by Jodi Picoult
I figure I have five minutes max before security gets here to remove me. The nurse is still shouting as Zazi drags me down the hall. Without any direction from me, he leads me through the doorway of my father’s room.
Cara is cradled against the canvas sling of a wheelchair; my mother stands behind her. My father is still immobile on the bed, tubes down his throat and snaking out from beneath the waffle-weave blanket. “Zazi!” Cara cries, and the wolf bounds over to her. He puts his front paws on her lap and licks her face.
“He bit me,” I say.
My mother has backed into a corner, not too thrilled to be in the same room as a wolf. “Is he safe?” she asks.
I look at her. “Isn’t it a little late to be asking that?”
But Zazi has turned away from Cara and is whimpering beside my father’s bed. In a single, light leap, he jumps onto the narrow mattress, his legs bracketing my father’s body. He delicately steps over the tubes and noses around beneath the covers.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” I say.
“Just watch,” Cara replies.
Zazigoda sniffs at my father’s hair, his neck. His tongue swipes my father’s cheek.
My father doesn’t move.
The wolf whines, and licks my father’s face again. He drags his teeth across the blanket and paws at it.
Something beeps, and we all look at the machines behind the bed. It’s the IV drip, needing to be changed.
“Now do you believe me?” I say to Cara.
Her jaw is set, her face determined. “You just have to give it a minute,” she begs. “Zazi knows he’s in there.”
I take off the sunglasses and step in front of her, so that she has to meet my gaze. “But Dad doesn’t know Zazi’s here.”
Before she can respond, the door bursts open and the desk nurse enters with a security guard. I shove the sunglasses onto my face again. “It was my sister’s idea,” I say immediately.
“Way to throw me under the bus,” Cara mutters.
The nurse is practically having a seizure. “There. Is. A dog. On the bed,” she gasps. “Get. The dog. Off. The. Bed!”
The security guard holds me by the arm. “Sir, remove the dog immediately.”
“I don’t see a dog in here,” I say.
The nurse narrows her eyes. “You can drop the blind act, buster.”
I take off my sunglasses. “Oh, you mean this ?” I say, pointing to Zazi, who jumps down and presses himself against my leg. “This isn’t a dog. This is a wolf.”
Then I grab the leash and we run like hell.
The hospital decides not to press charges when Trina the social worker intervenes. She is the only member of the staff who understands why I had to bring the wolf to the hospital. Without it, Cara wouldn’t broach a conversation about my father’s condition and his lack of improvement. Now that my sister has seen with her own eyes how even his wolves can’t elicit a reaction, Cara can’t help but understand that we’re running out of options, out of hope.
I think Zazi knows what’s up, too. He goes into his crate without any fight and curls up and sleeps for the entire ride back to Redmond’s Trading Post. This time when I drive up to the trailer, Walter comes out to greet me. His face is as open as a landscape; he’s waiting for the good news, for the story of how my father suddenly returned to the world of the living. But I can’t speak around the truth that’s jammed like a cork in my throat, so instead I help him haul the crate out of my car, and carry it down to the enclosure where Zazi’s companion is keeping watch along the perimeter of the fence. When Walter releases Zazi, the two wolves slip between the army of trees standing at attention at the back of the pen. I watch Walter lock the first gate to the enclosure, and then walk to the second gate. He’s holding the leash and harness in his hands. “So,” he prompts.
“Walter,” I say finally, testing the size and shape of these words in my mouth, “whatever happens, you’ll still have a job. I’ll make sure of it. My dad would want to know someone he trusts will still take care of the animals.”
“He’ll be back here in no time, telling me what I’m doing wrong,” Walter says.
“Yeah,” I say. “No doubt.”
We both know we’re lying.
I tell him I have to get back to the hospital, but instead of leaving Redmond’s right away, I stop to watch the animatronic dinosaurs. I dust snow off a cast-iron bench and wait the twelve minutes to the hour, so that I can hear the T. rex come to life. Just like earlier, he cannot thrash his tail the way he should, because of the snowdrifts.
In my sneakers and my jeans, I jump the fence so that I am knee-deep in the snow. I start clearing it out with my bare hands. It only takes a few seconds before my fingers are red and numb, before the snow melts into my socks. I smack the green plastic tail of the T. rex, trying to dislodge the ice, but it stays stuck. “Come on,” I yell, striking it a second time. “Move!”
My voice echoes, bouncing off the empty buildings. But I manage to do something, because the tail begins to sweep back and forth as the fake T. rex goes after the same fake raptor once again. I stand for a second, watching, with my hands tucked under my armpits to warm them up. I let myself pretend that the T. rex might actually reach the fraction of an inch that’s necessary to finally get his prey, that instead of his going through the motions there will be progress. I let myself pretend that I have, successfully, turned back time.
A lot can happen in six days. As the Israelis will tell you, you can fight a war. You can drive across the United States. Some people believe six days is all it took for God to create a universe.
I’m here to tell you that a lot might not happen in six days, too.
For example, a man who’s suffered a severe head trauma might not get any worse, or any better.
For four nights now, I’ve left behind the hospital room to go to my father’s home, where I pour a bowl of stale cereal and watch Nick at Nite. I don’t sleep in his bed; I don’t really sleep at all. I sit on the couch and listen to endless episodes of That ’70s Show.
It’s weird, walking out of the hospital every night during a vigil. The whole day has somehow passed me by, and the stars reflect on the snow that’s fallen while I was unaware. My life is moving forward in a weird empty narrative, missing one key character, whose current life is a continuous loop. I bring back things I think my father would want to find at the hospital if he were to awaken: a hairbrush, a book, a piece of mail—but this only makes the house feel even emptier when I’m in it, as if I’m slowly liquidating its contents.
After the wolf debacle, when I got back to the hospital, I went to Cara’s room. I wanted to show her the letter I’d found in Dad’s file drawer. But this time there was a team of physical therapists in there talking about shoulder rehab and testing her range of motion, which had her in tears. Whatever I had to say to her, I decided, could still wait.
Now, the next morning, as I am headed to her room, I am ambushed by Trina the social worker. “Oh good,” she says. “You heard?”
“Heard what?” There are a hundred red flags waving in my mind.
“I was just headed downstairs to get you. We’re having a family meeting in your sister’s room.”
“Family meeting?” I say. “Did she put you up to this?”
“She didn’t put me up to anything, Edward,” Trina says. “It’s a meeting to share medical information about your father with both of you at the same time. I suggested we do it in Cara’s room because it would be more comfortable for her than being transported to a conference room.”
I follow Trina into the room and find a handful of nurses I’ve seen going in and out of my father’s room and some I haven’t; Dr. Saint-Clare; a neurology resident; and Dr. Zhao from the ICU. There’s also a chaplain, or that’s who I am assuming he is, since he’s wearing a white collar. For a moment I think this is a setup, that my father has already died and this is the way they thought best to tell us.
“Mrs. Ng,” Trina says, “I’m
afraid I’m going to have to ask you to step outside.”
My mother just blinks. “What about Cara?”
“Unfortunately, this meeting is for Mr. Warren’s next of kin,” the social worker explains.
Before my mother can go, Cara grabs her sleeve. “Don’t leave,” she whispers. “I don’t want to be alone for this.”
“Oh, baby,” my mother says. She smooths Cara’s hair back from her face.
I step into the room and maneuver around everyone until I am standing beside my mother. “You won’t be,” I tell Cara, and I reach for her hand.
I have a sudden jolt of memory: I am crossing the street so that I can walk my little sister into school. I don’t let go of her hand until I know both her feet are firmly planted on the opposite sidewalk. You have your lunch? I ask, and she nods. I can tell she wants me to hang around because it’s cool to be the only fifth grader talking to a senior, but I hurry back to my car. She never knows it, but I don’t drive off until I see her walk through the double doors of the school, just to be safe.
“Well,” Dr. Saint-Clare says. “Let’s get started. We’re here today to update you on your father’s medical condition.” He nods to the resident, who sets a laptop on Cara’s bed so we can all see the scanned images. “As you know, he was brought into the hospital six days ago with a diffuse traumatic brain injury. These are the CT scans we took when he was first brought into the ICU.” He points to one side of the image, which looks muddy, swirled, an abstract painting. “Imagine that the nose would be here, and the ear here. We’re looking up from the bottom. All this white area? That’s blood, around the brain and in the ventricles of the brain. This large mass is the temporal lobe hematoma.”
He clicks the mouse pad so that a second scan appears beside the first. “This is a normal brain,” he says, and he really doesn’t have to say anything else. There are clear, wide black expanses in this brain. There are strong lines and edges. It looks tidy, organized, recognizable.
It looks completely different from the scan of my father’s brain.
It’s hard for me to understand that this fuzzy snapshot is the sum total of my father’s personality and thoughts and movements. I squint at it, wondering which compartment houses the animal instincts he developed in the wild. I wonder where language is stored—the nonverbal movements he used to communicate with his wolves, and the words he forgot to say to us when we were younger: that he loved us, that he missed us.
Dr. Saint-Clare clicks again so a third scan appears on the screen. There is less white around the edges of the brain, but a new gray patch has appeared. The surgeon points to it. “This is the spot where the anterior temporal lobe used to be. Removing it and the hematoma, we were able to reduce some of the swelling in the brain.”
Dr. Saint-Clare had said that taking out this piece of my father’s brain would not affect personality but would probably mean the loss of some memories.
Which ones?
His year with the wolves in the wild?
The first time he saw my mother?
The moment he knew I hated him?
The neurosurgeon was wrong. Because losing any one of those memories would have changed who my father was, and who he’d become.
Cara tugs my arm. “That’s good, right?” she whispers.
Dr. Saint-Clare pushes another button, and the image on the laptop refreshes. This is a different angle, and I tilt my head, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing. “This is the brain stem,” he explains. “The hemorrhages reach into the medulla and extend into the pons.” He points to one spot. “This is the area of the brain that controls breathing. And this is the area that affects consciousness.” He faces us. “There’s been no distinguishable change since your father’s arrival.”
“Can’t you do another operation?” Cara asks.
“The first one was done to alleviate high pressure in the skull—but that’s not what we’re seeing anymore. A hemicraniectomy or a pentobarb coma isn’t going to help. I’m afraid your father’s brain injury . . . is unrecoverable.”
“Unrecoverable?” Cara repeats. “What does that mean?”
“I’m sorry.” Dr. Saint-Clare clears his throat. “Since the prognosis for a decent recovery is so poor, a decision needs to be made whether to continue life-sustaining treatment.”
“Poor isn’t the same as impossible,” Cara says tightly. “He’s still alive.”
“Technically, yes,” Dr. Zhao replies. “But you have to ask yourself what constitutes a meaningful existence. Even if he were to recover—which I’ve never seen happen to a patient with injuries this severe—he wouldn’t have the same quality of life that he had before.”
“You don’t know what will happen a month from now. A year from now. Maybe there will be some breakthrough procedure that could fix him,” Cara argues.
I hate myself for doing this, but I want her to hear it. “When you say the quality of life would be different, what do you mean exactly?”
The neurosurgeon looks at me. “He won’t be able to breathe by himself, feed himself, go to the bathroom by himself. At best, he’d be a nursing home patient.”
Trina steps forward. “I know how difficult this is for you, Cara. But if he were here, listening to everything Dr. Saint-Clare just said, what would he want?”
“He’d want to get better!” By now Cara is crying hard, working to catch her breath. “It hasn’t even been a full week!”
“That’s true,” Dr. Saint-Clare says. “But the injuries your father has sustained aren’t the kind that will improve with time. There’s less than a one percent chance that he’ll recover from this.”
“See?” she accuses. “You just admitted it. There’s a chance.”
“Just because there’s a chance doesn’t mean there’s a good probability. Do you think Dad would want to be kept alive for a year, or two, or ten based on a one percent probability of maybe waking up and being paralyzed for the rest of his life?” I ask.
She faces me, desperate. “Doctors aren’t always right. Zazi, that wolf you brought here yesterday? He chewed off his own leg when it got caught in a trap. All the vets said he wouldn’t make it.”
“The difference is that Dad can’t compensate for his injuries, the way Zazi did,” I point out.
“The difference is that you’re trying to kill him,” Cara says.
Trina puts her hand on Cara’s good shoulder, but she jerks her body away in a twist that makes her cry out in pain. “Just leave!” Cara cries. “All of you!”
Several machines behind her start to beep. The nurse attending her frowns at the digital display. “All right, that’s enough,” she announces. “Out.”
The doctors file through the door, talking quietly to each other. Another nurse comes in to fiddle with Cara’s morphine pump as the first nurse physically restrains her.
My mother bursts through the doorway. “What the hell just happened?” she asks, looking at me, and the nurses, and then at Cara. She makes a beeline for the bed and gathers Cara into her arms, letting her cry. Over my mother’s shoulder, Cara fixes her eyes on me. “I said leave,” she mutters, and I realize that when she told this to the doctors, she was including me.
Within seconds, the morphine kicks in and Cara goes limp. My mother settles her against the pillows and starts whispering to the duty nurse about what happened to get Cara into this state. My sister is glassy-eyed, slack-jawed, almost asleep, but she fixes her gaze directly on mine. “I can’t do this,” Cara murmurs. “I just want it to be over.”
It feels like a plea. It feels as if, for the first time in six years, I might be in a position to help her. I look down at my sister. “I’ll take care of it,” I promise, knowing how much those words have cost her. “I’ll take care of everything.”
When I leave Cara’s room, I find Dr. Saint-Clare on a phone at the nurses’ station. He hangs up the receiver just as I come to stand in front of him.
“Can I ask you something?” I say. “What would actuall
y . . . you know . . . happen?”
“Happen?”
“If we decided to . . .” I can’t say the words. I shrug instead, and rub the toe of my sneaker on the linoleum.
But he knows what I’m asking. “Well,” he says. “He won’t be in any pain. The family is welcome to be there as the ventilator gets dialed down. Your father may take a few breaths on his own, but they won’t be regular and they won’t continue. Eventually, his heart will stop beating. The family is usually asked to leave the room while the breathing tube is removed, and then they’re invited back in to say good-bye for as long as they need.” He hesitates. “The procedure can vary, though, under certain circumstances.”
“Like what?”
“If your father ever expressed interest in organ donation, for example.”
I think back four days ago—was it really only that long?—when I sifted through the contents of my father’s wallet. Of the little holographic heart printed on his license. “What if he did?” I ask.
“The people from the New England Organ Bank get contacted with every case of severe brain trauma, whether or not the patient has previously expressed a desire to donate. They’ll come talk with you and answer any questions you have. If your father is a registered donor, and if the family chooses to withdraw treatment, the timing can be coordinated with the organ bank so that the organs can be recovered as per your father’s wishes.” Dr. Saint-Clare looks at me. “But before any of that happens,” he says, “you and your sister need to be on the same page about removing your father from life support.”
I watch him walk down the hallway, and then I slip along the wall closer to Cara’s room again. I hang back so that I will not be seen but can still peer inside. Cara’s sleeping. My mother sits beside the bed, her head pressed to her folded hands, as if she’s praying.
Maybe she still does.
When I used to walk Cara to school, and then sat in my car making sure she went all the way into the double doors, it wasn’t just because I wanted to make sure that she wasn’t snatched by some perv. It was because I couldn’t be who she was—a little kid with pigtails flying behind her; her backpack like a pink turtle shell; her mind full of what-ifs and maybes. She could convince herself of anything—that fairies lived on the undersides of wild mushrooms, that the reason Mom cried at night was because she was reading a depressing novel, that it wasn’t a big deal when Dad forgot it was my birthday or missed her performance in a holiday concert because he was too busy teaching Polish farmers how to keep wolves off their land by playing audiotapes of howls. Me, I was already jaded and tarnished, skeptical that a fantasy world could keep reality at bay. I watched her every morning because, in my own little Holden Caulfield moment, I wanted to make sure someone was keeping her childhood from getting just as ruined as mine.