The Wisdom of Evil

by Scarlet Black

  “Would you want to live like that? I know I wouldn’t.” Glory spoke calmly, gently, although she felt neither of those things.

  “Yeah, well, being alive is better than being dead!” Ted said defiantly.

  “Ted, please, you must know your sistah doesn’t take this decision lightly. You know how she is about…death,” Michael said.

  Ted shot both she and Michael a hateful look and went outside to smoke.

  “I’m so sorry, babe. I’ll be right there with yah, you know that, right?”

  Joan hugged Glory and went to check on the kids.

  Glory knew deep down, admit it or not, that she could not in good conscience leave her mother in a state of limbo; it was just wrong.

  After a few fitful hours of sleep, Glory, Michael and Ted left that afternoon for Boston. Joan stayed with the children. She was silently supportive, knowing that sometimes there just weren’t any words to say.

  Chapter 4

  The ride down to Boston was a lot faster this time; the plows had been out in full force, making the roads a lot less treacherous. The sun shone fully, high in the sky, and the large pine trees on each side of the highway glistened with their new white coats of snow. It was truly a spectacular day. How anyone could be dying in a hospital bed on a day like this was beyond Glory. She hated and feared hospitals almost as much as death itself.

  Having nothing else to do but gaze out the window, she couldn’t help thinking about Jack, her father-in-law’s long and futile battle with cancer.

  After everything she had been through with her own father while growing up, she’d looked to her father-in-law as if he were her own father. Theirs was a very special relationship and he was to her what a father should be.

  She’d been fortunate to have in-laws whom she adored and who treated her like their own daughter. She got from them what her parents were unable to give her.

  Everyone was quiet, each locked in their own thoughts, preparing themselves for that which lay ahead. They parked and walked through the small open courtyard to the massive glass sliding doors that were the entrance way to Massachusetts General Hospital.

  Glory felt ill as soon as the doors swooshed open. She had a sensation as if not only the doors themselves had opened, but that her heart itself was being violently torn open, ripping through her hard barrier of detachment.

  They took the elevator up and checked in at the nurse’s station before proceeding to room two-fifteen. The door was closed. Ted lightly tapped on the door and a voice ushered them in. Dr. Pierce was there, as well as a woman they’d never seen before.

  She instantly offered her hand to Glory and Ted. It was warm and soft. Introducing herself as Dr. Susan Pleschette, she explained that she was from a neighboring Boston hospital and had been brought in for a second opinion as requested. She was approximately five feet tall and very slender with short, stylish black hair and small, inset brown eyes above a small nose and wide mouth. Glory liked her at once.

  As they stood around their mother’s bed, listening to Dr. Pleschette inform them of her condition, their worst fears became reality. Her words, although spoken with genuine compassion and empathy, were straight to the point.

  “I know how hard this is, believe me. I’ve been there myself, but I do have to concur with my colleagues on this. I’m so sorry. There really is no chance of recovery. The kindest thing you can do for your mother is to…let her go. I assure you she’s not in any pain right now and we can see to it that her passing will be peaceful.”

  Reluctantly accepting that this was going to happen no matter how Glory felt about it, she asked how it would be done.

  “All tubes will be removed and we’ll take her off life support. We’ll administer morphine intravenously to bring your mother’s heart rate down until…it stops.”

  “Are you absolutely sure there’s not a chance at all because if there is even a one percent chance of her comin’ out of this, I can’t sign that paper. I feel like this is murder. I can’t do it!” Ted put his head in his hands and sobbed.

  Glory knew how he felt. She reached out and held her mother’s hand and didn’t let go.

  “There’s no hope of recovery. If there was even a remote chance, we wouldn’t ask you to do this. It’s one of the hardest decisions one is ever faced with. If it helps you any, let me just say that it’s the humane thing to do. You choose this because you love her.”

  “Get the paperwork ready and I will sign it,” Glory said quickly.

  Ted looked up at her miserably. She knew he was thinking he’d failed both her and her mother by not being able to do what had to be done.

  Glory assured him that it was all right. Death was the scariest thing in the world to her, but she’d see to it that the right thing was done, or at least what she thought was the right thing. The guilt of such a decision would surely show its face later.

  “Michael, would you please go down to the gift shop and see if they have red roses? We need six of them, one for each of us and one for each of the children,” she said, her voice showing a strength she did not feel.

  Doctors Pierce and Pleschette wordlessly handed her the paperwork and pen and she quickly signed her name to them, hesitating only once at the last of the consent forms where the ominous word “Autopsy” was printed on the top of the page.

  Their eyes locked as Glory handed back the signed paperwork back to Dr. Pleschette and the doctor thanked her.

  All hospital personnel left the room just as Michael returned with the roses. Glory gave Ted two, one for him and his son Sean, and Michael and Glory split the remaining four.

  As if they were witnesses to an execution, they stood somber and silent. The door opened and very quietly, the nurse and Dr. Pierce and Pleschette came into the room and went to work.

  The tube was removed from Mary’s throat, the machine that made the tell-tale hissing noise; the one that was, quite literally, breathing for her was switched off. The morphine IV was put in place. The only monitors that remained on were that which measured heartbeat and blood pressure.

  When all was in place, the medical staff bowed their heads in respect and left them to say their final goodbyes.

  Glory held her mother’s hand, her eyes fixated on the monitors, waiting for the numbers to begin their descent. She and Ted put their hands over their mother’s heart, watching as the numbers on the monitor that displayed blood pressure slipped down slowly at first, then more rapidly. The heart monitor, erratic at first, slipped into its final rhythm until it went flat, and that was all there was to it.

  They lay the six roses, symbolizing each member of the family, over her heart, stunned by what they’d just gone through in such a short time. It was as if someone had just flipped off a light switch and she was gone.

  For one last time, Glory looked at the clock on the wall; time of death, two-thirty-three p.m. She made a mental note of the date, another dreaded date on the calendar of her life: February tenth, two-thousand and one.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she detected movement above her mother’s chest. It can’t be! She thought. A vaporous stream of pale gray/black smoke was rising from her! It broke apart, fragmented, before becoming whole again, heading toward the window. Was this…her soul?

  Glory gasped as she looked upon this supernatural smoke and saw a face swirling about in the mass. A grinning face. The face of the Grim Reaper himself! His eyes nothing but black holes, his skeletal face locked in a smile that could only be described as malicious! This was no soul! She recognized that face from the shadows of her youth, never fully visible, not like this! This was the evil of death, the evil Glory had always believed in! She backed up hurriedly, losing her balance. Michael caught her before she fell.

  “Glory? Are you…okay?”

  “Do you see it? The smoke and the face of…death itself!” She pointed at the window where the preternatural smoke and figure were now dissipating.

  “There’s nothin’ there,” Michael said kindly.

&nb
sp; “Ted? Don’t you see it?”

  He shook his head, no. He hadn’t uttered so much as a syllable since their mother had drawn her final breath.

  The figure wavered and changed into a straight line of the blackest smoke Glory had ever seen. Finally, it passed through the pane of glass effortlessly and dissipated in the air outside until it was gone.

  She saw no soul leaving the body at the time of death, no sign of God or anything else to hold onto for strength. Her mother’s journey, made either alone or with the Reaper himself, brought her no comfort. She didn’t know which was worse; taking that final journey alone or with that thing she’d seen. No one else had seen it.

  “C’mon, let the nurses do what they have to. Let’s…go home.” Michael put his arm around her waist and took her from the room, slowly. Her legs felt like lead.

  So, this was what actually happened at the time of death? She’d lost her dad and Michael, his, but neither had been there at the precise moment when death occurred.

  Dying, a natural occurrence? No, it was something to be feared! Thought Glory, desperately wishing she could somehow find a way out of that last voyage. For most people, witnessing someone die was the only truly supernatural occurrence they’d ever see. Death was an unknown entity; thereby, it was supernatural.

  The next day, funeral arrangements needed to be made, family notified, and paperwork completed. The whole ritual gave the impression that it was meant to desensitize one from unbearable loss and grief. To keep death neat and clean and in its proper place, but for Glory, she couldn’t accept death as a part of life and, therefore, could find no place for it.

  The funeral directors were kind and helpful. Thank God; neither Glory nor her brother had ever planned a funeral—not that Ted was of much help. Clothes had to be chosen for burial and Ted simply couldn’t do it, so Glory and Michael did it.

  Unable to find anything she deemed perfect, she bought a dress for her and a pair of amethyst-colored earrings intricately cut into small butterflies, along with a matching necklace. It was the last gift from daughter to mother.

  Her mother’s life had been one of many hardships. She’d loved butterflies, perhaps because they represented the splendor of freedom, which which she never had in life. What better way to send her to her eternal rest than on the delicate wings of butterflies? While Glory had her doubts about God and Heaven, her mother had been a faithful believer throughout her life.

  As Glory continued to go through her mother’s things, her heart was breaking as it dawned on her just how little she had. She took the mother of pearl rosary beads, which she would give to the undertaker to place in her mother’s hands.

  She lovingly ran her fingers across the statue of the Madonna and child; brought over from Italy by her grandparents who were dead and buried long before she was ever born. The intricately carved, Italian porcelain statue had been in her mother’s bedroom since she was a little girl.

  A memory flashed in her mind of her mother reverently placing the rosary beads around the delicate neck of the Madonna on the day President Kennedy had been killed. He’d been Catholic, after all, the same as they. He was the first and only Catholic ever to hold the position of President of the United States.

  She carefully wrapped the statue and she and Michael left, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Michael said nothing.

  During their search through her mother’s papers, she never located a life insurance policy. She asked Ted about it.

  “She doesn’t have any.” He shrugged as if it were no big deal.

  “What? The funeral will cost at least six thousand dollars!” Glory yelled. “How the hell are we gonna pay for this?”

  “I don’t know. I have no money, you know that.”

  “So, it’ll be Michael and I who pay for everything? What about the house?”

  “It has two mortgages on it now; they exceed the value of the house.”

  “How the hell did that happen?”

  “You know she’s been helpin’ me and Sean since I lost the business. The money is just… gone.”

  Glory was so mad, she was speechless. She left the room and called the funeral director. After an hour of going over alternatives to a traditional Roman Catholic funeral, they were able to agree on an inexpensive but still tasteful service.

  “The funeral director is going to let us rent the casket for the viewing and the mass at Saint Mary’s. She’ll be cremated and the urn will be buried alongside Dad.” The idea of a rented casket made Glory’s skin crawl; but she saw no other choice.

  “What…are you crazy? We can’t cremate her. She wouldn’t want that! We’re Catholic for Chrissakes!” Ted exclaimed.

  “I know, Ted… but I can’t afford that kind of money right now and you can’t help us.” She really didn’t need Ted’s drama right now. Her own guilt about cremating her mother was hard enough.

  He glared at her and Michael, who stood beside her, quietly giving her the strength to deal with her family, just as he’d always done. Ted stomped out of the room, slamming the front door as he left.

  Later, he showed up an hour late for the wake at the funeral home and he’d been drinking…a lot. He looked at Glory defiantly, waiting for her to say something about it. She didn’t. If he didn’t know how disrespectful his actions were, there was no need to tell him. He was still angry with her about the decision to cremate, although he hadn’t even bought so much as flowers for the service!

  When that casket was rolled down on its gurney to the front of the church for the funeral mass, she felt so many things; all the emotions she’d swept aside in order to arrange everything came at her like a tidal wave. One thing Glory hated more than having these crippling emotions was showing them in public.

  She wept, staring forlornly at that casket, knowing that this was the last time she’d ever see her mother on this earth. The church full of people seemed to disappear as a stunning truth came to her. She realized she had no parents left. She felt like an orphan, was an orphan!

  Even though her relationship with her parents had been tumultuous and difficult, she’d still miss them. These are the only human beings in our lives that know us from the very start of life, and when they’re gone, they take a part of us with them. This reflection saddened her even more.

  During the long Catholic mass, Olivia fidgeted. Glory always brought M&M candies with her when she brought the kids to church and she filled up Olivia’s small hand with them. The child smiled up at her. Mickey stood somber-faced next to Michael.

  Glory felt compelled to look past the casket, past the priest, to the very back wall of the altar itself. Was that a black smudge on the wall? She narrowed her eyes to see clearer and, as she did, the smudge became larger! The smudge, now thick, black smoke, moved steadily away from the wall toward the casket, toward her mother. What the hell?

  She turned to look left and right and to the very back of the church, her eyes wide. Everyone looked somber, some bored with the tediously long mass, but no one looked scared!

  When she dared to look at the altar, the sinister smoke was gone. Now, she was on the precarious edge of a full blown panic attack! She knew the telltale signs very well, especially when it was triggered by her Thanatophobia.

  “Michael…” she whispered urgently. “I have to get outta here!”

  He gave her a curiously stern look, shaking his head “No, Glory, a few more minutes, babe…just hold on.”

  “I…can’t. I have to leave now!” Her voice rose slightly, trying to whisper still, even as an attack was imminent.

  “Take some deep breaths. Yah can’t leave now. It’s your mother’s funeral for God sake!”

  Mickey also shot her a look. “Chill, Mom. It’s almost over.”

  Olivia, peering up at her, took her hand in hers and smiled. She was tiny for a nine-year-old. She shared the same auburn colored hair and dark eyes as Glory, but was more like Michael in temperament. Quiet, soft spoken and very loving; she made Glory forget her
anxiety, if even for a moment, by the feel of her small hand in hers.

  Glory took a deep breath, daring once more to glance at the altar. Nothing was there, nor was there a black smoke hovering over the casket. She exhaled. Perhaps it really had been her imagination at work.

  As soon as the casket rolled out of the church, Glory was right behind it. She’d held it together but now, she felt physically ill. She bolted down the stairs where the fellowship hall was, pushed through the bathroom doors, burst open a stall, and threw up.

  When she turned, Michael was standing there, his face etched with concern.

  “Are you okay? I mean, I know you’re not okay, but…”

  “Uh-huh. I feel a little beddah.”

  “The, um, funeral director needs you to sign off on the cremation order. He’s upstairs waitin’.” Michael looked uncomfortable telling her, hating that she had to sign such a paper. Knowing full well what this was doing to her. The guilt of it, cremation; the small, rectangular marble box they’d chosen would sit unburied at the funeral home until such time as the hard ground of winter could be ready to receive it.

  “Are you…mad at me, Michael? ‘Cause of how I acted up there?”

  “Babe, of course I’m not mad. I knew you’d hate yourself later if you’d run out during the service. I did what yah needed me to do. C’mon, wash up and let’s get this over with.”

  She signed the paper, looking around for Ted, but he was nowhere to be found.

  After the funeral, she didn’t hear from her brother for many years. His son was still friendly with her children, although, as they grew older, she wished he was not. His son was street smart; Mickey and Olivia were not. Having lived in Maine for years now, they still held some of the innocence of children.

  She was relieved that he was out of her life.

  Chapter 5

  For months after her mother’s death, the guilt she felt for cremating her caused not only depression and anxiety, but also took root in her subconscious, manifesting itself in her dreams. The nightmares were even worse than the ones she’d suffered on and off throughout her life, living with her phobia. There, the yawning black hole of the crematorium doors opened wide to receive her. The flames ignited on the bottom grid like the gas burners of a stove. She, walking as if in a trance into them; laying upon the flames, wordlessly, allowing the intense fire to take her. A loud slam as the doors slammed shut and she was alone, burning in a dark chamber, unable to scream. Her trance broken as the flames licked at her hair, igniting it like an evil halo. She kicked at the doors, banged her fists to bloody pulps against the top of the enclosure and…screamed and screamed. Finally, she would wake up, soaked with sweat as if she were burning still, breathing in the cool air as if unable to get enough. She would catapult from the bed, which was still warm and damp from the heat of her flesh. The nightmare was seemingly endless. It got to the point where Glory feared going to sleep. Michael got home around twelve-thirty each night and found her face at the window, waiting for him.