Fighting History (Fighting For Love Book 4) (11 page)

He touched her cheek. “It’s bad?”

“It’s almost as bad as it gets.” Maggie stood up shakily, pushing her hands through her hair. “She seized and went in to cardiac arrest. The nurse said I need to get there now… especially since they won’t use any extraordinary measures. If her body starts to shut down, they’re just going to let it happen.” She spoke through the lump in her throat. “I may – I may have to say goodbye.”

“Goddammit.” Joe grabbed her hand again. “Let’s go.”

“But – but the lockdown.”

“Fuck it.”

He wrapped her jean jacket around her shoulders, ushered her in to the open space and marched her up the stairs, unlocked the door. They stepped in to the street and looked around for a police officer.

“OK, let’s start to walk to my car, Maggie. We’ll deal with the cops as we need to.”

“Alright.”

Joe held the passenger side door for her, rushed around to the driver’s seat. The engine starting sounded very loud in the empty street, and Maggie looked around again, fully expecting a dozen cops to swarm them, guns drawn.

“Where
are
they all?” she said.

Joe shrugged. “Don’t care. Let’s just worry about the ones at the barricade.”

“OK.”

He drove down the block, turned left and Maggie blinked. There were at least ten police officers there, looking seriously pissed off. Joe stopped within five feet of the cars blocking the street and he leaned out his window.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” the one cop hollered, heaving his muscular bulk over to them. He was dyed blond and boasted one heck of a fake tan and looked like he wasn’t old enough to even be shaving yet. “Go back to wherever you came from.”

Joe fixed him with a hard stare. “Where’s your superior, kid?”

Maggie gasped.

“I’m sorry?” The police officer came closer now, furious. “You calling me ‘kid’?”

“I am,” Joe said calmly. “We have a serious emergency and I’m going to the hospital. Who do I have to speak to about that? Because I
know
it’s not you, Jersey Shore.”

The kid looked like he was about to lose his mind, but an older man stepped forward now. “What’s the emergency?”

“My mother,” Maggie said, her voice trembling. “The nurses told me to get there right away… that I may have to say goodbye to her.”

The man gazed at her. “Ma’am, we get lots of stories like that, sometimes just because people want to go to the store and buy beer.”

“Then call the hospital!” she cried. “She’s at St. Luke’s, and her name is Rita Branson. Here – here’s the number to the nurse’s station.
Call
them.”

The man was silent for a few seconds, eyeing Maggie, reading her face. Finally, he turned and called to some of the other officers, “Let them pass.”

Maggie almost crumpled to the floor. “Oh, my God. Thank you.”

He nodded. “The best of luck to you, ma’am.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Joe drove away from the barricaded area and glanced over at Maggie. “Hold on, OK? We’ll be there soon.”

She stared out the window, trying to keep herself together enough to face whatever was waiting for her in her mother’s room.

Hang in there, Mom. I’m coming. Just stay with me a bit longer, OK? Please don’t go without letting me say goodbye. Please.

Chapter Fourteen

In the elevator, Joe watched Maggie closely. She was shaking and pale, her eyes fixed on the floor numbers as they ascended, stopped, ascended again. He knew she was feeling every second of every delay as people struggled on and off on crutches, or were rolled in and out in beds. At one point, he seriously thought she was going to bolt out and make a dash for the stairs.

They got off on the sixth floor and Maggie shot off to the right, straight down the hall. A tall blonde nurse rushed to meet her.

“Hurry, Maggie… hurry!”

Maggie broke in to a run now, and Joe let her go, watched her move farther away from him. She disappeared around the corner and he followed, his heart in his throat.

Fuck. I hope I got her here in time. I’ll never, ever forgive myself if she doesn’t get the chance to say goodbye to Rita. She was at the restaurant tonight because of me.

He turned the corner and blinked at the long hallway in front of him. He passed room after room, peering in, looking for Maggie. He saw her now, and he hovered in the doorway, uncertain if she wanted him there.

Rita was conscious, thank God, and Maggie was leaning over her, listening intently to what her mother was saying. Maggie was nodding and whispering, stroking her mother’s hair back, and Joe felt an overwhelming rush of love for her. Even at this horrible, heart wrenching moment, she was behaving with nothing but strength and sweetness.

She turned to him now, waved him over. He hesitated, then approached the bed. Rita looked at him, and he tried to hide his shock at her appearance. Her eyes were bloodshot, the area around them a bruised black, and she was horrifically swollen. In places, her skin was an angry red; in others, a deathly gray.

Oh, my God. She’s really going to die right in front of her daughter. Maggie is going to be an orphan tonight.

“Joe.” Her voice was faint and he moved closer. “You brought Maggie here?”

“Yes.”

Her green eyes – so like Maggie’s – surveyed him. “Thank you.”

He inclined his head. “You’re welcome.”

She closed her eyes now and Maggie stiffened. “Mom?”

“Margaret.” Rita tried to focus on her daughter. “I’m going to have to go soon.”

“Mom, no.” Maggie fought to stay calm. “The doctors will find a way, I know it. A different drug, some way to control the sepsis. Your body will rally, OK, and you’ll get stronger and you’ll be fine. I’ll take you home and we can start to think about taking a trip together at Christmas. Paris, remember?”

Rita shook her head. “I’m tired, honey. I’ve been tired for years, and I’ve been fighting for so long. Hours of dialysis every day, and years of waiting for some innocent person to die so I could get their kidney, and the stress of this transplant… all the bad side effects and now the sepsis.” She tried to smile. “I want to get some rest, Maggie. I want some peace.”

“Mom…”

“Please.” Her eyes were full of quiet desperation. “
Please
. Let me go. Tell me it’s OK for me to go… tell me you’ll forgive me for leaving you. Please don’t hate me for giving up.”

Maggie stared down at her mother, frozen, unable to believe what she was hearing.

My mother is actually asking my permission for her to die.

No. No, that’s not right. She’s asking my permission to sleep.

Maggie sat down right next to her mother, her leg resting against Rita’s. She took her Mom’s hand, squeezed it gently. When Joe looked at Maggie’s face, it was shining with love, and his breath caught at her beauty.

“It’s OK, Mom,” Maggie said. “You can go now. I won’t be angry and I won’t hate you and I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me… just let go. Just sleep.” She smiled. “Say hi to Daddy for me. Tell him I love him.”

“I will, honey.” Rita’s lips curved upwards in a weak smile. “Thank you, sweet girl.”

Maggie nodded, but couldn’t seem to say one word more. She sat and watched her mother’s face relax, and she marveled that Rita suddenly looked younger and lighter. More content, more free. She looked truly happy, for what was the first time in a long, long time.

The first time in years. She’s ready to go.

“I love you, Mom.” Her tears were falling now, and she let them.

“I love you too. So much, more than I’ve loved anything in the whole of my life.” Rita’s eyes fluttered shut and stayed closed. “My baby girl.”

Her breathing deepened now, evened out. Joe could almost
see
her releasing her grip on life, just letting go of the desire to keep on with the fight. Rita was walking off the field of battle by choice; she was lying down and letting the blackness just crash right over her. She was surrendering, but Joe was damned if he’d say that she’d given up or lost.

He stood for a few minutes with his hands in his pockets, without a clue what to do, where to go, what to look at. “Maggie?”

She glanced up at him.

“You want me to leave?”

She considered him, really took him in. Joe stood still, feeling like his whole worth as a man and a human being was being weighed and measured in her perfect eyes. Then she shook her head.

“OK,” he said. “I’ll be right here if you need me.” And he settled himself in the chair next to the window, looking at Maggie and Rita. All that he saw in front of him was the epitome of grace and love and courage, and he felt tears welling up in his own eyes.

They waited.

**

At about three o’clock in the morning, it happened. Joe sat straight up in his chair, shocked to complete alertness by the alarms ringing and lights flashing on the machines next to Rita. Maggie gripped her mother’s hand tighter, and nurses rushed in to the room.

The blonde one who had spoken to Maggie by the elevators turned off the alarms. The silence was empty and almost deafening.

“She’s gone?” Maggie’s voice was eerily calm, and Joe’s heart ached.

“Not yet, hon.” The nurse was firm but kind. “Those alarms mean that her system has gone in to full organ failure. She’s gone past the point of being able to come back to us… her body is now completely deprived of oxygen. She’s dying, Maggie, but she’s not all the way gone. Not yet.”

“When?”

“No way to say for sure.” The nurse looked at Rita, looked at the monitors. “Everyone is different. It could be five minutes, it could take hours. All we can do now is wait.”

“How will I know? How will I know that she’s really gone?”

“See this line?” The nurse pointed to one screen with a red line across it. The line had peaks and valleys in it, spikes and flat sections.

“Yeah.”

“When these blips stop completely, that means that all vitals are gone. It means she’ll be brain dead.” Her eyes were gentle. “That’s how you’ll know, hon.”

“Thank you.”

She touched Maggie’s shoulder. “I’ll be at the station if you need me. OK?”

“OK.”

The nurse nodded at Joe as she passed him, and he nodded back. He stared over at Maggie, trying to imagine what she must be feeling. His grandfather had died of a massive heart attack while at home; the doctors said that he’d died within seconds of it beginning. Joe had always regretted not being able to say goodbye to Steven, but he’d found comfort in the knowledge that his Grandpa hadn’t suffered. And still the loss was huge and devastating.

But
this
? Sitting and watching someone you love die one failing organ and asphyxiated cell after another? Just slide away from you, right in front of you, knowing that there was nothing to be done to hold them here? Joe thought that had to be a special kind of torture, one that was akin to a living nightmare.

How is she still in one fucking piece?

Time passed and they didn’t say a word. They barely moved. Then Joe spoke.

“Maggie?”

She looked at him and the urge to hold her was immense.

“What do you need me to do? Tell me, baby.”

“I don’t know.”

They stared at each other.

“You want me to get you some food?” he asked.

To his relief and astonishment, Maggie smiled. “Oh, Joe… it has always amazed me that the way you offer comfort and support is with food. It’s – it’s actually a thing of beauty.”

“Well,” he said, trying to make a small joke. “I’m not sure how much comfort I can offer with hospital cafeteria food. It may be the very
opposite
of something beautiful.”

She managed a grin. “Yeah, true enough. But I’m not hungry. Thanks anyway.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.” She paused. “Maybe you can get me something hot to drink? Tea?”

“Sure thing, sweetness. I’ll be right back.”

She watched him go out of the room and she sighed. Alone with her mother now, she stroked her cold hand gently.

“God, Mom. You were right, you know. There
is
a good man in there, it just took a while for him to declare himself. But he’s here now, front and centre. Impossible to miss.” She smiled. “I think… I think if I ask, he’ll want to be with me again. But not like how it was before. I think he’d be honest with me. I think… he’d be good to me.” She glanced back at the door. “I just don’t know if I should take that chance. Can I trust him? Really trust him?”

She was silent for a few seconds.

“Is it true that once someone is a cheater, they’re forever a cheater, Mom? Can people really change? I mean, if they really,
really
want to… can they change?” She bit her lip. “Do I take the chance? Am I strong enough to not fall to pieces if he does it again?”

Maggie looked up from her mother’s still face, almost idly checking the monitor screen. She blinked for a few seconds, simply not comprehending what she was looking at, then with the force of a semi-truck, it hit her, hard enough to knock the breath out of her.

The red line on the screen was completely flat.

Oh, my God. That’s what flatlining means.

When Joe came back in to the room, he found Maggie sitting next to the bed, holding her mother’s hand in both of hers, pressing Rita’s hand against her cheek. She was silent and still, almost cold in her lack of emotion. He paused in the door, uncertain, and then he looked at the monitor.

“Oh, Maggie.” His voice was rough. “Baby…”

She didn’t seem to hear him, and he set the tea on the small table next to the door. Joe walked over to her, not sure if he should touch her. He stood next to Maggie, waiting for her to tell him what to do, to say what she needed.

He heard a sound behind him and from the rubber-soled foot falls, he knew it was the nurse again. He didn’t turn around; he knew she was there to start the process of forever separating Maggie and Rita and he closed his eyes.

Joe almost sighed when a doctor walked over to the monitor, turned it off, and then checked Rita. He glanced at his watch.

“Time of death… three forty-three a.m.”

Maggie didn’t give any sign that she’d heard him.

“Maggie,” the nurse said gently. “How you doing?”

Maggie looked up, her eyes blank.

“Honey? You with us?”

No answer.

Joe exchanged worried glances with the nurse.

“Baby?” he said.

Maggie started.

“Talk to us, sweetness, OK? You here?”

“Mom’s an organ donor,” Maggie said suddenly, startling the others. “Are any of hers viable? Even with the sepsis?”

“Yes,” the doctor said quietly. “Some are, for sure. But we can’t do anything for a while, Maggie.”

That got her attention. “Why not? If she’s gone?”

“Because we have protocols.” The doctor put his hands in his pockets. “We need brain death for twenty-four hours, and we need two different doctors to perform neurological tests on Rita, to really make sure. Once we’ve decided her status of brain death, then we can begin the process of… of harvesting.”

Joe felt a wave of nausea wash over him.

What a fucking grisly topic. But maybe Maggie needs something good to come of this, for other people to get a shot at life… after all, her own mother could have benefitted from transplant, if things had gone differently.

Maggie nodded. “You have the paperwork that Mom signed?”

“I do,” the nurse said. “And if there’s no change in her condition for twenty-four hours, I’ll have some more things for you to fill in. But for now, why don’t you take some time, honey.” She touched Maggie’s shoulder. “We can worry about the rest of it tomorrow, alright?”

Maggie nodded again.

And then she and Joe were alone in the room. He didn’t say one word: he thought that expecting her to answer a question, or to hold up one half of conversation was unfair to the point of bordering on sheer cruelty. To ask her to do anything more than breathe was to ask the impossible.