Vanessa

by David Howells

Chapter 8 – MELISSA and MARY

  Barbara Meissner was an RPI honor student and enjoyed college despite the homework load. Her dorm had its usual hum of activity with fifty-eight young women doing things that blended into a comfortable ‘white noise’. This was no homogeneous lot, like the two-dimensional frats or sororities (why didn’t sorority have a nick-name like ‘frat’, she thought, then she guessed that no woman wanted to belong to a ‘sore’). Like high school, there were those here who studied to make something of their futures and make their parents proud of them. There were others at the other end of the wide spectrum for whom college was mostly a social thing. Socialites looked down their noses at bookworms and nerds, living more for the moment and relishing new freedoms, opportunities with the opposite sex and looking for status among themselves with the usual who is going with who? The ‘worms’, males didn’t mind the term as much as the females, publicly criticized ‘soshees’ for shallowness, but secretly envied their romantic escapades, trendy clothing, bulimic physiques and artificial tans. That would change with time and maturity, but for now, it nagged. The soshee poster-child was Barbie Doll; the generally accepted nickname for Melissa Banks. So it was that night, that while tapping away on her keyboard for her Stochastic Processes thesis, she heard Melissa’s voice rise from her adjoining room, shrill and angry.

  “Blocked? Blocked! BLOCKED! That BASTARD! How DARE he? What the HELL? WHO do you think you are DEALING WITH, MISTER? We’ll SEE about THAT!”

  Barbara stopped and took it in for a moment, then returned to finish up page twenty-seven of her thesis (the third page of her bibliography of references) with a smile on her face that lasted until bed time: 1AM.

  Melissa Banks was no honor student, but she was sharp, opportunistic and drop-dead gorgeous. Three days a week at the gym and close attention to styles, hair and make-up tricks made sure of that. Her teeth (whitened, straightened) when shown just right had raised (or saved) her grade cumulative more than once. Now, Allen Fitzgalen, the whiz kid who could star in his own series if he wanted to, had the gall and nerve to block her phone calls? Where was he? Who was he with? Did she have competition? What did he have to leave for when she had arranged a social coup d’grace that would have flattened the competing AXE sorority bash (she referred to its members as ‘BATTLE AXE’s’). She had dropped hints that she was going to use the event to ditch Allen in favor of the football team captain Bruce Wallace, that muscle-bound oaf. Every socialite on campus had caught that buzz and planned on attending to catch Allen when she dropped the ax. She would have had the biggest laugh on them when they found out all their plans were for naught. Melissa Banks wasn’t going to ditch anyone until she was good and ready and she was NOT good and ready.

  She logged on to her PC, plugged in her own SatCom, which was sitting in its charger and began to type. There were ways. That comp-geek she dated, briefly, on first arriving at RPI, had showed her how to find anything about anybody. She soon ditched him, but respectfully (‘I’m sorry, but we have nothing in common to base a long term relationship on, and that is what I am looking for’), but not before she had learned a few useful skills.

  Reviewing the algorithm, she pulled up the file downloaded from Allen’s SatCom (while he was sleeping), then keyed in his password (also stolen) to her interlink circuit. Then she keyed in the link to the NAV-STAR circuit and the main screen showed coordinates according to triangulation from three different satellites registering Allen’s SatCom-provided unique frequency responses. The resulting coordinates were fed into a search/find/address site and, “Pavelli’s?” Allen had mentioned that place once or twice, promising to take her there. Now he was there with, who? Her SatCom was fully charged, but to keep the locator link while traveling she would have to plug it into her SAAB’s lighter/adaptor. Which she did, because Melissa Banks was on the move. It would take an hour to reach the restaurant, the way she drove. Melissa hadn’t gone a mile when the change location warning began to beep. She pulled over to look at the dashboard mini-screen, changing it to ‘motion map mode’. The yellow dot (Allen) was stationary, while liquid crystal street lines and names paraded around it. She got back on the road and headed south to find the neighborhood, and then home in on the target. She had some ideas on what to do and say when she zeroed in on that yellow dot and an hour in which to refine her plans.

  Melissa loved her battlewagon. It had so many top-of-the-line gadgets. Guys loved that sort of thing and Allen was no exception.

  Back on the road and through the gears again, she thought of him. They both liked the best available, and would choose a few fine things rather than many substandard things. He felt her car was a little on the overdone side, and nicknamed it her ‘SNAAB’. That didn’t keep his nose out of the car’s manual, though.

  Everyone appreciated the changing scenery, and the limo seats were more comfortable than those at the restaurant. It also served to help close one main topic and get on to what Ryan was gearing up for. It must be pretty intense, if the story of Annie was just the warm-up. It was.

  “We went back to the Homestead from time to time, but it got dangerous. Mad Annie had twigged onto that we were aligned with the enemy, sort of. I was only able to talk to her at night. Vanessa was afraid that Annie would do something to her that she couldn’t do to me, but I doubted that it could happen. Still, better to be safe.”

  Rachel asked, “Well, why shouldn’t Vanessa fear Annie? She’s a spirit like those Army men, right?”

  “Yes, and no. Remember, each entity is different in talents and vulnerabilities. Annie’s connection to those men was wrought in the fires of multiple conflicts of war, death, rape, loss of a husband and children. That link was forged while Annie was alive and sealed with her own death. You don’t get much more powerful incentive for revenge than that. Who here could have kept their sanity intact being subjected to that kind of strain?” No answer, none expected.

  “Vanessa and I didn’t just hang around moping. We kept to our mission and had managed another group of crossovers, trying to learn more with each successful case. We grew to truly care about each other. She came to me one day and told me to hike on over to a hospital in town. We lived in St. Louis then, about a decade before the Gateway Arch had begun construction. Barnes Hospital was where she wanted me to go and she wouldn’t say any more than that she found an entity that needed help. Trouble was, she was still living.” Allen and Rachel were learning that if they kept quiet, Ryan would eventually get around to answering their questions. All they had to do was wait and let him get to it on his own terms. If he didn’t, then they would ask.

  “I see you’re getting used to my style. Well done. A young woman named Mary Safford was in ‘surgical recovery’ for a month. All parts were functioning fine, except she was brain dead from an anesthesia reaction. The charts said she was in for removal of a potentially dangerous blood vessel malformation in one breast, a malignant tumor in the other. I managed to slip into the recovery room with a set of scrubs, like they show on television dramas. Throw in a clipboard and I was someone who very few staff people would think to challenge. Mary, the entity, was sitting on the bed, with her left hand superimposed into her supine body’s chest. Vanessa introduced me and I was ready to proceed, but there were hurdles.

  “Mary was brain dead, not body dead. Her body wouldn’t let her spirit go. You couldn’t ‘pull the plug’ as there was no plug to pull. The body lived with a tube to the stomach for food, and an IV for hydration. It was deemed murder to pull those two inputs and starve or desiccate her to death. There had been no last will drafted to express her desires in case of this sort of circumstance. Missouri state law didn’t allow euthanasia. Add to all that; Mary Safford was married and had two children. Vanessa had been doing some snooping in Mary’s files when her physician and her surgeon opened them. I was stumped and that’s when Vanessa hit me with the craziest notion I had ever heard from her. Vanessa m
ay not have invented the hair-brained scheme, but she sure perfected it.”

  Ryan sighed and smiled while shaking his head. Even now, her audacity was to be reviled or admired, depending on how conservative a person’s religious views were.

  “Vanessa had spoken to Mary about this previously. She felt certain that she could release Mary from her body. All she had to do was...take her place.”

  Polite listening be damned! Rachel and Allen lunged in at once, rapid fire, with ‘How could’s’ and ‘What if’s’. Ryan waited for the dust to settle and poured himself a small cognac. After the fourth sip, things calmed down enough to continue.

  “Shook me up, too. It was just too ‘Frankenstein’. Personally, I prefer my sci-fi in paperbacks, not in real life. This I could see, smell and touch. Then the questions began coming to mind, some of which you just asked.

  “If the change could be arranged, would Vanessa then be brain dead? Might they both become stuck? There wasn’t much I could do if either occurred. This was new to everyone, so what about pitfalls that no one even knew of, yet? Vanessa reassured me she could do it. Mary needed release and Vanessa said that she wanted to be more to me than an angel on my shoulder. She wanted to be my living partner. I asked if it might be possible to restore Mary’s mind to her body. Both entities assured me they had tried. Too many connections were lost. Vanessa somehow knew she would have to reconfigure Mary’s brain to something ready to take on her own spec’s, for the lack of a better term. Mary would have had to do the same, for you apparently can only configure a wiped clean slate for your own use, but Mary didn’t have the juice for it and Vanessa couldn’t do it for someone else. Both entities then waited as I tried to work things out. Leave Mary alone long enough and eventually her body would die from age and her spirit would be released. That seemed to be such a waste, though. So what did we have to lose? If Vanessa did get stuck, we would have time to find some way to euthanize the body and get Vanessa back to me and Mary on to God. Would we need permission from the family for the change? How would you explain it to Mary’s family? Would we have to?

  “The more I thought, the harder the questions became and the more of them there were. It was Mary’s body to do with as she deemed best, wasn’t it? Legally, well, Gustav?”

  “When a person is rendered incompetent to express his or her wishes on basic and fundamental rights, it falls upon the next of kin or appointed guardian to make those decisions. In this case, it would be the husband, John Safford. But there were complications. Like Ryan said, there was no plug to pull. Only feed lines.

  “Mary’s body was healthy, so she would go on living, brain dead, and continue to drain the resources of the parties responsible to finance her care which, in this case, includes the insurance company and the next of kin if a marriage relationship exists, which it did. Given time, Mary’s care, even if relocated to her home, would exhaust her insurance coverage and go on to impoverish the Safford family until bankruptcy would be declared. Mary would then be remanded to the State of Missouri for continued care, at which point she would have to be removed to the most cost effective (cheapest) location to live out her days. The only way out is to have the spouse sue for divorce in order to protect his or her own assets, but in doing so, he or she will lose any say in what happens to the impaired partner. This is the tip of the iceberg, but I think that’s enough to illustrate how complex this undertaking would be from a lawyer’s viewpoint. From a psychologist’s point of view, the incredible guilt of divorcing the spouse with whom you took vows, at a time he or she perceives that their help is needed the most, can be emotionally devastating, if not crippling. Ryan?”

  “I’m no lawyer, but I did realize some of what Gustav said at the time. My gut said to talk to the husband, but how would you explain it to someone who wouldn’t believe a word you said and was probably an emotional basket case to begin with? This was way over my head. I even thought of kidnapping Mary’s body or faking her death, but dropped both of those ideas as immoral, impractical and with legal backlash potentials that could spell federal prison for yours truly. I decided to get outside advice and said so to Mary and Vanessa. It would be best to know even a little more of the ramifications of what we were proposing. I turned to leave the room when Mr. Safford came into the room like walking wounded. His clothes fit loose and there were circles under his eyes, but he was shaved and his hair neatly combed, like he was trying to put on his best appearance for Mary. He looked at me and said, “How is she, Doc?” I told him that his wife was resting comfortably, but that there was no change. That’s when I looked into his eyes and, son of a bitch, there was hope there, hope for a miracle, that this whole thing would resolve and he would have his wife back.”

  Ryan’s voice broke. It had been a long time since he dared this memory lane. Gustav placed his hand upon his friend’s shoulder. Marianne reached across and took his hand. Rachel reached into her bag and pulled out a couple of tissues and rested them on Ryan’s lap. Marianne looked at Rachel and her eyes said more than words.

  “Thank you, I’ll be OK. Thanks Rachel, friends. All right. I left the floor, stashed the scrubs where I could get at them later and left the building after checking the yellow pages for specialists in law. I chose a woman, one Del Fiero, whose office was down from the hospital a few blocks. There wasn’t too much to tell from that meeting. I was careful to omit some details and concentrated on what relative and patient rights were. Bottom line was pretty much what Gustav told you. She suggested the husband go ahead and file for divorce to save as much of his funds for the children as possible.

  “I went back to the hospital and decided that John Safford had to be confronted, but by who? Me? If not me, then who else? It had to be me. There was no one else.

  “Got the scrubs back on, went back to the room and John was there with the hospital generic pastor, you know, one collar fits all? I waited, hearing my heart beating in my ears, until they were done. The pastor got up to leave and whispered to me that John was a good man and needed any support that I could give. Then he left, leaving John, ‘them’, and me alone. Luckily, Barnes is a huge hospital and medical teaching facility. It wasn’t unusual for a doctor not to look familiar. Security has gotten much tighter since then, but at the time, I was pretty safe. I spoke to John...”

  “Mr. Safford, you and I need to talk.” John nodded. Many had initiated ‘talks’ with him, but few said much that he wanted to hear. He had become numb to the blows that were the result of even the kindest efforts to help him. They moved to a couch in the room.

  “John, I am going to be fully honest with you (he had heard that before) and tell you things I have not told anyone else because you have to know (he hadn’t heard that before).” John locked on to Ryan. “John, I am not a doctor, lawyer, or any other practicing professional.” Now there was full interest. Ryan began with that day in the Navy and brought him, play by play, to the present. Nothing was left out. All that time he looked for evidence in John’s eyes of distrust, belief, anything. All he could see was full attention and a hunger to learn. Ryan spoke of Mary’s inability to be let go, of Vanessa’s proposal, of his conversation with Del Fiero.

  “John, Mary is here, listening to us. She trusts your decision, as always.” Ryan then fell silent, and waited.

  “Ryan, may I call you that? I can sense that you believe in what you say. That makes you either a saint or a nut. I can’t decide which. Is there anything you can offer that can prove what you say is true?” That stumped Ryan. How could he prove himself? It was then that he heard Mary’s sorrow laced voice.

  “Ryan David Fitzgalen, what I am about to say is for no one’s ears but yours and John’s. Will you promise me that?” A nod. John watched as before, absorbing every detail. “The records of my surgery are wrong, falsified. I was here to make my self more attractive to John. There is a new procedure that would allow a woman’s (hesitation), breasts
, to look fuller and younger. My two children had brought me to a fullness that seemed to please John. Then as they drained me, I didn’t feel attractive to him anymore. He began staying at work later and I suspected him of finding better company than me, prettier, younger. My suspicions were confirmed a coup/e of months ago. The woman’s name he was involved with was Beverly. I don’t know her last name. I didn’t know what to do until a friend I had confided in handed me an article she had read on implants.”

  Mary went on with a few more details, including why the record falsification. Breast augmentation was an elective surgery, and beyond their financial capacity without insurance coverage. Surgery for life-threatening tumor and blood vessel malformation were both covered procedures. Hospitals needed income from procedures to survive. There wasn’t an issue there. Certain doctors could be found that supplemented their incomes with procedures and were creative with their billings. In cases where the procedure goes wrong, as with Mary, it becomes an issue and gets hushed up by an officially silent but privately embarrassed administration. Mary’s surgeon got transferred out, rather than punished. Ditto the anesthesiologist. The medical community didn’t do much to police their ranks, for medicine was risky business and no one knew who would be next to make a big mistake. Mary became silent, then hung her head in shame. Ryan felt such a mixture of anger and pity. Surely this man had created his own hell but, just as surely, he had paid for it with a punishment well beyond what any judge would have levied, for it had fallen not only upon him but on his children and the wife whom he obviously still loved. As gently as possible he began to relate what Mary had said, ending with the name of the partner in the suspected affair.

  “John fell apart, completely, weeping like a baby. Vanessa told me to hold him, so I did. It must have taken twenty minutes for the purge. In that time, a nurse had come in, realized the grief being finally expressed, gave me a discrete thumb’s up and left. I found out later that the nurse made sure there were no additional interruptions. John confessed that what was suspected was true. What Mary hadn’t known was that John drifted when he had felt that Mary’s attentions were diverted from him in favor of the children, that it was he who was no longer attractive to her. It’s an old story of tragic mutual miscommunication. John asked me what I felt was the wisest course of action. Mary began to speak again. I translated. She said that she loved and forgave him, but also expressed her sorrow that she had given him cause to feel so isolated from her. She wanted to move on and to do one more good act before she stood before her Creator. Offering her useful, healthy body as a vessel to be filled once more with Vanessa’s spirit seemed right to her and the only path open to her. John looked at Mary’s body as I continued to interpret. Mary then said that what he was looking at was not she, just what had carried her. She could no longer, did no longer, live there. Mary then stopped talking, so I took up the torch and said that if this were the path he would choose, he would have to divorce Mary, immediately. He nodded and we went together to Del Fiero’s office. The paperwork was ready, as I had instructed before I had left earlier. Amazing how fast a lawyer can move if you pay them enough.”

  It was an effort to lighten the mood at a friend’s expense. Gustav, a true friend, let the jibe go by with no more a response than, “Amen.”

  “Fiero was well-connected, so the ink dried in two days. In that time I had gotten to know John better and even met his two children. They were about the same age as Annie’s children, though both were girls. That was going to haunt John even more, for they both bore a strong resemblance to their mother. We couldn’t tell them what was going on, because how could a child understand that someone else would inhabit their mother’s body? Bit my lip a lot in those two days. Since I was a charitable and disinterested party, and had connections via Viola Morrison, I was able to help get Mary transferred to a small private facility in the Pocono’s. Money spoke loudly there and bought a lot of privacy. Two weeks after John and I first met, we began the process.”