THE LIFE LEFT: A GRIPPING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

by L. W. WEDGWOOD

  “Abn, my son. How are you?” Ron said, the strength in his voice defying his appearance.

  Abn swallowed his shock and tried to maintain his composure as he answered. “I am good. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’ve been better. But I’m comfortable.”

  Abn highly doubted that. He’d been around enough suffering in his life to know real pain when he saw it. They may have been dosing Ron to the eyeballs with morphine, but when your insides were being systematically consumed by cancer, agony would eventually gain the upper hand. However, he tried to maintain a sense of positivity by changing the subject. “School is good. I just completed my final exam today,” he said.

  “Jesus! That’s hard to imagine. You’ll be in university next year. It seems like yesterday when you were just a child.”

  “It is all because of you and mum,” Abn said.

  Ron shook his head. “I’m not sure that’s entirely true. You’re still going to Otago Uni, right?”

  “Yes,” Abn said, only now realizing that in less than three months he would be headed to the university in the South Island. By then Ron would be gone. Of this he felt certain.

  “I would’ve liked you to have been closer to home, but you’ll do well in Otago,” Ron said.

  Abn felt a wave of relief at hearing this. The choice of university had been a key family conversation on many occasions over the past eighteen months. While Ron had argued that he wanted Abn to attend Victoria University, Jane had argued for Massey. Abn, on the other hand, had been taunted by years of being around other students who were well below him intellectually. He certainly didn’t want to fall into the same pattern once he began his studies at university. So, he’d opted for Otago, which he’d learned was renowned for being one of the finest in the world. Surely, he would be among his own there.

  “I will come home to be with Mum whenever I can,” he said in an effort to offer Ron some consolation.

  “She’s going to need you. She’s not as strong as she appears to be. At least make sure you call her as often as possible.”

  “I will, I promise,” he said just as a particularly long wheezing sound from the lung cancer patient came rattling through the door.

  “Can you shut the door before that man drives me insane?” Ron asked.

  Abn cursed himself for not having thought of that when he’d arrived. Any tiny thing that he could do to alleviate Ron’s suffering should be a natural action by now. It shouldn’t be something he forgot. He wondered what this said about him as a person? Did this make him selfish?

  “I am sorry,” he said after closing the door and returning to Ron’s bedside.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I know it is not nice to say this, but does he ever stop with that racket?”

  “He’s worse at night,” Ron said, smiling in an obvious attempt at adding a tinge of humor to the situation.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that when he sleeps, the walls rattle with the sound of his breathing. I don’t know what they knock him out with, but it must be strong. And his oxygen mask only seems to amplify the noise. It’s like trying to catch forty winks next door to Darth Vader.”

  “Good God. How is that fair to the other patients?”

  Any humor in Ron’s expression fell away as he replied, “Have some compassion, Abn. This is Mary Potter Hospice. He’s here for the same reason as the rest of us.”

  “He sounds as if he could die at any second.”

  “Don’t say that. Life is a precious thing. Every second he’s alive is a blessing.”

  Abn couldn’t disagree more. If every second of life was a blessing when you struggled to breathe each and every breath, then he certainly never wanted to be blessed. But he respected Ron’s view and changed the conversation to subjects that weighed less heavily on the conscience.

  They chatted for another hour. During that time, Abn checked Ron’s medical chart and tried to calculate whether he was on the right amount of pain solving solutions. By the time he left, he felt convinced that despite Ron’s appearance, he would hold on to life for quite some time yet. He didn’t feel great about this detail. As much as he wanted Ron to live. As much as he knew how much pain he would feel when Ron died. He hated to see the man who’d become his father enduring so much pain.

  He felt deflated as he stepped from Ron’s room and back into the hallway. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to visit again. The decline from this point on would be harrowing in the strictest sense. Something about the process felt so inhumane to him. It was as if he were witnessing a legal form of torture.

  As he walked, he noticed that activity in the hallway seemed to have taken a brief break, possibly induced by the approach of the evening meal. However, the lung cancer patient hadn’t paid any heed to this moment of peace. His efforts to breathe, continued as Abn passed by. The man appeared to be sleeping. Anyone watching would have insisted that the man was dead if it weren’t for the noise his lungs made.

  In this same moment, something stirred inside of Abn. A darkness clawed from a dormant corner of his being, demanding release, demanding to be exercised, demanding satisfaction. This force took total control of him. Resistance of any kind had no chance here.

  He noticed that the tube leading from the lung cancer patient’s oxygen tank had been knocked free from a support. It lay on the floor next to a rear wheel of the chair. It only took him seconds to do what he did; just one shove of the chair. The innocence of the move felt assured to him. To an onlooker, it would appear that he’d just nudged the chair out of the path of those transiting the hallway. And that was if there were any onlookers. At a glance, as far as he could tell, no one had seen what he’d done. And no camera seemed to be in view anywhere in the vicinity.

  Seconds later, he moved on down through the lobby and out of the hospital with hardly a thought of the action he’d just taken.

  * * * * *

  Jane looked across the dinner table at Ed. She’d been trying to judge his state of being for much of the meal. He hadn’t said more than a few words during that time. His silence unnerved her. She knew it meant that he was either speechless drunk, or very sober. And she wasn’t sure what she feared most. If it were up to her, he wouldn’t be here at all. But Ron had insisted that she keep Ed close and who was she to resist the wish of her dying husband?

  For a moment, she wondered if Ed’s somber mood was a result of his visiting Ron earlier that evening. Today was his visit day. It was like that. Each of them visited Ron, alone, each and every day. That was the commitment they’d made.

  “How was he tonight when you visited him?” she asked.

  Ed looked up from his meal with red, swollen eyes. “He’s dying.”

  The sarcasm in the answer immediately told her that Ed was sober. He always became overly sarcastic when he hadn’t been drinking in a while. “I know he’s dying,” she said. “But, how was he?”

  Ed’s expression softened a little. “He says he’s okay, but I can tell he’s in a lot of pain.”

  “He needs to make better use of that morphine trigger,” she said.

  “He also wants to be somewhat coherent when we visit him,” Abn offered.

  “Is that what he said?” Ed asked.

  “No, it is not what he said. But I looked at his chart. It does not take a whole lot of mathematics to calculate what affect his current morphine intake will have on his consciousness,” Abn said.

  “I’d rather he’d be incoherent and comfortable,” Ed said.

  Jane felt the need to argue that point. Incoherent and comfortable was Ed’s MO. But she felt too tired for a confrontation tonight. Instead, she changed the subject. “Does he still have enough of that chocolate he loves?”

  “The Whittaker’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t see any. He may be out.”

  “I’ll make sure I bring him some more when I go see him tomorrow. He didn’t say he needed anything else, did he?” she
asked.

  “No, he’s okay. He did say that he got his first good night of sleep since he’d been staying there. I’m guessing the death of that lunger in wheelchair yesterday helped a little,” Ed said.

  “Lunger?”

  “He means the man with the lung cancer who is continuously wheezing in the hallway?” Abn said around a mouthful of meatloaf.

  “…Was continuously wheezing in the hallway?” Ed corrected.

  “Oh,” Jane said. “He passed away?”

  “And good riddance to him. So much the better for him and for the other patients,” Ed grumbled.

  “Ed! Don’t say that. That there is a human life you’re talking about,” Jane said.

  “Oh, please. Don’t tell me you weren’t thinking the same thing when you visited Ron. That lunger was literally suffocating in a pool of his own blood. I don’t know why people like that aren’t put out of their misery much sooner. It would have been better for him and for all of those around him,” Ed said with obvious contempt.

  “That’s not the law,” Jane said.

  “Yet,” Abn said.

  “Oh, right, I forgot that we have that up and coming euthanasia referendum. Well, I guess I know which way I’ll be voting,” Ed said.

  “And how is that?” Jane asked.

  “I’m all for it, of course.”

  “That’s always your solution, isn’t it? Take the easy way out?”

  “Whoever said there was anything easy about dying?”

  “What about his wife? What about his children? Don’t you think that he would want to struggle on for every extra minute, for their sake?”

  “Did you ever see a visitor with him?”

  “Not while I was there.”

  “And you, Abn? Did you see any family visiting the lunger while you were there?”

  “No,” Abn said.

  “Then it’s agreed. The man had no family, no quality of life. His existence had become a fireball of Hell’s creation. He had no reason to live. He was nothing more than a burden to himself and to those around him. And I’d bet good money that if he did have a choice, then he would have chosen to check out earlier.”

  “He could have had family that we never saw. They could have visited while we weren’t there,” Abn said.

  “He wore no wedding ring,” Ed said.

  “Jesus! Now you’re going around looking at the ring fingers of the condemned?” Jane said.

  “Christ on a stick. Why are we even talking about this? The man’s dead and everyone is better off because of it,” Ed said as he stood up.

  “We don’t know that,” she said.

  Ed threw his fork into his plate of half eaten food. “Fuck you and your morality.”

  “Ed! Watch your language.”

  “Fuck you! I’m going to get a drink.”

  She felt the urge to argue, but she couldn’t stop Ed as he stormed from the dining room. Seconds later, the front door of the house slammed closed so hard that she imagined she could feel the floor vibrate beneath her seat.

  “He is pretty angry,” Abn said.

  “I’m sorry, darling. That’s my fault. I shouldn’t have baited him so badly. It’s just that sometimes, he really gets under my skin. And I don’t want his warped point of view rubbing off onto you. It’s entirely unfair at your age,” she said.

  “I have heard much worse. Do not worry about me.”

  She inhaled a deep breath to stabilize her nerves before continuing to eat in silence. For the hundredth time, she marveled at how resilient Abn appeared to be when it came to family drama. Still, this was the second time in as many months that there had been a major upset at the dinner table. She decided right then and there that no matter what, she would keep the peace the next time they ate together.

  * * * * *

  When Jane arrived at Mary Potter Hospice, she immediately noticed two police cars. It was hard not to. Both of the cars were parked in a haphazard fashion in front of the entrance. As she struggled to squeeze around one of the cars to gain access to the ramp, she wondered what in Hell the officer had been thinking when he’d parked there. Anyone in a wheelchair would have had no chance of getting to the entrance.

  She couldn’t help but remember the dinner conversation of the previous evening, as she stepped through the lobby doors. Indeed, a relative peace had settled in the absence of the lung cancer patient. In fact, if several policemen hadn’t been crowded around the reception area, the hospice would have been almost tranquil.

  More than one of the officers eyeballed her as she breezed by and headed straight for Ron’s room. She somehow resisted the urge to confront them about their parking skills. Seconds later, she entered Ron’s room to find him sitting in his wheelchair near the window.

  He appeared healthier looking to her than when she’d last visited. His cheeks showed some color today. And there was life in his eyes. “How are you feeling?” she said as she stretched into his waiting arms.

  “Today is a good day, my darling. How are you?” Ron said, returning her embrace.

  “I’m good. I’m good…,” she said. She stayed there for a moment, trying to ignore the feeling of his bones poking into her. She reveled in the comfort of having him close. She tried to imagine some of her energy transferring to his body, making it stronger, giving him more time.

  “Okay... Okay… It’s Okay,” Ron breathed into her shoulder.

  She wanted to stay there forever, even though Ron’s voice told her that the hug had passed its use by date. He’d never been much of a hugger. He’d always shown his affection in other ways. He hugged with his eyes, and with his words. She wished he were different today. She wished he could hug with his arms.

  Finally, she broke away. “You look much better,” she said.

  “It’s like that. Sometimes it feels as if the cancer takes a day off.”

  She smiled. “I wish you were home with us. I could be taking care of you there.”

  “We’ve been over this a thousand times, Jane. You know how it affected me seeing my mother go through this process at home. I won’t have Abn see the things I saw when I was his age. It isn’t fair. He deserves much better than that. And he’s already been through enough trauma to last ten lifetimes.”

  “I know he would rather have you at home too.”

  Ron’s expression hardened a little. “I’m staying here, Jane. And I don’t want to hear any more about this.”

  She inwardly cursed his stubbornness. It was a trait in him she both admired and despised, depending on the situation. But she raised her hands in submission. Arguments were an energy sucking effort that he could do without. She reached into her purse and pulled out three bars of Whittaker’s.

  “I bought you some chocolate,” she said.

  Ron snatched the bars from her hand. “Now there’s the cure for cancer.”

  “I wish,” she laughed.

  “Did you see the police out there?” Ron said, already nibbling on one of the bars.

  “Yes, I could hardly get to the entrance because of their cars. What are they doing here?”

  “Remember the man in the wheelchair who had lung cancer?”

  “How could I forget? I have to admit, I don’t miss him and that dreadful sound of his breathing.”

  “We’ll, I wouldn’t repeat that to the police. Apparently, the circumstances under which he died were questionable,” Ron said.

  “Questionable?”

  “Suspicious.”

  “He was in the final stages of lung cancer. How could his death be questionable or suspicious?”

  “I’m not sure. But they were in here asking me a lot of questions.”

  “Why were they asking you questions?”

  “They said it was just routine. They talked to everyone.”

  “What did they ask you?”

  “The usual. Did you see anyone suspicious? Did you hear anything suspicious?”

  “You’re confined to your room. How could you see or hear anything ou
t there?”

  “Like I said, it was just routine. They have to question everyone.”

  A knock at the door startled her. She turned to find one of the detectives standing in the doorway.

  “Mrs. Morrison?” said the detective. “Jane Morrison?”

  “Yes?” she said.

  “I’m wondering if we could speak to you in private for a few minutes?” said the detective.

  CHAPTER 4

  They stood in the hallway, not far from Ron’s room. Jane could feel both of the both detectives drilling her with eyes of inquisition. She didn’t like the feeling at all.

  “Thank you for your cooperation, Mrs. Morrison. I’m Detective Bell and this is Detective Boar,” said the larger of the two men.

  “What do you mean cooperation. I don’t like the sound of that at all. What’s all this about?” she asked.

  “Just some routine questions, Mrs. Morrison. Don’t be alarmed. We had a death in the hospice and we have to cover all our bases on this one,” said Detective Bell.

  “Do I need my lawyer?” she asked.

  “No, Mrs. Morrison, this is not America. You do not need a lawyer,” said Detective Bell.

  She ignored the dig at her heritage. She always found it fascinating how her people were perceived by foreigners, but she had grown a thick skin over the years.

  “Then ask away,” she said.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Morrison. Now, would you come this way for a few minutes?”

  She followed the two men through a labyrinth of hallways and up a flight of stairs, before entering a small room filled with computer consuls. There she waited as Detective Bell instructed another man to play a video. A sense of grim fascination rose within her when the image of Abn flashed onto the screen, showing him walking along a hallway.