“It’s my decision.” Ellen was adamant. “If I’m ever that sick, then it’s already in God’s hands. Without interference from a doctor, I’d die anyway.”
Sully was equally stubborn. “A doctor is an extension of God’s hands.” His voice rose. “A doctor should use his
God-given
skills to save life, not take it away! This whole subject is morbid. It’s creepy.”
“If anything is creepy, it’s the idea of keeping a body alive when the brain is dead! A doctor’s job is to alleviate suffering, not prolong it,” Ellen shot back. “A doctor is
not
God and shouldn’t be
playing
God with people’s lives!”
The lawyer looked uncomfortable.
“Maybe the two of you should spend some time talking this over before we proceed,” he advised.
“I don’t need to talk it over,” Sullivan retorted. “Do you have some kind of document that’s the opposite of a living will? Something that says a hospital can’t withdraw life support?”
“We can draft something that expresses your desire to be maintained, not to have fluids and nutrition withdrawn,” the attorney answered. “It is no guarantee, but it does give medical personnel and your family a guide to your wishes, in the event you are no longer able to make these types of decisions for yourself.”
“Fine.” Sullivan’s tone was clipped, his lips tight against his teeth. “That’s what we want, then. Draft up a couple of those.”
“How dare you! You will not choose for me!” Ellen exploded. “You’re acting like an arrogant controlling bastard.”
“Ellen!” Sullivan’s face was contorted. “I love you. I’m not trying to control you, dammit. I just can’t face the idea of losing you.”
“I want a living will.” Ellen directed her comment at the attorney. “Give him whatever he wants, but I don’t want to be kept alive like some kind of monster in a horror movie strapped to a bunch of machines.”
“I’m out of here.” Sullivan snatched his jacket from the back of the chair. “You know what I want. Write mine up so nobody can kill me just because I might become
inconvenient
.”
“Inconvenient!” Ellen was outraged. Sullivan stormed out of the law office with Ellen on his heels. “You think I would make that kind of decision based on
convenience
?” She was shaking with fury.
“That’s what it sounds like to me!” Sullivan called over his shoulder as he flung the door open and stepped out into the crisp autumn sunshine. The receptionist watched them go, her eyes wide with interest.
“It would!” Ellen yelled, marching out behind him. “You don’t give me any credit at all. None! You’re selfish, Sullivan Proctor! Selfish and cruel.”
They reached the car, and Sullivan unlocked the doors, not bothering to hold Ellen’s door open for her as he usually did. His anger was deep and barely restrained.
“It’s cruel to want to keep you with me? It’s cruel for me to want to live? To want you to live?” He slid behind the wheel and inserted the key. Then he turned to her, his eyes hard. “I’ll tell you what’s cruel. Cruel is taking food and water and medical treatment away from a helpless sick person, someone too weak to fight back. Cruel is starving someone to death who can’t defend himself. I can’t believe you would do that! You’re not the person I thought you were, Ellen. I don’t think I can trust you to make decisions for me.”
“You don’t trust me?” Tears of rage shone in her eyes. “Well, I don’t trust your ass either! How could you insist on keeping my body alive, suffering, possibly for months or even years? Not able to talk, or hear, or move. It’d be a living hell! And you’d put me through that? Now, that’s cruelty! And it’s purely selfish. All because of what YOU want. Nothing about what I want. All to save you grief.”
“It wouldn’t save me any grief, Ellen. If anything happened to you, I’d be grieving more than you can imagine.” Sullivan’s voice held a note of anguish. He started the car, backed out, and pulled carefully into traffic. In a burst of renewed anger, he hit the brakes harder than necessary at the corner and then accelerated recklessly. That was one habit of Sully’s that Ellen disliked intensely, his tendency to express his anger or frustration behind the wheel.
“Slow down, Sully,” she cautioned. He threw her a look of irritation, but backed off the accelerator in deference to her request. It dawned on him they were each focused only on their individual concerns. Logic asserted itself and told him there were four issues here: What would happen to him if he got sick, what would happen to her if she got sick, and each person’s individual response to the situation. But to hell with logic; he decided to appeal to Ellen's emotions.
“Don’t you have any compassion?” He shot her a sideways look, brief but filled with a confused hurt.
“Don’t you?” she returned, equally wounded.
“Look, I love you, Ellen.” Sully took a deep breath. “I love you, goddammit! I’m not going to stop just because you become ill, get hurt in an accident, or get old and feeble.”
“I know that,” Ellen said, her voice still shaky. “But, it wouldn’t be fair to me. And it wouldn’t be fair to you either. I wouldn’t want to live that way! And, you shouldn’t want me to live that way. If you really love me, you’d respect my wishes.”
“Your wishes are wrong,” he stated flatly, and her anger flared again.
“You think you’re so perfect. You think you always have the right answer, and that your way is the only way. I get so tired of it sometimes.” She stared sightlessly out the passenger window, locked in her own thoughts and resentments.
“So, if you get sick, you’d just give up? Leave me? You wouldn’t even try to fight it? I mean so little to you?” He choked on the words. “How could you just leave me?”
Ellen's voice became gentle. "Honey, if I'm that sick, then I’m already gone. It wouldn’t be a choice.”
He slammed the palms of his hands on the steering wheel. “Bullshit! It
is
a fucking choice and you’re making it right now.”
She felt her anger suddenly dissipate. His agony was heartbreaking to witness. How could she make him understand?
“You’re right, Sully! It’s
my
choice. I have the right to make it just as much as you have the right to make
your
choice." She turned in the seat to look at him. "I would never
want
to leave you. I love you, too. You know that. Sully, you
know
that. But we’re talking about my body, my life!” She was surprised to see the glimmer of unshed tears in his eyes. They pulled into their driveway and got out. He waited for her on the sidewalk in spite of his anger, and they walked into the house together. As soon as the door closed behind them, the argument resumed.
“We’re talking about my life, too,” he pointed out, tossing his keys onto the hallway table and shrugging out of his jacket. “What would my life be if something happened to you?”
“You’d grieve. But then you’d go on. You’d eventually find someone else, and I’d want you to.”
“I feel like puking.” He sunk to the couch, his expression a mixture of frustration and pain. Ellen put her purse on the coffee table and sat next to him.
“It’s a tough subject,” she agreed. “But I’m glad it came up. We need to find some resolution to this.”
“I just can’t believe life means so little to you,” Sullivan said. “I can’t believe you would let go of it so easily. So, if something happened to me, you’d just give up? Pull the plug on me?”
“No,” she said carefully. “I’d
respect
your wishes.”
He groaned as her words skewered him. “Touché, Ellen.”
“You’ve never had to make that kind of decision, have you?” Ellen asked, her voice gentle. She picked up his hand and held it tenderly. He was unresponsive, stiff.
“Neither have you,” he replied
“No, not personally. But I saw my mom go through it with Grandma Rhonda when she had her heart attack. It’s horrific. What a burden to put on somebody. It broke her heart to take Grandma off life support.” Ellen shivered.
“Well, she didn’t have to do it.”
“Yes, she did.” Ellen was firm. “Grandma wasn’t going to get better. It was her time to go, Sully. Keeping her alive was just postponing the inevitable.”
“Yeah, well, I have a story like that, too.” He turned to her, his eyes hard as flint. “You’ve met my cousin’s daughter, Lucinda. What you don't know is that Lucy was born prematurely, was very small, less than two pounds. At that time, they couldn’t do what they can today for preemies. The doctors gave my cousin a choice of turning off the respirator. Little Lucy had all kinds of things wrong with her, and she’d had a brain hemorrhage that day. The doctors predicted she would never recover. If she did, they said, she’d be little more than a vegetable. They told my cousin and his wife to think about letting her go. Well, they thought it over for about two seconds, and then they refused. And today she’s alive, twenty some years later. It didn’t happen overnight. It took a long time for her to heal. But, she’s alive and well today.”
“That’s different,” Ellen said. “She was a baby with her whole life in front of her, and she couldn’t make the decision for herself. I can understand why they made the choice they did. But, my grandma was old and debilitated.”
“I see,” he said coldly. “When you’re old, you’re not worth anything anymore.”
“God! You make me furious!” Ellen withdrew her hand and stood. She paced back and forth in front of the picture window.
“Look,” she said, trying to be reasonable. “Why are we doing this to ourselves? We probably won’t have to even worry about it for years. Years! We’re young and healthy. Nothing is going to happen to either of us for a long time.”
“Maybe, but you never know.” Sullivan felt a chill walk up his back on small icy feet. Later, he would think of it as a premonition.
As usual, they made up in bed with tender words and gentle touches. But Sullivan’s feelings for Ellen had been altered subtly. Although he loved her as much as ever, he felt that her particular set of experiences had warped her judgment. He still believed his way was the better way. When they went back to the attorney’s office later that month to execute their wills, end-of-life decisions were not discussed. No such documents were drawn up, not a living will for her, or its opposing counterpart for him. Sully didn’t know until Ellen’s illness that she had taken care of it secretly, at her doctor’s office. Her advanced directive was put in place, waiting in a file somewhere to confound and hurt him when the unthinkable happened.
Horrified, he realized his voice had become husky and his eyes moist as he had related the memory. But, Brooklyn passed no judgments on him, one way or another. She merely listened, which, of course, was exactly what he needed. He noted she had tears in her eyes also, feeling with him the long buried pain.
“So how did you come to be out here on the mountain?” she asked, moving the conversation away from the raw emotions.
“You know what, you look pretty tired. Why don’t we save that story for tomorrow?”
As he reached for her plate, she flinched. Their eyes met, and she relaxed.
“I’m still jumpy, I guess,” she explained weakly.
Lance set her plate back on the table and went around to her side, where he knelt on the floor and put his hand on the seat beside her. Brook cringed. He thought how small she looked when she was afraid.
“Brooklyn,” he said. “Let’s get one thing clear right now. I don’t mean you any harm. I will NEVER hurt you. Never.”
“I know,” she said, but even to her own ears her answer rang false.
Lance sighed. He figured it might take some time before she could accept his words as truth.
Chapter 33
Morning dawned. Snow fell. Brook lay on her belly, looking out a window and trying to ignore Lance as he worked on her feet.
“We used to get a lot of snow at home when I was a kid, but it seems to have slacked off these past years.” Even as she watched, the huge flakes drifting slowly to the ground became smaller and the snowfall denser.
“So, where
did
you grow up, Brooklyn?” Lance asked from the foot of the bed.
“Hmm,” Brook asked, deep in thought and then cried out, “Ouch!”
“Sorry, it can’t be helped; there are still a lot of little pieces of foreign matter buried in these cuts. They have to come out or they’ll become infected. Are you sure you don’t want a pain pill, or the last half of the tranquilizer?”
“I’m sure,” Brook gritted her teeth. “Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. I grew up in Newton, Kansas, a small town, although it’s much larger now than it was back when I was a kid.”
“Never heard of it. What’s it close to?”
“Wichita is the nearest big city; you know it?”
“I’ve passed through before, but never stopped,” Lance said. “I do remember three things I liked about Kansas.”
“Only three?”
Lance laughed. “No, no. But there are three that stand out in my mind. First, I love the fields of sunflowers. They always seem to be smiling. Second, the sky is enormous; you just don’t see that much sky here in the mountains. And third, with all that flatness it is so easy to get where you’re going. The roads stretch out forever.”
Brook smiled and then grimaced as Lance dug a little deep, sending tendrils of pain up the back of her leg. She moaned into the pillow and then managed to say, “True, all that is so true. Even our hills are more like bumps on the ground than anything, at least by Colorado standards. And you’re right; it’s pretty much a straight shot from one point to another.”
Lance waited for Brook to continue and when she didn’t he prompted, “Do you come from a large family?”
Brook yanked her foot out of Lance’s hand. “Damn it! That hurt!” She took a couple of deep breaths. “Sorry…I know you’re trying to help me.”
Lance waited a moment and then drew her foot back into his lap. He washed the foot with a soft cloth, dried it gently and applied more drawing salve. After he had wrapped it in gauze he turned his attention to her other foot. “This one isn’t quite as bad.”
“Thank God for small miracles,” Brook mumbled. She took a moment to pick up the thread of their conversation.
“Okay, is my family big? Not really. I have one brother and one sister. Gregg is an attorney in Wichita, unmarried, a swinging single as he likes to put it. Alice is a stay-at-home mom. Her husband, Dean, is an engineer at Boeing, one of the major airplane manufacturers in Wichita, but they live in Goddard. Alice and Dean have twin daughters. Kayla and Kendra are the most adorable little six-year--old blond-haired book-ends you could ever hope to lay eyes on.” She trailed off and her eyes turned to the window.
“Oh god,” she moaned. “My family probably thinks I’m dead! They must be panic-stricken by now.”
“I’m sure they are.” Lance was sympathetic and patted her leg gently. “I’m sorry, Brooklyn. I wish there was something we could do.”
She cried softly for a minute, missing her folks and her siblings, imagining their agony. “I just can’t think about it; it hurts too much. I need to focus on the joy they’ll feel when they find out I’m okay.” She continued to stare out the glass, concentrating on the scene outside the window instead of her inner turmoil.
“The snow is so beautiful. It reminds me of my childhood. My mom didn’t work outside the home, although she did do some volunteer work. When it snowed like this she always bundled us up till we could hardly move. We’d go down to this big hill outside town with our sleds and spend hours sliding down and trudging back up. Dad joined us when he had time.” Brook paused in her story as Lance finished treating her second foot, and helped her sit up. He slipped socks onto her feet and carried her to the table where he placed a cup of coffee in front of her. Moving into the restroom, he returned with two aspirin and she immediately popped them into her mouth and swallowed. Then she continued.
“My dad’s a dentist; note the perfect teeth,” she tapped her front teeth with a jagged nail and then contemplated her fingertip. “Remind me to do something about these atrocities.” She waggled all ten fingers at him. “Anyway, dad wasn’t home much during the week and worked a lot of Saturdays, but whatever time he had off from work, he spent with the family.”
“How’d you get your name?” Lance asked. And then, when Brooklyn gave him a puzzled look, added, “I mean, Gregg and Alice seem ordinary, but Brooklyn Cheyenne is unusual.”
Brook laughed. “You’re right. I was their firstborn. Mom and Dad were still pretty young and I guess they were making a statement when they chose my name. Dad was originally from Brooklyn and Mom from Cheyenne. They met at the University of Kansas and married within a year. I came along eight months later. Mom still claims I was early but I think I was most likely the proverbial love-child. I don’t mind; anyway you look at it I was created from love. My mom and dad sure love each other.” Brook stopped and sighed a deep happy sigh as she thought about her parents. “Gregg and Alice are quite a bit younger than me and I guess by the time they came along my parents had lost their interest in distinctive names. Who knows what triggers someone to choose a certain name. I mean, look, you named a goat Gilbert, and it’s a girl.”
“That is true,” Lance agreed. “But I for one love your name. Brooklyn seems to roll off my tongue. It feels right. And beautiful.”
Brook blushed, let her hair cover her face, and choose to ignore his compliment. “Anyway, that’s about it for us. Both my mom and dad’s parents died when I was small; I don’t remember them at all. Well, except one little memory I have of my grandma, mom’s mom, smelling like grape jelly, and the softest kisses she’d brush across my cheeks.” She smiled a small secret smile at this remembrance.
“How’d you end up here?”
Lance saw the change cross over Brooklyn’s face even before she set her cup heavily on the table and demanded, “Why? What difference does it make? I’m here and that’s all there is to it. Stuck until spring.”
Softly, “I meant in Colorado. How did a Kansas girl end up here?” He spread his arms wide. “Not here.” He pointed down.
“Oh. Oh god, that was rude of me. I’m sorry.” Brook buried her face in her hands for a few minutes, then sat up, shoulders back and spine straight. “You may not believe this, but I used to be pretty. Real pretty.”
Lance was incredulous. “Used to be?”
“Yes, used to be. Anyway, that’s what everyone said: ‘Brooklyn you are beautiful, you should be a model. Brooklyn, you should be in the movies. Brooklyn, you need to go to Hollywood’. It was enough to turn anyone’s head. I’m afraid I was a little conceited. I soaked up their words and held them close to my heart. After graduation, I worked in an office complex in Wichita long enough to make the money to head for California. Then, I kissed my mom and dad goodbye and headed out to make it big, to become the next Isabeli Fontana or Kate Moss. Boy, was I ever naïve.”
“What happened?”
“Reality happened! I went to L.A. and was turned down by all the agencies I applied to. ‘You’re too fat; you’re too skinny; you’re too short; you’re too tall; your features are too symmetrical! Blah, blah, blah. When I was down to the last of my savings, I got a job at a major investment firm as a pit-secretary. I was just another face in row after row of desks for two years and then moved up to the position of one of the vice-president’s secretary’s secretary. Unfortunately for her she became seriously ill and had to resign. Fortunately for me, I was offered her position.”
“Okay, now you’re in L.A., not Colorado,” Lance stated, raising one eyebrow in question.
“Right. After a few months I was asked to sit in on an important meeting between several branch offices. One of the gentlemen present was from Denver. He took a liking to me and flirted outrageously outside meetings, sent flowers, asked me out; you know, the whole routine. It was against policy to date within the company so he asked my boss if I could attend a business dinner meeting to take notes for him. Of course, since he was high up in the Colorado office, the request was granted. He began coming to L.A. more and more often, always lavishing gifts and praise on me. And then, one bright August morning, during a serious meeting, he stood, climbed on top the table, walked across and dropped to a knee in front of me while slipping a jeweler’s box from his suit pocket. Flipping it open he asked, ‘Brooklyn Cheyenne Johnston, will you marry me?’”
“Needless to say, the whole room went dead quiet. I stared helplessly at the giant diamond shining at me from its bed of rich blue velvet and couldn’t utter a sound. The other men and women in the room started to find their voices and I heard several comments. ‘He walked across the damn table. He can’t marry her, she’s a simple secretary and plus, that’s fraternization’. Scores of voices weaved around me as I stared at the box. Finally, I raised my eyes to meet his and answered, ‘Yes! Yes, of course.’ He jumped from the table, scooped me up in his arms, and carried me out of the room, saying over one shoulder, ‘you’ll need to find a new secretary, Brook resigns.’”
Brook was grinning foolishly when she finished telling this story. “
That’s
how I ended up in Colorado. Oh god, we were so in love!”
“Were?”
“What? No,
are.
We
are
so in love. But sometimes I wonder if his proposal was an act of sorts, you know, to make himself look superior in front of others; not really to impress me, but to make himself impressive. But, anyway, that’s when I married Clark Edison Parrish, moved to Denver, and entered the life of the rich.” Here she frowned slightly. “Not that I ever really fit the mold, but Clark seemed happy to have me and I was happy to please him. Clark liked to show me off. God, I sound so vain, but those were his words, not mine. ‘Brook, wear that slinky black number I got you last month in Paris. I want to shine when I walk into the club tonight.’ Or, ‘Brook, you look dazzling in the diamonds I got you.’ Or, this was probably his most used line, ‘Brook, you outclass every other woman in the room. Everyone can see what a lucky man I am’.” Brook blushed, pausing as she thought. “Of course anyone would look good in the clothes and jewelry Clark draped me in. Still, it was always nice to hear.”
Like she needs wrappings to be pretty.
Lance thought.
Surely she knows how gorgeous she is.
“Now the club. That is one place I
do not
fit. The Club is
posh
. The first time Clark took me there I almost fainted from fright. The only thing that saved me was working for vice-presidents of a major firm for so long. You had to be able to take anything they could dish out; those men and women could be ruthless. Anyway, we entered a foyer bigger than my folks’ living and dining room together. A crystal chandelier practically dripped ice. It sparkled like diamonds, softly illuminating the surroundings. The ballroom was magnificent. I can’t even begin to describe it, and to tell you the truth, I don’t want to.” Her expression turned sardonic. “Then there were the people. Snob city. There are actually women who walk with their noses in the air. I saw first-hand how ugly conceit and arrogance can be.”
Lance laughed and Brook said, “I’m not kidding. They tilt their heads back and look down their noses at others. I always get this treatment. They let me know right away that I'm nothing special. I’ve never been able to fit in, even though Clark has belonged since before he was a man. Clark was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He just has no idea what life is like for regular people.”
Brook played with the handle of her coffee cup. “The wives of Clark’s associates are atrocious. I can only stand one of them; Lizzy Bendershen. She, like I, married into the fold. We are outsiders and it wouldn’t matter if we visited those ladies every day for thirty years, we will always be outsiders.” She leaned back in her chair and shrugged at Lance.
“But, anyway, I got off the subject. As I was saying, Clark gave me a wonderful home, beautiful clothes, and fantastic cars. And even though we aren't as close as we were in the beginning, life really hasn’t been too bad. At least not until he sent me for that book.” She stopped suddenly, a look of panic turning her face pale, and clapped a hand to her mouth.
“What? What’s the matter?” Lance took a step towards her but she held up a hand to stop him.
Quietly, so quietly he could just barely hear her, “Clark sent me to pick up a gift for his boss. It was at a bookstore, a seedy bookstore in a bad, bad part of town. I almost turned around but I didn’t. I parked and even went so far as to get out, leave the parking lot, and step onto the sidewalk. I was surrounded by porn and tattoo shops. Someone said something nasty and I turned and hurried back to the car. That’s when,” Brook whispered. “That’s when the man hit me, shoved a gun in my face, and stole my car. Oh my god! But he didn’t just steal the car…” She looked up into Lance’s eyes. “He stole me, too!”
Brook broke down and cried. She wouldn’t say another word and Lance didn’t try to make her. Gently, oh so gently, he approached the table and sat next to her. He placed a hand on her shoulder and she turned him, burying her face in his chest. They sat like this for a long time, Lance offering the only thing he could, a sympathetic shoulder and genuine concern.
When her tears were spent, Lance parted from her with a comforting pat on the shoulder. He didn’t make a big deal of the incident, carrying on a conversation about trivial matters while she collected herself. She appreciated his discretion. The episode had given her a tremendous feeling of release, a catharsis. Somehow, she felt no embarrassment at all for falling apart in front of this near stranger. It surprised her a little, but she put it down to the odd circumstances in which they found themselves. She wondered if he was getting weary of her yet. If so, he showed no sign of it.