Authors: Annabel Smith
“Whatever Mum said to you, I don't want to know,” Charlie said to Mike when they met.
“I'm not going to fight with you over this, Charlie,” Mike said. “Whatever you decide, I'll stand by you. Because even though, by blood, Whiskey's my brother, I'll never have the same bond with him, the same claim to him that you have. I know it's not my decision to make. And I'm not going to try to persuade you. It's just that some of the things your mother said made sense to me, and I thought if you had a chance to think it over, it might make sense to you too.”
“Killing my own brother could never make sense to me.”
“That's how I thought of it at first,” Mike said, “that we would be killing him. Hearing what Victor had to say made me sick to my stomach. But after I talked to your mother, I saw it differently. I saw that in a way, doing what Victor suggested would be the opposite of killing him. We would be saving him.”
“How do you get to that?”
“Everything I've heard about Whiskey makes me think he was a person who ran at life full tilt, that he met whatever came to him head-on, squeezed the juice out of it. Now he's been lying in a hospital bed for months on end without moving or speaking or even breathing for himself, and I don't even know him, but I can't help feeling that's what would be killing him.”
“Is that what my mother thinks?”
Mike nodded. “She said that in the beginning she didn't even want to entertain the idea of letting Whiskey go. But she couldn't stop herself from thinking about what Victor had said, and after she got over her anger, she came to see the truth in Victor's words. That being kept alive by machines couldn't possibly be what Whiskey would want, what he would choose, if he was able to choose. She said that eventually she had to admit to herself that it was only for herself that she wanted to keep him alive.”
For a long time after Mike had finished speaking, neither he nor Charlie moved. It got dark outside, but Charlie made no attempt to get up and turn on the lamp. He felt glad of the darkness, the silence.
What Charlie's sessions with Thomas had helped him to understand was that in between the best- and worst-case scenarios was a realm in which virtually anything was possible. Because Whiskey's injuries were not limited to one area of his brain, it was almost impossible for the doctors to predict how the damage might affect him. To satisfy Charlie's need to know, Thomas had given him a list of some of the most common problems resulting from brain injury and extended coma states. The list ranged from physical impairments, such as loss of muscle coordination, to problems with thinking skills, communication, and social skills.
Charlie had considered each item on Thomas's list in terms of how it would affect Whiskey's ability to resume the life he'd had before his accident. Beginning with the physical impairments, Charlie thought it seemed reasonably likely that Whiskey might never surf or snowboard again. At a more basic level, it was possible he might not be able to drive the car he had loved, that he may not even be able to walk. Those thoughts alone seemed terrible to Charlie. But Thomas had explained that the cognitive, behavioral, and personality defects were often more disabling than any residual physical defects.
Charlie had attempted to picture Whiskey leading a life in which he could no longer do the work that had been so central to who he was, in which a loss of emotional control alienated his many friends. Thomas had told Charlie about the
difficult
stranger
syndrome, in which the person you knew and loved seemed to have been replaced by a person you did not know and found difficult to love. Charlie had tried to imagine Whiskey suffering from depression, lethargy, anxiety, his unpredictable moods and erratic behavior gradually eroding his intimacy with Rosa, with everyone who loved him.
When he gave Charlie the list, Thomas had cautioned him to remember that Whiskey would almost certainly not be affected by everything listed and that some of the problems may be only mildly disabling. But Charlie had found it impossible to retain this perspective. Once he had allowed himself to imagine it, he could not rid himself of this picture in which Whiskey could do none of the things he loved. Worse, Charlie could not shake the thought that the only way to make amends for his mistakes in the past was to stick by Whiskey in his new life, long after everyone else had given up on him; that eventually, Charlie alone would carry the burden of the life of isolation and frustration Whiskey was condemned to lead.
What scared Charlie the most about what had happened at Coma Support was that there was some part of him that responded to what Victor had suggested. For a long timeâperhaps too longâCharlie had allowed himself to hope that Whiskey would return to them intact, that he would be one of those miracle cases of late-night made-for-TV moviesâ
based
on
a
true
story
âa case that went against all the predictions of medical science, defied all the statistics. After all, Charlie had reasoned, wouldn't it be just like Whiskey to prove everybody wrong? Hadn't their grandmother always said Whiskey was born under a lucky sign, that someone was looking out for him, that he had nine lives like a cat?
Even now, despite everything he had learned about coma recovery, there were still days when Charlie entertained these hopes, convinced himself that it was possible. But as Whiskey's coma wore on, those days came less and less often. In time, Charlie's vain hopes had been replaced by a new hope, a different kind of hope entirely, one Charlie could not share with anyone, did not even want to admit to himself. Though he knew it was cowardly, though he despised himself for it, the time had come when Charlie had begun to hope Whiskey would not wake, that he would simply fade away from them so they could preserve the memories of the person he had been. The real reason Charlie hadn't talked to his mother was because he was terrified of how little it would take to persuade him that letting Whiskey go was for the best.
“Do you think Mum's right?” he asked Mike after what seemed like hours.
Mike thought for a long time before he answered Charlie. “I want to know my brother, the person I came here to meet. But maybe that person, the person you know as Whiskey, is already gone. And maybe it's only my own selfishness that wants to keep him hanging on by a thread, day after day. I don't know what Whiskey would want. All I know is that if it were me, I would rather be dead than live like that.”
Lately, when Charlie sat beside Whiskey's hospital bed, he could hardly remember the contempt he had felt for his brother for so long. What he remembered was a feeling twenty years older, a feeling he'd had before he was old enough to have feelings. It was the feeling of Whiskey being his best friend, the person he loved more than anyone else in the world.
Charlie tried to stand up but found himself on the floor, kneeling on all fours. “I know you're right,” he tried to say to Mike, but he couldn't get the words out. He beat the carpet with his fist. “I want him to live!” he screamed. “I want him to live!”
Mike pulled Charlie up off the floor, put his arms around him, and they stood, two men who had been strangers for most of their lives, brothers now, holding each other until their sobbing subsided.
x x x
It was Marco's idea to ask Thomas to mediate between Charlie and his mother. “You went to see her counselor,” Marco said. “Surely it's not unreasonable to ask her to come to yours.”
“I can do it, of course,” Thomas said. “But I'd like to make sure we're on the same page with regard to what
mediation
means.”
“I know what mediation means,” Charlie said, insulted.
“I know you know, in theory. But I want to make it absolutely plain that I won't be going to bat for you. I'm not going to take sides. I'll be there to assist you and your mother in coming to a resolution you both feel comfortable with. My role is to help both of you talk and listen so you can understand each other's position.”
“I already know her position. That asshole Victor made it perfectly clear.”
“I know you're angry with your mother,” Thomas said evenly, “and I certainly don't think she and Victor approached things the best way. But try not to think of her as the enemy. This is not a matter of wrong and right. Your mother's struggling to weigh up what's best for Whiskey, what's best for the whole family, as you are. It would be better for everyone concerned, yourself included, if you would at least listen to what she has to say.”
“I don't want to hear it.”
“Don't you think she has a right to explain?”
“No.”
Thomas was quiet for a moment. “Is your mind totally made up about not switching off the life support?” he asked eventually.
Charlie nodded.
“Well then, where is the harm in letting your mother tell you the reasons behind her thinking?”
“I'm not going to reconsider.”
“I'm not asking you to reconsider. But you and your motherâand Rosa too, of courseâneed to come to a decision about Whiskey that you can all feel at peace with. In order to do that, you're going to need to talk to your mother and to listen to what she has to say.”
“Switching off Whiskey's life support is not an option,” Charlie repeated.
“All right,” Thomas said patiently. “Let's try looking at this from a different angle. Can you tell me the reasons why you're not prepared to do what Victor suggested?”
“Because I want my brother to live!”
“I understand that, Charlie. And I'm sure that at some level that's what your mother wants too. But there's a very strong ethical argument that it's better for a person to die with comfort and dignity than to be kept alive with no quality of life.”
“Do you think I don't know that?” Charlie said, barely controlling his anger.
“So when you say you want Whiskey to live, do you mean regardless of the quality of his life?”
“Of course I don't mean that. You're twisting my words.”
“I'm just trying to understand. How do you feel about the quality of his life right now?”
Charlie stood up. “He's in a coma, for fuck's sake. He's got no quality of life. You know that as well as I do. What are you getting at?”
“Take it easy, Charlie,” Thomas said calmly. “I'm trying to help you get some clarity about the reasons behind your decision so that when you come to talk this over with your mother, you can help her to see it from your point of view.”
Charlie sat back down.
Thomas waited a moment or two, and then he continued. “When you say you want Whiskey to live, you need to be clear about what you mean by
living
, what kind of quality of life would be the minimum you could accept for Whiskey.”
Charlie nodded, and Thomas went on.
“Have you thought, for example, how much longer you would be prepared for Whiskey to remain in a coma with no change in his condition?”
“If I thought he was going to stay in a coma, then I would say my mum was right, that we should switch off the machines,” Charlie said, calmer now.
“But you don't think he's going to remain in a coma?”
Charlie shook his head.
“What makes you think that?”
Charlie shrugged. “It's a feeling I have.”
“What do you mean? Like a hunch?”
“No, not a hunch.”
“Is it something one of the medical team said?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“I can't explain it to you.”
“Why?”
Charlie stood up again, went to the window. “It sounds stupid,” he said quietly.
“Try me,” Thomas said, his patience seemingly endless.
Charlie kept his back to Thomas. “You know that thing they say about identical twins?” he said after a long silence.
“What thing?”
“About them being telepathic.”
“Yes, I've heard that. Do you feel you and Whiskey have something like that?”
Charlie turned abruptly and sat back down. “No,” he said. “It's bullshit. Forget I mentioned it.”
They sat in silence for a while.
“Did you and Whiskey ever have a special way of communicatingâwhen you were closer, when you were kids?”
“Not unless you count walkie-talkies.”
“Walkie-talkies?”
“Our aunt bought us some. A long time ago. But we just played games with them. We've never had a special way of communicating.”
“What kind of games did you play?”
“The kind of games any nine-year-olds play,” Charlie said. “Cops and robbers, that sort of thing.”
“Were you close then?”
Charlie nodded slowly. “Inseparable.”
Thomas was quiet for a moment. “What did you say to each other, with the walkie-talkies?” he asked after a while.
“I don't remember,” Charlie said. He had a pain in his chest. No, not a pain: an ache.
“Can you try to remember something? Anything.”
“We used to use the phonetic alphabet.”
“What's that?” Thomas asked.
“You know,
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie
. They use it over two-way radio systems, to spell out words.”
“Oh yes, I've heard of that.
Foxtrot. Tango.
Aren't they in there?”
“That's right.”
“How did you come to use that?”
“This friend of my dad's taught us. An American guy, used to be in the air force. We were obsessed by the alphabet. That's how Whiskey got his name.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,
Charlie
, that's the word for the letter
C
. So my name was already in the alphabet. But Williamâthat's his real nameâhe wanted an alphabet name too. The word for
W
was
Whiskey
. So that's what I started calling him.”