behind You

grandchildren as well as friends who were as close as relatives.
    Basically, Bob Hansen had always been something of a loner, and now he was isolating himself even more, building walls that grew higher and higher. He didn’t need or want his two sons or their offspring. As far as he was concerned, his children had betrayed him. He would find friends in Costa Rica, he assured Marv.
    It was true that Bob Hansen had often advertised for “housekeepers” when he was in between wives and/or girlfriends from Costa Rica. Living all alone, he was still seeking housekeepers as he passed eighty.
    His son Ty had described Bob as “a terrible cook,” andhe hadn’t improved over the years. He kept a folder titled “Things to Do,” and in April 2006 he wrote out a recipe for soup inside.
    Garlic—1 whole clove
Onions—15 large yellow
Cabbage—2 heads
Carrots—4 packages
Celery—2 stalks
Chilis—5 (2 green and 3 red)
Culantro [
sic
]—2 bunches
Green onions—2
String beans—12 cans
Peas—1 large package frozen
    Bob Hansen’s recipe would have made an extremely large vat of soup. Life sustaining, perhaps, but hardly tasty. He did need a woman’s touch in his kitchen, and for “companionship.”
    In 2009, Kathleen Huget found a copy of his most recent ad, along with a stack of mimeographed “applications” in his house.
    His ad appeared on September 17, 2008, in the Domestic Care and Services sections of the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
’s south county editions:
    Auburn resident looking for live-in housekeeper. Female preferred. Light housekeeping, companionship, light cooking, shopping etc. Room and board + wages. Salary negotiable. Call 555-1234.
    About half of Hansen’s questions ignored equal rights edicts. He asked women who answered his ads to fill out his applications; they had to give their ages, their heights and weights, whether they had a husband or a boyfriend, if they smoked, used drugs, or drank. And he insisted that they respond to many more highly personal questions that were none of his business.
    After he interviewed prospects for someone who would clean his house, cook for him, and be a companion, he scrawled his opinions in the margins of the applications. It was clear he wanted a housekeeper “with benefits.”
    Hansen’s comments showed that. He was very picky and wrote “too fat,” “too old,” “too young, “has a boyfriend,” and sometimes “too ugly.”
    Few women met his standards, and those whom he grudgingly hired didn’t stay long.
    For most of his life, Bob Hansen had exerted control,
power
, over almost everyone he came into contact with. He was essentially a heartless man who laughed at people who gave to charities or were concerned about others who could do nothing for them in return.
    A psychiatrist probably would have diagnosed him as a person who, deep inside, had no sense of control, a man who had to micromanage everyone and everything to stave off panic.
    Perhaps.
    Flory, Hansen’s third or fourth wife, was a devout Catholic who was often horrified by the way he treatedother people. She asked him once: “Aren’t you ever afraid of God’s wrath?”
    Bob was cruelly patronizing when he answered: “Flory, don’t you understand? I
am
God …”
    That had frightened her—for Bob’s soul. He was asking to be struck down. She half-expected a bolt of lightning and a thunderclap from the sky. But nothing happened. He kept on living a hedonistic, controlling life.
    Eventually, sometime early in the new century, Flory was able to find her way back to Costa Rica. She had paid dearly for her parents’ house; she could no longer live like a butterfly in a cage, trying to deal with Bob Hansen’s temper and blasphemy.
    But there were so many more young women waiting in Costa Rica; when Bob started his new life there, he was sure he would have his pick.
    His newly purchased condo in Costa Rica was lavish for that country, and he memorialized every room and all of its luxuriant details and features with his ever-present camera.
    Located across the street from a park, the building was modern and Bob had selected comparatively expensive furnishings and paintings for every room. He could hardly wait to live there permanently.
    The ironic thing about Bob’s snapshots was that they were almost always a bit out of focus. He seemed to be trying to capture “things” and not people. Even Cecilia and Flory were universally posed against tourist attractions or something Bob