Devil's Choice

by Graham Wilson

  “Can you arrange for me to talk to the prison superintendent and I will see what I can arrange. We could ask the prison hospital to collect the blood and you could bring it back in an ambulance.

  “So it was that in half an hour she was sitting in the front seat of the prison ambulance, siren blaring. It pushed its way through the crowded city streets until it came to Camperdown. On her lap sat a plastic bag with a pint of this man’s blood, bright and red.

  Catherine found herself praying as they drove, for what she knew not, not for her daughter’s life, that seemed an impossible hope, but at least for something good to come out of this awful place where she had been.

  She came to the hospital, handed over the blood and rushed up the corridors to the ward where Amelie lay, propped up in her own mothers arms.

  Amelie still was blue but seemed comfortable. She smiled at her mother with a beatific smile and said. “Mummy, Grandma has been telling me more about her friend Sophie, from when see was a little girl, the time she rescued you both in the desert. Now Sophie has been talking to me, inside my head, telling me not to be frightened as she will look after me. She is also saying you have found my Grandpa, so thank you for looking.”

  Five minutes later a nurse came in with the blood bag saying. We have checked the blood type and it matches, so the doctor has suggested that rather than taking the time now to separate the white cells we give her the whole blood, she is already anaemic and struggling for air so the extra red blood cells may help too.

  So they connected the blood pack to the drip and they sat there with Amelia, telling more stories about their shared friend Sophie while the blood ran in drip by drip. In three hours Amelie was no worse, maybe a bit pinker, in five hours her breathing seemed a bit better, still the blood kept running drip by drip, slower now.

  Cathy found herself shaking with fatigue, she had not eaten all day, but she realized that tonight there was still one more thing she must do. She must go and see Mathew and try and make him understand he must stop fighting the whole world and come and add his bit towards helping his daughter.

  She walked outside and asked a taxi to take her to the Kirkbride Building in Callan Park.

  Mathew

  It was coming up to ten o’clock at night and she knew she was pushing her luck to try and see someone at this late hour, but she knew she could be very persuasive when she needed to be.

  She rang the bell, over and over and finally a grumpy orderly came down to see who it was. Before the man had a chance to slam the door closed she wedged her foot inside. He said, “What do you want so late at night, surely you realise that visiting hours finished over three hours ago.”

  She said, “I need to see my husband, I will call the governor if I need to, but my daughter is dying and her father needs to come with me to see her, to hold her one last time and say goodbye.”

  There was something in the fierceness of her voice that silenced the man, he looked almost ashamed. “Yes of course you must see him. I will come up and unlock the door to his room. He should be in bed but I doubt he is asleep, he often stays awake half the night making his plans for a miracle to cure her or for revenge and sometimes if he gets too crazy they have to give him a needle.

  Catherine steeled herself; it was just one more awfulness. She would see it through. The man unlocked the lock with his key and then knocked. “Mathew, you have a visitor.”

  The door opened from the inside. He was standing there in a dirty dressing gown, face gaunt and unshaved. But his eyes lit up with delight for an instant when he saw her, before reality dawned.

  “I suppose you have come to tell me that my daughter is dead, poisoned to finish her off by those evil men, the doctors with their poison drugs are no better than the people who sprayed me with poison, killers the whole lot of them.”

  She looked at this man that she loved, even with the madness in his eyes and started to cry, she had not let herself really cry for months, she had forced herself to hold it together and be strong for the sake of her daughter.

  “Oh Mathew, I need you to help me not to fight with me. I can’t do this on my own anymore. I have tried to be brave and fight the world but now I am too tired, I just can’t do it still.

  “Our daughter is not dead but she probably will be in a day or two and I need you to come and see her again, to hold her in your arms again and give her the comfort that only you can give. I will not let her die without you holding her one last time.”

  The sobs overwhelmed her and she stood there with her face in her hands, crying as if her heart would break.

  For a minute Mathew stood next to her, looking at her in anguish but uncertainty. Then he shuffled over and wrapped his arms around her and held her, stroking her hair and trying to comfort her like a child.

  She sobbed as she clung to him and he held her too, loving having this woman back in his arms, somehow helping her took away his own pain.

  Gradually her crying stopped and now she looked up at him steadily. “Will you come?

  “Yes, I will come, I know now that I have failed you both and must stop running away by blaming others and hiding behind my anger. So yes I must come and hold my little girl again and comfort her and at the same time try and comfort you as you have for me in the past.”

  Catherine turned to him again and said, “There is something I must tell you from today, we must neither of us let ourselves hope, but it is something. I have found a man who may be able to help her, to be the donor she needs to save her life. He is in Long Bay Jail for rape and murder but he says he is my father, our daughter is the image of his mother and his sister. At lunch time my mother rang me to say Amelie was dying, she would not see out the day.

  “Then this man gave her his blood and by tonight her blueness had gone and she was pink again. She has pneumonia still and is very sick but if she can recover enough from that then they can give her enough drugs to kill all the cancer cells and then if this man is a match he can give her new healthy bone marrow to let her live again.

  “It is not certain but it is something with more hope than anything since she got sick the second time. So we must both hope and pray. And even if it is not enough and she dies, yet still we must both hold and comfort her and each other as well.

  So tomorrow you must come with me and take her and hold her and tell her that you love her. That is all you can do, that is all any of us can do. Then we must trust the rest to God.

  Mathew nodded, he was past fighting God and man too, he knew she was right, loving his daughter and his wife was all he could do, he must let go of the other.

  Catherine turned around; the orderly was still standing in the hallway looking in. She turned to him and said. “It is OK; I will stay with my husband tonight. You can lock the door if you need to. Tomorrow we will both go to our child.

  A Chance

  Catherine awoke in the early morning dawn. For a second she wondered where she was, she felt safe and happy. Then she realised that Mathew’s arms were around her and it felt so good. Last night they had loved each other with their bodies for the first time in months.

  That simple act had been like the lancing of a boil, it had let the poison out of both their souls. In its place something good had begun to grow again.

  She knew her daughter’s life still hung in the balance, there was every chance that they would be burying her inside a week and while part of her quailed at that thought another part of her knew now she had done everything she could and that this was in God’s hands now.

  Yesterday when Amelie had spoken of her friend Sophie, with a wisdom far beyond her two and a half years, saying her friend would mind her, another wall had broken inside her. She knew Sophie had saved her and her mother all those years ago, and in her mother telling her own little girl that story a simple door to faith and belief had been opened.

  That did not mean she would live, but it gave her comfort that she would be cared for and safe, even beyond the grave and that was a gift far beyond
the power of most people to give.

  And for her, equally precious, she had her husband and the man that she loved back. He had told her, after their love making and before they had last slept that this was the first night in longer than he could remember how he was not haunted by demons in his dreams, that feeling her need had restored his own self, because he realised he still had something he could give.

  But beyond even that she had hope for her daughter’s survival. As the colour had flowed back into her veins and her breathing eased yesterday she had felt in the presence of something miraculous, a miracle that at the time had seemed beyond grasping, but as if this other man’s act of giving his blood had carried something more, like it was the first decent thing he had ever done and in that salvation he was also giving new life to another person.

  She pulled herself up short. Best not to let flights of fancy run away in her mind. She did not even know for sure that he would be a suitable donor, all she had so far was recognition of a photo and a blood match, a tissue match was vastly more improbable.

  But yet when one is in the presence of a miracle then faith is all that remains; so she must hold onto her faith and believe that what seemed impossible less than a day ago was indeed possible. So she allowed herself to smile, she had faith again and with it came an ability to have joy in life.

  She realised Mathew was awake and looking at her intensely. “You are smiling he said. It is so long since I have seen you really smile and I had forgotten how beautiful it was.”

  She nodded, “I have my belief back, my belief in God and in the goodness of life. In all their lives most people never witness a miracle, in the last day I have witnessed four. They say that three of anything is more than enough; four is truly a gift from God.

  Mathew looked at her inquiringly.

  She continued. Yesterday morning I was watching my daughter die, desperate and hopeless. To save her I went and begged the most evil man I knew, my mother’s rapist and a convicted murderer who smiled while he killed another man without remorse and yesterday had smiled when he remembered what he did to my mother. I knew I was in the presence of evil and yet I begged.

  Then, when I showed this man the picture of our Amelie, the first miracle happened. He sat there looking at her with tears rolling down his face. In her picture he recognised his own mother and sister and more than that he recognised the evil in what he had done.

  In that moment I knew both that I had found me real father and that he would help me. At first it made me hate him more, I would not allow him to have redemption through crying, it was too easy for him, it was too late. My daughter was past help, so the offer was a meaningless gesture. But that remorse opened something good inside him and with that desire to help came the next part of that miracle, the knowledge that his blood could help and the willingness to give it, to do something real not just feel regret.

  The second miracle was when I returned to hospital. My daughter was still dying but something had happened inside her which had taken away all her fear and given her peace and comfort. My mother was telling Amelie the story of Sophie, my friend and how she saved my mother and my life in the desert. As I listened I remembered so clearly how Sophie had told me not to worry when we sat alone and thirsty waiting to die, she did not promise me that we would live, she simply told me not to worry or be frightened as she would mind both of us.

  In that moment, when I saw Amelie’s beatific face, it was as if she was already with the angels and Sophie was caring for her, so I knew that whether she lived or died I did not need to be afraid for her anymore.

  The third miracle was when I watched that blood flow into Amelie, drip by drip, hour by hour and suddenly my dying daughter was not dying any more, something in that blood had given her new life. It may only be a temporary reprieve but the new life is real.

  The final and for me the most important miracle was last night to come here, expecting to find in you only rage and madness, but needing you all the more. Instead I found love returned.

  So now I cannot help but smile. Four miracles should be more than enough. But yet I want and believe there can be one more. That our daughter can receive this man’s own bone marrow cells and with them and the other drugs they can kill the cancer and yet she can survive.

  Mathew put his arms around her and held her close. “I too have had my own miracle, that you came back to me in need. In the past you have been so strong that there was nothing I could give you. Last night was the first time you have ever truly and totally needed me, just me and in that place something inside me was healed, the hate and rage was gone. I know my daughter needs me too and that is good and I will give it to her.

  But most important was your own need, it finally brought us to the place where you were not strong enough on your own.

  I do not have your faith that our daughter can be cured, I have lived too many to times with failure for belief, and yet it is enough to feel your hope and live in your hope.

  Last Roll of the Dice

  Catherine and Mathew came into hospital about eight o’clock to find Amelie sitting up in bed and looking better than she had in more than a week. Lizzie was asleep in the chair next to her bed.

  When Amelie saw her Dad she let out a whoop of delight. “Daddy, I knew you would come back. Mummy said she was going to get you and Grandma was sure you would come and see me, and Sophie told me you would come too. I am so happy now that everyone is here.”

  Mathew picked her up and cradled her in his arms. There was almost nothing of her now, just a little round head with a few springs of hair trying to grow and a wasted body. He was shocked at how thin she had grown, and felt remorse at selfishly neglecting her for the last two months to chase shadows in search of revenge.

  He stroked her head as he cuddled her, saying. “I love you my pet and am so happy to see you again.

  She ran her own little fingers though his hair and said. “I love you too Daddy, but of course you already know that. And I know everything will be all right now you have come back. Sophie promised me that as well.

  He hugged her as if she was a porcelain doll which would break at a puff of wind. She felt so incredibly precious.

  Yet as he felt her feather weight and heard her wheezing and the rattle in her lungs the terror gripped him too, it seemed almost impossible that she had lived so long let alone could survive any more. Part of him just wanted her suffering to be over and let her die in peace.

  But then as he thought that though he looked at her bright face, so full of life, and at his own Catherine’s face, still daring to hope, he knew he must fight on and help keep the hope alive too.

  Half an hour later a troupe of doctors came in. Lizzie had told them about the potential donor and yesterday afternoon. So they had arranged to have William checked into the prison hospital and two of them had gone over to examine him, to take samples to determine whether his tissue would match Amelie’s and also to check for any signs diseases which threatened her. Last night the laboratory had worked back late processing all the samples, as they all knew the clock was fast running down.

  This far all seemed fine, and it was likely he would be a suitable donor; finally after more than 100 people tested it looked like they had found someone suitable. The tests would be completed today and tonight if all was satisfactory he would be transferred to a secure bed in a hospital here.

  At first the prison had been reluctant to allow that he be transferred, but Amelie’s doctors had been insistent. They needed him right here on hand to have the minimum delay between extracting his cells and giving them to Amelie.

  When the test results were in this afternoon if they confirmed a suitable match Amelie would go for a first round of radiation treatment to kill as many of the cancer cells as possible, followed by a high dose of chemotherapy in her drip to start killing any surviving cancer cells, then tomorrow she would receive a second dose of radiation as a last ditch attempt to kill any remaining cancer cells. In the process this treatment
would kill all her own bone marrow cells. Then in three days when the anticancer drug was washed out of her body they would start to give William’s cells. To do this they would give William an anaesthetic and harvest these cells from the bone marrow in his hips. Then they would take these cells and run them into Amelie through a central venous catheter, slowly flowing these new and healthy cells into her body through her blood and hoping they would settle and start to multiply in her own bone marrow.

  Normally they would have given William a treatment to boost his own bone marrow but that meant delaying the start of the killing her cancer cells. It was a race against time and time was not on her side to delay.

  They would have also liked to get her stronger, to feed her up, but one look at the X-Ray of her lungs and it was clear there was no time for that either, already the cancer had more than half filled them. So tonight they would begin a last and desperate roll of the dice.

  When the doctor had finished giving them all a detailed description of the process from her he paused and took a deep breath. He looked at them all seriously and said, “I just need to be sure you all understand the consequence if this fails. There is no way back.

  “Once we have started this treatment if the bone marrow does not take Amelie will surely die, she will have no immunity and be unable to make blood cells or other things such as the platelets that stop her bleeding. Within a week, or two at the most, it will be over for her.

  “We can give her transfusions to cover her for a few days but after that it is up to her. So you need to know that before you decide. And you must also know this treatment we will give her will also make her really sick as well, it will kill many healthy cells in her body, cells in her hair and skin and lungs, so for a few days she will be even sicker than she is now and she has so few reserves on which to live.