“Glory?” Michael questioned. She was visibly shaking. The kids stood, silent and wide-eyed, looking at their mom.
“It’s my mother, Michael. I’ll tell yah as soon as I get off the phone. Look, Ted, just take it easy. I’m leavin’ right now. But it’ll take a couple of hours ‘till we get there. Call my cell if yah need me.”
“She’s in room two-fifteen. I’ll be waitin’. Be careful drivin’.”
Michael was already in the driver’s seat of the police cruiser, waiting for her. Two Styrofoam cups were in the drink holders. The hot, steaming aroma of coffee filled the car.
“When did yah get coffee?”
“Got ‘em on my way home. That eggnog flavored Green Mountain coffee yah like. I was gonna surprise yah, since I got off early, but…”
Glory’s eyes filled with tears at his thoughtfulness. Right then, this small token of comfort couldn’t have been more appreciated.
They dropped Olivia and Mickey off at Michael’s mother,—Joan’s—house after they took Alex home.
Joan brought the kids into her warm and welcoming kitchen, telling Michael to drive careful and Glory not to worry until she found out exactly what was going on with her mother. But, her eyes were wide and frightened. The eyes always revealed the truth, no matter what words are spoken.
The drive to the hospital was long and treacherous. Even with the Cliff’s End police Ford Explorer, which was the norm for winter months, they crawled along the highway. The snow, now mingled with sleet, kept coming down. Visibility was near zero. Some cars on the road sped by, only to end up in ditch on the side of the road.
“Jesus Christ, what idiots. You’d think they’d know beddah to slow down in this shit,” Michael muttered.
Glory was silent, not wanting to distract Michael, who needed all his concentration just to keep them on the road. But her mind was racing at a speed matched only by her heartbeat.
She and Michael had both lost their fathers within two years of one another to the most feared and undignified of human illnesses—cancer. It was the first time that Glory had actually dealt with death, real death, not that born in the fear and anxiety that plagued her mind always.
Even as she watched her mother pray for a miracle, the rosary beads held tightly in her hands, she thought, surely, her father wouldn’t really die! In contrast, Michael’s mother, who was not Catholic, not religious at all really, held no illusions as to her husband’s fate. She’d made funeral plans before the end came. Glory was appalled! No one could talk her out of her denial. After all, there could be a miracle, couldn’t there? There wasn’t.
Glory’s relationship with her father had not been a good one while growing up. In truth, he’d made her life a living hell.
He’d been an abusive alcoholic, kind and gentle when sober, but turning into no less than a monster when he was drunk.
When she was twelve and just beginning to blossom into young womanhood with all the fears and self-consciousness that were normal at that age, he had thrown a knife at her while in a drunken rage, stabbing her behind the knee. She felt no pain, only warmth from the back of the knee to the heel of her shoes, the warmth of flowing blood.
Looking down, she saw a steak knife protruding from her flesh, pointed at a downward angle toward the floor. Blood was literally gushing from the small hole. The knife fell with a clatter to the floor and so did she.
The sight of it, the horror of it, caused her to faint. When she came to, there was her mother and brother cleaning and dressing the wound. There was no doctor, no hospital, and most importantly, no questions.
That scar was visible still; a small, white quarter inch section of raised skin, reminding her that evil came from many sources, even those who were presumed to love her.
His emotional attacks were no less fierce. She feared that one day he’d pick her apart until nothing remained. She learned what she needed to do to survive in her world. To become cold and detached, to keep her feelings locked away where no one could find them and use them to hurt her.
Unfortunately, what started out as a defense mechanism took root in the very core of her personality. Slowly but surely, after the stabbing, the fear of death emerged and grew.
At night, lying in bed, she could’ve sworn she saw shadows on the wall, grinning faces. Like a child makes silhouettes upon the wall with their fingers. A quacking duck, a bunny rabbit, but that wasn’t what Glory saw at all. She saw black faces, holes where the eyes and mouth should be, the lips always turned up in a slight grin, like a demented clown. She never associated the face with that of death itself, the Grim Reaper. Not yet anyway.
When her father, riddled with bone cancer, as if his malignant alcoholic rages had somehow turned inward, called her to his room just a day short of his death, she had no idea what he could possibly have to say to her. His body was so frail; his eyes, which were once near black, as were her own, were now milky with the illness and the pain of it.
“I don’t have much time left. I don’t know why God doesn’t take me now,” he said.
“God doesn’t kill people,” Glory said coldly.
He stared silently at her, knowing that she couldn’t understand because she was not yet on the same path as he was.
“I need to…tell you I’m sorry. I took out my rage at life itself on you and I…shouldn’t have. I want to know we’re okay. I need for us to be okay.” His eyes brimmed with tears, but didn’t waver; they looked directly into hers. She knew the apology was sincere.
“I know that you’re sorry and…I forgive you.” She struggled to get the words out. Feeling real emotion was difficult for her, but not for him. Despite all of his faults, he was a passionate man. Ironic, she thought, that he’d kept his passion even while he’d taken hers away, leaving her with this cold, detached shell of a self, something she’d struggle with throughout her life. Still, at that moment, she felt her heart stir with pity for this man. It made no difference any more how she’d hated him. Now, at the end of his life, he was paying an enormous price. Even this, the pain of bone cancer, was not something she’d wish on him.
The following day, he’d been whisked away by an ambulance. The paramedics tried to revive him, and subsequently, he spent the remaining few minutes of his life in a blind panic, gasping for air and finally choking on his own vomit.
Glory was confused; she thought life should be extended at all costs. Now, on the ride down to see her mother in the hospital, she was not so sure. She was about to discover a new truth about life, one that she did not want to know, but had no choice in.
By the time they pulled into the parking lot of Massachusetts General Hospital, it was near dawn. While the snow fell here, it was much lighter and more manageable than the blizzards of Maine.
Glory’s brother met them in the lobby and they went straight to their mother’s room.
The sight made Glory feel ill. There she lay, the woman who Glory had spent years hating for her passivity, for never leaving a man who was verbally and, at times, physically abusive to her and her children. It had taken Glory many years to forgive her mother for her poor choices. Glory was a mother now and was capable of understanding what that sometimes meant.
Her mother had gone without everything to make sure her children had what they needed. When her father was at his worst, drinking and spending money, sometimes leaving them without the very basic of necessities, she’d somehow seen that her children had what they needed. Eventually, though, she’d turned to drinking herself to numb the pain in her life.
She was propped up in the bed and hooked up to a ventilator for breathing. Monitors of all kinds bleeped and hummed. The ventilator made a hissing sound as it moved up and down, breathing for her in a most unnatural way.
Glory knelt down and took her hand and it twitched. The heart monitor indicated an increase in activity, giving her a glimmer of hope.
“Look, she moved,” she said to Michael and Ted. “Do yah think she knows we’re here?”
“T
hat was an involuntary movement. There is no real brain function, I assure you,” a voice said from behind them. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Dr. Pierce, your mother’s doctor.” He had an English accent, though not at all clipped and brisk, but smooth and flowing.
Michael leaned in to shake his hand and introduced himself as Glory turned from her mother’s bed side and asked him what had happened. Her brother hung back, leaning against the wall where there was no medical equipment, and stared as if mesmerized at their mother’s chest as it rose and fell with each hiss of the machines.
“The other doctors on your mother’s team are waiting. We’ve reserved a room where we can all talk in private. Follow me.” Dr. Pierce held the door open for them. As they walked slowly down the hall, at the windows, they could see that the snow still fell, albeit quietly, all the wind now gone.
They came to a large, airy room with high, vaulted ceilings, travertine floors, and strategically placed plants along the cream-colored walls. The room exuded a calming ambience.
There were two other doctors in the room awaiting their arrival. Introductions were quickly made and the family sat in the comfortable, light-colored linen chairs.
“This is our cerebral injuries team,” explained Dr. Pierce. “This is Dr. Khan.” He was a very short, balding Indian man.
“And this is Dr. Malcolm. He’s been with the cerebral injuries team the longest, over twenty years.”
Dr. Malcolm was an elderly man with short-cropped gray hair and a full beard. He reminded Glory of an old country doctor.
When they were all seated, Dr. Pierce looked down at the chart containing all the information on their mother before beginning to speak.
“Your mother has suffered a massive cerebral injury. She’s had a hemorrhagic stroke. This type of stroke is less common than an ischemic stroke and more times than not is fatal. Your mother’s case is highly unusual in that more than one blood vessel has burst in her brain. The damage was devastating and irreversible.”
“What caused this? I just talked with her two days ago!” Glory stated in shocked disbelief.
“This type of stroke is usually due to high blood pressure stressing the artery walls until they break. In your mother’s case, all four arteries to the brain burst. As indicated by the x-ray, there is very little left of the brain itself; the blood has almost completely obliterated it.”
“What happened, Ted? You were there!” Glory asked.
“I heard her coughin’ in the bathroom, that’s all. When she was in there for over fifteen minutes, I opened the door and found her slumped down against the tub, unconscious. I called nine-one-one, and then tried to wake her up, but she just…wouldn’t.” Ted’s voice trailed off as if any explanation at this point really didn’t matter.
Dr. Malcolm had been listening intently. Glory thought he was a sympathetic listener, that he understood what they going through, until he spoke in a quick, briskly officious tone.
“Hmm. This case is certainly somewhat of a mystery. Our team would like to do an autopsy on the patient to see what caused such a massive stroke. Also, are you aware if the patient is an organ donor?” He said all this without as much as a pause in speech.
Glory almost fell off of her chair. She was shocked, but underlying that emotion was pure and simple anger. She looked at him in an entirely different light now, no longer as a kindly old gentleman, but as some sort of ghoulish fiend. The slightly built Dr. Khan was the only one of the three who did not meet her gaze directly. Michael and Ted were stunned into silence.
“You want to do an autopsy? She’s alive! What the hell is wrong with you people? I just found out not ten minutes ago that this is a serious condition and you’re…talking about autopsies and organ donation? And by the way, she is our mother and her name is Mary. How can you be such a cold hearted bastard and call yourself a doctor? Jesus, maybe we should move her out of this place,” Glory said, anger mingling with the heavy sadness she felt.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry, I do not mean any harm or cruelty toward your family. Perhaps I spoke a bit harshly and, for that, I apologize. That said. We have the best doctors in the world working with stroke victims here. Even so, the reality is she will never recover from this. There’s no brain activity whatsoever. We only ask about the autopsy because…well, this is a teaching hospital and our findings may help others in the future. Come; let me show you what I’m talking about.”
Room two-fifteen no longer looked like a hospital room, but a frightening box full of strange wires and alien equipment making sinister sounds, a box they were all trapped in.
Dr. Khan opened each one of their mother’s eyes and shone a flashlight in them. There was no dilation, no response at all.
While they watched, her left arm twitched and, again, the blip of the monitors gave them an inch of hope.
“That’s only an involuntary movement as Dr. Pierce explained earlier. I’m sorry to have to bring the point home. She’s completely brain dead. Her heart is still beating and the machines are breathing for her, but she will never come out of this coma. Never. Look, I know this is hard for you, but you need to think about turning the machines off and…letting her go.”
“We can’t do that! We won’t do that!” Ted shouted. “How can we even consider this? Her heartbeat is strong. I refuse to sign anything, no pull the plug, no autopsy, and whatever other fuckin’ paperwork you educated idiots want us to sign!” Tears were gathered at the bottom lids of his eyes. His face was red with frustration, raging at the unfairness of it, his mind struggling to deny what he knew to be true. He looked to Glory. “What do you think we should do?” he asked.
Standing next to her husband, the tears flowed freely but quietly down her cheeks. Making no effort to wipe them away, she leaned up against Michael for support. Her whole body was shaking; her legs felt as if they would give way at any moment.
She felt cold, numb. As the eldest child, she was deemed the heart and soul of this family by everyone. Why she had such a place in this family, she didn’t know. After all, she kept others at a distance, but they seemed not to notice or care.
Even Michael often deferred to her when it came to matters of the heart, apparently seeing something in her that she was unable to perceive in herself.
Chapter 3
Michael was a tough guy, yet he always melted in his wife’s presence. He was a good man; a kind man, and to Glory, he was the most loving man she’d ever known. Somehow, she hadn’t repeated the familiar pattern, ending up with a man like her father, which was often the case in those who’d grown up in abusive homes.
She took a deep breath and told the doctors they would need to think about it and let them know their decision. She could see the relief on Ted’s face.
“I want another opinion from a doctor not from this hospital. Then, if need be, we will sign the paperwork to terminate her life. I cannot do that at this point, not if there is even a slim chance she could…recover.”
“As I explained, there is a zero chance of recovery,” Dr. Pierce said.
“I understand what you’re sayin', but this is our mother you are asking us to pull the plug on. Please have another doctor here before we arrive. We want that second opinion or we won’t make any decision at all.” She left the doctors staring after her as she walked briskly from the room. She didn’t give a shit what they thought of her; she’d stood her ground and spoke up for her mother because she couldn’t do it for herself.
The family traveled back to Maine with heavy hearts, the weight of a dreadful decision to be made even as the sleepless night was beginning to take its toll. It was now late morning; the sky was a perfect, cloudless blue; the ground spectacular with a blanket of white snow as yet untouched by oil and dirt from the roads. The beauty of it seemed surreal, as though the night before had never happened, the darkness and gloom that accompanied the blizzard, only a nightmare.
Glory felt numb and yet a major decision was hanging over her head, swinging back and forth like
a pendulum, the very pendulum of death, waiting, lurking, and she would be the one to bring it down upon her own mother. Deep down, she knew her brother would balk at any decision and she’d have to do it…and learn to live with it.
They pulled into the long driveway, as yet unplowed. Joan opened the door before they’d even reached the stairs. A very strong and capable woman of seventy, she had a heart of gold; Glory adored her. Her face was etched with weariness and worry. Glory was sure she hadn’t slept a wink, yet she was fully dressed, and her perfect white hair combed neatly, as always. Her eyes, blue and kind, were as big as saucers as she asked what had gone on at the hospital.
The four of them sat at the dining room table as Glory told Joan everything that had been said. She looked as shocked and disgusted as they had when Glory mentioned the autopsy and organs request. Yet, she said nothing. As long as her mother was still breathing, she would hope. Glory couldn’t accept death until it was undeniable; and even then, she struggled with it. Mickey and Olivia came out of their rooms to greet them and let them know happily that school had been cancelled due to the snow storm. Ted’s son, Sean, joined them as they went out to play in the snow.
“So, what are we going to do?” Ted asked.
Everyone turned to look at Glory. Again, she felt the ponderous weight of it, that she must provide the answers, she must fix it!
As the oldest child of two alcoholics, and having worked hard to not become like them, her family, including Joan, admired her. As for her brother, he was just like them, and couldn’t really make the decision. He would leave it to her and then most likely hate her for it.
“You saw there was nothin’ left. No brain activity. I think the choice is clear,” she said gently.
“We can’t do that! What if we take her home and care for her?” Ted exclaimed.
“Ted, that isn’t our mother any more lying on that bed. It’s just her body. She can’t see us or even…breathe on her own. There’s no quality of life at all.”
“So, you’d just pull the plug? Just like that?” He snapped his fingers in her face.
The Wisdom of Evil Page 2