Looking for "what would you do in this situation" sort of advice to the following situation:
My mother (54) lives with my grandfather (85).
My mother is a narcissistic abuser whom has been financially supported by him her entire life (in one way or another); buying the house they are living in being the most generous of things among others. I disowned her 5 years ago after many years of trying to have a healthy relationship with my mother and failing.
My grandfather has the beginnings of dementia but is still very lucid, remembers important things (family events, names, birthdays etc) but his short term is starting to fail and he is becoming slightly more apathetic. He is stubborn but generous; he has been taking care of Mom (his adopted daughter) in the course of taking on 90% of her financial needs. For the remainder, my mother "supports" herself with her small business selling handmade jewelry and various nickknacks (a very standard Etsy shop like place. There is a storefront that features various local artists where she sells her products but most of her sales are done via social media).
Grandpa called me yesterday, very upset, and stated my mother was restricting his access to contacting people other than those she allowed. He went as far as to say she had locked his phone from making calls to any besides those she allowed, and listened in on all of his conversations. He attempted to call the police to have her removed as she was preventing him from making the arrangements needed to move into a senior community.
As far as the accusations he made:
I do not doubt my mother's vindictiveness nor ability to restrict his access to calling or texting people she did not want him to contact. Grandpa is not very tech savvy, he does not even know how to Google or YouTube instructions on how to do something, so if she installed a child lock or something on a device, he would not be able to figure out how to take it off. However, I have not seen his devices to confirm any tampering for myself. So this could go either way: a paranoid accusation fueled by dementia, or a case of pattern performance on my mother's part.
My mother most definitely listens in on his conversations. When they first moved in together, she installed what are essentially baby monitors in my Grandfather's suite (there is a small house attachment that he lives in attached to the main house that she stays in). The radio is set up so she hears everything going on his end, but he hears nothing on her end. My mother has told me VARIOUS situations in which she used this setup to spy on him.
The fact that he called the cops. This is huge. The history of my family is a "sweep things under the rug" sort of history when it comes to how my grandparents react to things. So for something to happen that caused my grandpa to call the cops to have my mother removed from the house ....
And about the cops: I called later to see what the progress was on that. Grandpa said the cops called my mother to confirm the report, and she talked them out of coming. She stated my grandfather has a dementia attack and to not worry. He sounded very upset and heartbroken that the police hadn't shown up. So I called. I explained the situation to the police and requested a wellness check.
The wellness check went about as well as I could expect from American police. They told me 85 year old grandfather that he was free to leave the home he paid for whenever he wanted and offered to arrange for him transportation.
He had nowhere else to go immediately so he refused their services. The police left without doing anything further. They did not remove my mother either as I am sure she performed as she always does when police get involved.
Upon speaking with other family, there have been issues going on between them for a while. My Uncle is flying in from Ohio (Grandpa, Mom and I are in Arizona, they in Casa Grande, I in Phoenix) to try to figure out what the flying F is actually going on.
So my question is this .....
Should I go to Casa Grande to also personally speak to my Grandfather and my Mother? I am already going to go on Monday next week either way but I want to know if, after reading all of this my most unbiased reader, if you would do one of the following:
A: Go first to see Grandpa and Mom today (the day after I called in a wellness check) and go ALONE, before Uncle gets here. Speak with Grandpa alone to get his side of the story then speak to Mom to get her side. I expect this to be extremely unpleasant but I do not care, my relationship with my Grandfather is moreso that of Father and daughter, so I will face my very wrathful mother who definitely won't speak freely in front of anyone else if I wish to speak to her at all.
B: Go to speak with my mother and Uncle tonight WITH my husband for backup. Grandpa most likely will be asleep so we will all be discussing him without him. This route will still be very uncomfortable but Mom might be less volatile given she will have more people for an audience; this also means however that her actions, words, emotions etc everything won't be 100% honest either
C: Go see my grandpa, Uncle and mom tomorrow without my husband; I have a small window during work where I could go speak to the 3 of them together, but my husband works and wouldn't be able to come. Also I would only be able to stay for maybe an hour before I would have to leave for work again. This is not a desired choice because it would not allow for the necessary discussions in terms of me being involved in the conversation, it would mostly result in my being informed what happened afterwards.
D: Stick to just going on Monday with my husband. My Uncle will have left to go back to Ohio by then, but I can still speak with my grandfather and mother individually. I am a little worried about my mother reacting to my husband being there but not much, he is privy to EVERYTHING going on and is supportive of whatever I end up choosing to do to handle this (I married right).
E: something else entirely. Please explain why.