Life Everlasting

by Robert Whitlow

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “No, it was his nurse. He’s making a special trip from Charleston. Do you think I should call Ezra and let him know? I don’t want to talk to him, but—”

  “He’s out of town,” Alexia interrupted.

  “How do you know?”

  Alexia bit her lip. “Jeffrey mentioned it.”

  “You talked to Jeffrey?” Rena asked, her voice getting louder. “Why?”

  Alexia kept her tone matter-of-fact. “He phoned me. Don’t worry. It was a positive conversation. He’s willing to give us more specific information about the companies on the list and thought it would be better to contact me directly. He knew you were passing along information from him anyway. It will be easier for me to ask him what I need to know than relay everything through you. Normally, things would be handled this way with an insider cooperating in a case.”

  “You can’t trust him.”

  “Oh, I’ll double-check everything he says, but it will help me ask other people the right questions about the businesses.”

  “But he doesn’t want you to do that.”

  “Then why is he giving us information?”

  Rena didn’t answer. Alexia waited. “Are you still there?”

  “I don’t want to talk about Jeffrey anymore.”

  Alexia picked up her pen and tapped it on the top of her desk. “We’ll have to talk about him if you want me to file a lawsuit against Ezra based on information Jeffrey has provided. If that information isn’t true, we shouldn’t waste your money and my time trying to do something about it. All we’ll accomplish in filing a lawsuit is making Ezra madder at you than he already is.”

  “But you told me if Baxter wakes up we can’t do anything anyway.”

  “Yes, but that’s not what we’re talking about now.”

  Rena’s silence lingered for a few seconds.

  “I need to sort through everything else before making up my mind. I’ve got to change clothes.”

  Rena hung up before Alexia could respond. She slowly returned the receiver to its cradle and tried to assess Rena’s reaction. Alexia had no doubt that Jeffrey intimidated Rena, but she didn’t have a clue why her client feared him.

  Then it hit her.

  As a divorce lawyer, she should have suspected the possibility of an affair between Jeffrey and Rena. If true, an affair would cast new light on the entire sequence of events from Baxter’s fall to the present. As she worked backward in time, each link in the chain joined its neighbor in logical progression.

  Somehow, Baxter learns of the relationship between Rena and his brother. He confronts Rena at the falls and in a rage tries to push her over the edge. Instead, he plummets to the rocks. She thinks he’s dead, and when interviewed by Detective Giles Porter, decides it’s easier to say Baxter slipped and fell than reveal they had a struggle.

  But Baxter survives. And Rena has a dilemma.

  She meets Alexia and tells her part of the truth, i.e., there was a fight at the falls and Baxter tried to push her over the edge. Probably at Jeffrey’s suggestion, Rena then asks Alexia to file a request with the court in Greenville to terminate Baxter’s life support. Prior to going to court, Rena tells Alexia that Jeffrey is willing to support the petition to terminate life support because he believes it would provide a merciful and quick end to Baxter’s life. Ultimately, Jeffrey keeps his allegiances secret and doesn’t attend the hearing, but his money makes it possible. When Ezra uses the power of attorney to pillage Rena’s bank account, Jeffrey comes to her aid and gives her the ten thousand dollars needed to retain Alexia. His intimate relationship with Rena explains everything—why he would bankroll her efforts to end Baxter’s life and why his loyalties would lie with her rather than his own father.

  In his latest move, Jeffrey seeks to restore Baxter’s financial stake in the Richardson businesses, not to help his brother and sister-in-law, but because he wants to gain greater control himself. Working behind the scenes through Rena, he can avoid tipping off Ezra and keep his personal motivations secret. The stakes are probably higher than Rena suspects. He controls her like a puppy on a leash.

  Alexia’s stomach felt slightly queasy. For the first time, she considered the possibility that Baxter Richardson didn’t deserve what had happened to him. Her mind racing, she looked at the clock. It was time to go. She tried to force herself to calm down.

  Located in an older part of town, Baxter and Rena’s house was even more of a showcase than when built by Ezra’s father almost eighty years before. When Baxter married Rena, he renovated the ancestral home and thoroughly modernized it. They’d been living in it less than four months when the accident occurred.

  Alexia drove up the long, curving driveway and parked near the guest cottage to the left of the house. Rena came out a side door of the main house. As Alexia watched her walk down the steps, she wondered briefly how closely her new theory followed the truth. Then she tried to banish the images whirling through her mind and concentrate on what was happening in real time. Rena looked frazzled.

  “Is the doctor here?” Alexia asked.

  “Yes, that’s his car,” Rena said, pointing to a new Lexus. “The nurse just called and told me he’s ready to meet with me.”

  Alexia followed Rena into the cottage. Baxter was lying on his back with his eyes closed. On the far side of his bed stood a nurse Alexia didn’t recognize and a short, slightly balding man with intelligent brown eyes. He introduced himself to Alexia and greeted Rena.

  “I’ve had an opportunity to examine your husband, and there is no question that he shows signs of regaining consciousness.”

  Alexia glanced at Rena and saw her swallow. The doctor continued.

  “Without an MRI scan we can’t be sure, but I suspect the swelling in his brain has diminished. He suffered an axonal, or localized, head injury instead of one involving diffuse trauma, so his chances of recovering a greater level of cognitive functioning are increased. It’s also fortunate that he didn’t have an appreciable period of hypoxia, or loss of oxygen to the brain, prior to arriving at the hospital. On the other hand, the fact that he has been comatose for several weeks makes prognosis for specific sensory abilities more difficult to predict.”

  Alexia wished doctors would use understandable English.

  “Can he hear?” she asked simply.

  The doctor leaned closer to the bed and spoke in a slow, distinct voice.

  “Baxter, if you can hear me, open your eyes.”

  Everyone stared at Baxter’s closed eyelids. Nothing happened for several seconds. Then, Baxter Richardson slowly opened his eyes.

  Out of the corner of her own eye, Alexia saw Rena step back. Baxter looked straight up at the ceiling. Alexia couldn’t tell if he was focusing on anything, but she saw him blink and then keep his eyes open. As she continued to watch, the doctor placed his right index finger on Baxter’s chin.

  “If you can feel my finger on your chin, close your eyes.”

  Baxter’s eyelids slid downward. Alexia watched and believed.

  “This is all very basic,” the doctor observed.

  Basic maybe, but definitely significant. Alexia couldn’t wait to tell Ted. A skeptic might chalk the improvement up to coincidence, but she’d been in the room just yesterday when the minister played and the nurse sang, and she had felt the air thick with the presence of God.

  “Can he move his head, or blink once for yes and twice for no, or send any signal that he understands something more complex?”

  The doctor removed his finger from Baxter’s chin. “Before you arrived I tried more difficult commands, but he wasn’t able to respond. However, all in all, I’m pleased.”

  “No words?” Alexia continued.

  The doctor shook his head. “And don’t be discouraged if the first words he speaks are nonsense. Until he regains the ability to organize sounds into words and words into sentences, his vocabulary might spill out randomly.”

  “Like baby talk.”


  “Similar, only he would likely say actual words, perhaps complex ones.”

  Alexia glanced over her shoulder at Rena, who was staring at a spot on the floor somewhere on the other side of the bed.

  “Do you have any questions for the doctor?” Alexia asked her. “I’m not trying to monopolize his time.”

  Rena looked up and asked in a soft voice, “What about his memory? I don’t want him to remember the bad things that have happened to him.”

  “Most likely he won’t,” the doctor responded, “at least initially. People waking from a coma usually begin by opening their eyes and obeying simple commands such as squeezing a hand. Because of the injury to your husband’s spinal cord, we have to rely on blinking. Then, as I said, there will be some form of verbal communication that often begins as nonsense. Be patient. Communication often improves as time passes. Memory is more difficult to predict. Post-traumatic amnesia, or PTA, is common in cases of severe head trauma. Generally, the longer the coma, the longer it takes to recover. Both recent and remote memory are affected. This means he will not remember what is happening to him at this stage of his recovery, and any statements he makes about what took place prior to his injury won’t be retained in his long-term memory.”

  “Wait,” Rena said, her voice stronger. “He may remember something from the past and then forget it again?”

  “Or remember an event incorrectly. The possibilities are limitless. But whatever happens during this transition period will almost certainly not stay with him. We don’t know the type and extent of permanent impairment to the areas of the brain injured, or the capability of other areas to compensate for what he’s lost. He may also experience changes in more intangible aspects, such as his personality.”

  Alexia had read about head-injury patients who became aggressive and hard to manage. If he exhibited irrational rage, Baxter, bound in a prison of paralysis, would at least pose no physical threat.

  The doctor continued. “Recovery may be rapid for a period of time, slow down, speed up, or stop completely. Actually, it’s really premature to talk about memory, communication, and personality, but I want to give you a big picture of what might take place in the coming weeks and months. All I know with confidence is that he’s doing much better than the last time I examined him. As for the rest, we’ll have to wait and see.”

  Alexia quickly glanced at Rena to see if she was going to react to the hated phrase. She didn’t.

  “Should I keep talking to him?” Rena asked.

  “Yes, it’s even more important now than before. The stimulation will be good for him, and the sound of a familiar voice will help orient him to his surroundings.”

  “What if he acts upset?”

  “Take a break and try later. There’s no need to push him too hard at this point.”

  Rena stepped forward and touched Baxter on the cheek.

  “I love you, honey. I’m glad you’re getting better.”

  Baxter didn’t move.

  The two women walked outside together and past the beds of multicolored pansies. Dr. Leoni stayed behind to talk to the nurse. He was writing in Baxter’s chart as they left.

  Beside Alexia’s car, Rena asked, “What do you think?”

  “It’s amazing that he’s waking up. When we came yesterday, I saw nothing to suggest he was coming out of the coma.”

  “No, I mean about the lawsuit against Ezra. I shouldn’t have gotten upset with you for talking to Jeffrey. You’re right. It will be easier to put everything together if the two of you don’t have to go through me.”

  “All right,” Alexia said slowly, “but his information is going to be the cornerstone of any case we build against your father-in-law. If he’s unreliable it will make my job harder instead of easier.”

  Rena looked past Alexia’s shoulder toward the street. “You can’t trust Jeffrey,” she said simply. “He only cares about himself.”

  Following Rena was like tacking a sailboat into a shifting headwind.

  “Then what do you want to do?” Alexia asked. “Having to verify everything Jeffrey tells me will be an awkward way to proceed.”

  Rena turned her gaze to Alexia, who saw a deep sadness in the young woman’s eyes.

  “This has all been so horrible that I’ve thought about leaving town in the middle of the night. It’s not worth fighting over a bunch of stuff I don’t understand. Let Ezra and Jeffrey have everything. There’s nothing to keep me from getting in my car and running away, except that I don’t have anyplace to go. My mother is dead, my brothers are broke, and my stepfather”—Rena paused—“doesn’t know where I am. If Baxter had died, at least I would have received part of my inheritance and could move away to start over. Now, if he wakes up there’s no telling what type of condition he’ll be in, and after what happened at the waterfall, I can’t stay married to him.”

  This time Alexia followed Rena easily. The sorrow in the young woman’s eyes could be the by-product of two failed relationships: Baxter had not been able to keep her love; Jeffrey had proven fickle and manipulative.

  “Divorce?” she asked.

  Rena nodded. “I have to figure out a way go on with my life, even if it means divorcing Baxter, changing my name, and moving far, far away. A property settlement will provide enough for me to go somewhere else for a while.”

  Alexia measured her words. “Divorce is an option. But a big property settlement is unlikely because Baxter’s future medical-care costs will be very high.”

  Rena bit her lower lip. “But he has insurance, and his father has enough money to pay for everything. I’m entitled to my fair share.”

  “That’s not the way the court would look at it. Insurance coverage can change. The company might go out of business or cancel the policy, and even though Baxter is his son, Ezra has no legal obligation to help. The court would set aside a lot of money to pay for lifetime medical care.”

  “How much?”

  “Medical-cost experts calculate those types of things, but it would certainly be millions of dollars.”

  “So he’s better off dead than alive,” Rena said bitterly.

  Alexia didn’t respond.

  Rena continued. “I should have done this as soon as the accident happened. The thought of having to live with Baxter for the rest of my life is crazy. Even people who don’t know the truth wouldn’t blame me for getting out, not that I care what anyone thinks. I mean, he tried to kill me!”

  Alexia couldn’t argue with the facts behind Rena’s feelings, but she kept her tone on a professional level.

  “Although it isn’t required by law, you definitely have grounds for divorce. It wouldn’t be necessary to tell what happened at the waterfall. Getting a divorce is easy. The problem is the property settlement. Baxter was rich before he married you, and it will be hard to show how you made him richer in such a short period of time.”

  “Maybe it would be worth it to divorce him even if I didn’t get a lot of money. How soon could you draw up the papers?”

  “You need to think about the financial implications first. Don’t make a spur-of-the moment decision.”

  Rena’s eyes flared as she pointed toward her house.

  “What do you think I’ve been doing while I’ve been locked up in that house?” she asked. “I can’t keep living like this!”

  “Once the petition is served, it will set a lot of things in motion.”

  The fire in Rena’s eyes died as quickly as it had sprung up.

  “You’re right. I don’t want to make a mistake.”

  Surprised by yet another sudden shift, Alexia thought it best to continue the conversation later.

  “We’ll talk,” she said simply.

  Alexia got in her car. Looking in the rearview mirror, she could see Rena, her shoulders sagging as she plodded toward the exquisite old house that had become her fancy prison.

  8

  Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

&
nbsp; MATTHEW 18:3

  Alexia returned to the office and tried to phone Ted, but he didn’t answer at the parsonage. She plowed back into her business, returning phone calls and typing letters. She was a competent typist but paused between two long letters and wished for Gwen’s speedier fingers.

  Leaving the office, Alexia drove out of town and turned down the road to the Sandy Flats Church. Ted’s truck was parked in front of his house, but Alexia didn’t ring the doorbell. She went directly to the sanctuary. Late afternoon was practice time, and she would steal whatever chance she could to listen to Ted Morgan play the piano.

  Twenty years ago, her mother’s old recordings of Artur Schnabel playing Beethoven’s thirty-two piano sonatas sparked Alexia’s love of classical piano music. The piano was the greatest instrument on earth, and Alexia could identify by name and composer most well-known piano compositions and many obscure ones.

  The finely crushed shells crunched under Alexia’s feet as she walked across the parking lot to a brick walkway that ran in front of the sanctuary. Five broad steps took Alexia up to a pair of dark-stained wooden doors held in place by strips of hammered iron. The latch was unlocked, and Alexia quietly entered the narthex. The sound of music greeted her, and she stopped to listen.

  It was Weber’s Sonata in A Flat, a fashionable piece from the early Romantic era that often found its way into the repertoires of pianists competing in the Van Cliburn and Tchaikovsky competitions for young pianists. Two wide entries led into the sanctuary. Alexia slipped through the one on the left and walked softly halfway down the aisle to a spot where the acoustics were optimal. Engrossed in the music, Ted didn’t seem to notice her. She sat in a pew and closed her eyes. Gwen was at least half right—Alexia was definitely attracted to the music.

  When he finished, Ted stretched. He was wearing jeans and a light-green shirt with long sleeves. His hair appeared slightly damp, as if he’d recently taken a shower.

  “Good afternoon!” Alexia said. “I liked the Weber.”

  Ted turned on the bench and smiled. “He’s bold at times, like a wind surfer bucking across the chop.”