The Promise of Stardust (23 page)

Mike still came, and I was grateful he did. He was the only one who would come and talk about something else even though he disagreed about keeping Elle on life support. We were still family.

In between the visits, all I wanted to do was sit in the corner of Elle's hospital room and hear her voice in the shelter of her diaries. Instead, people came in waves, my family, Elle's, doctors—the ones I'd chosen and the ones who were to testify for my mother.

And the priest, Father Meehan, wearing black trousers and the collared black shirt, stood in the doorway in silence. Was I supposed to confess that he was the last person I thought to call? I didn't believe Elle's soul needed saving or that some incantation would make a difference to the Almighty God, the Father, Son, or Holy Ghost. I felt like a hypocrite, using Father Meehan so that I could go into court and swear on a Bible that Elle was in God's grace and that keeping her on life support was an expression of her First Amendment rights to practice her religion. Yet I held out my hand to the priest and lied or told the truth. Who knows? In my eyes, she was a good woman, and it never occurred to me that when she died she would go anywhere but heaven. I didn't mention I was uncertain if such a place existed.

He blessed her with oil, uttered his prayers, and gave her Extreme Unction. He turned to leave, and I don't know what came over me, but I dropped into the chair and began to sob.

His brow furrowed, and he pulled up a chair next to mine. He said nothing for a few minutes while I cried with my face buried in my hands. Finally I said, “I'm sorry.”

“I remember your wedding,” he said. “I don't marry too many astronauts. Neither of you have attended Mass much since. She came once in a while this spring.”

I pulled a hospital-issued box of tissue from the nightstand and honked my nose. “After Dylan died.”

He nodded and paused before he spoke. “Is that why you lost your faith, Matt?”

“I don't know,” I said. “Maybe I never had it.”

Father Meehan shook his head, maybe in anger, maybe out of pity. “I spoke with your lawyer,” he said. “He wants me to say Elle and you were practicing Catholics, and I suppose that's why I'm here. For show.”

I swallowed. “In part. But Elle would want to give the baby a chance. She'd want prayers.”

He seemed to measure my words. “What about you? Do you want to give the baby a chance?”

“Of course. We wanted kids.” I hesitated. “If I sound ambivalent, try to understand that my wife is—gone—lost, and I'm so—broken, and so tired. But we wanted children. We always wanted children.”

He nodded. “See, this is what I'm thinking. I understand that you're concerned about whether or not the baby will be born. And without that”—he shrugged—“you think nothing matters, but you've fallen away from the Church, Matt.”

“Don't hold my lack of religious fervor against the baby,” I said. “And Elle might not have been a churchgoer, but she believed in God. Maybe this would be easier
if I did
.”

“I know she believed. She didn't attend Mass often, but she came in to talk more than once about the pregnancies she lost. She believed life began at conception. When I tell the court that, it won't be a lie. I'll testify—for her—for the baby. But I'd like to ask something of you.”

“Anything.” I was willing to make a deal with the devil or with his nemesis. It didn't matter which.

“When the baby is born, I want you to come back to the Church. Come even if you don't believe at first. Go through the motions with an open heart. Have the baby baptized. Make it a commitment to raise the baby with faith. You see, I want you to give the baby a chance, too.”

All in all, it was a small concession. Who knew that the bargaining phase of my grief would be so concrete? “Church. I can do that.”

Father Meehan held up his hand and made the sign of the cross. “This Sunday would be a good start.”

   21   

Change of shift is not a peaceful hour. The nurses forget to keep their voices down when they greet one another—as if it were just another day at the office. There's the occasional bitching about the work anticipated for the day ahead, and then the march through begins.

The night-shift nurse led the day-shift nurse to Elle's bedside, where one reported to the other while inspecting IV bags, double-checking settings and tubings and monitor waves.

I scraped my stiff body out of the recliner and headed into the on-call room. There were benefits to being on staff, including a hot shower and shave without leaving the building.

When I returned, my mother was sitting in my chair with elbows on her knees, her head cradled in her hands. My eyes darted to the ventilator, to Elle's monitor—the same settings, a regular sinus rhythm. I drew air and stood silent, waiting for Mom to look up.

But she didn't. And I realized after a minute that this was how my mother had always cried, in silence, her shoulders heaving almost imperceptibly.

“You okay?” I asked despite my deep anger, resentment, and outrage. The list could have gone on.

She startled, hastily wiping her eyes, then nodded. She was wearing her scrubs covered by a lab coat, her hair pulled up in a soft bun. “I hate this.” She gestured toward Elle. “It shouldn't be like this. Elle. Elle.” She repeated the name like a chant.

Part of me wanted to oust Mom from the premises. But another part of me wanted to hug her and release the grief and horror welled up behind the levee of my reserve. “No,” I said. “It shouldn't be like this. But it is. Because there's still a life at stake.”

“That's not what I meant … I want to roll time back a month. I want her to be all right again.”

“Finally. Something we agree on.” I felt my resolve slipping. “You're working today?”

She nodded. “Trying to, but … well …”

“Don't even try to tell me they sent you over here to check the fetal heartbeat.”

Mom regarded me. “I was at work,” she said. “My patient read my name tag and asked me if I was related to
the astronaut
. When I said yes, she told me to get out—said that I was some kind of baby killer. Me? I've had crazy patients over the years. One sixteen-year-old didn't like it much when I told her to push, and she grabbed me by the throat so hard she left fingerprints, but no one has ever accused me of anything so heinous as being a baby killer.”

“So why are you here? You want me to tell you you're a saint? I'm not about to offer you my support. You're wrong about Elle.”

Mom wasn't looking at me. She was stroking Elle's forearm. “I'm not wrong. She didn't want to die this way.” She bent down and kissed Elle's forehead. “I didn't do anything when Alice was dying. I didn't stand up to Hank. I didn't push the oncologists. I didn't go over anyone's head from the hospice agency. I held my tongue like a good little subservient nurse. Back when nurses were silent. Back when we didn't assert ourselves. Back before we had a voice in the health care team. I grew up old school, as the young ones say these days. And I have regretted my silence, my passivity, ever since. I let my best friend down. I let her suffer.” Mom continued to rub Elle's arm. “I won't do that to Elle. I'm standing up for her and for what is right. And I'm sorry that means I'm standing against you.” Mom was trembling as she whisked past me. “I love you, Matt. Don't forget that. But I love Elle, too.”

Hank was usually meticulous and fresh-pressed from the dry cleaner, but he came in looking like he'd slept in his clothes. I sniffed in his direction. He smelled like Old Spice, not like beer or any other form of alcohol. He shook his head. “I didn't have anything to drink.”

“Okay,” I said, barely masking my doubt.

“I didn't. I look like this because I just got off a plane. I went down to Houston last night.”

“Why?”

“Adam.” Hank sneered. I knew he never liked Adam, and I think it was because Adam was more than ten years older than Elle, and she was only twenty when she started living with him.

To be honest, I never liked Adam either. For eight long years he had the woman I wanted: Elle. “You went to see Adam?”

“He called me. And, Matt, he said he has proof Elle wouldn't want to stay on life support. He's coming here tomorrow to testify.”

My neck muscles locked up as if someone had just slapped a neck brace on me. “Testify? What kind of goddamned proof?”

“He didn't say. Or he
wouldn't
say. That's why I flew down there. To try to get him to tell me what he had. He's been leaving messages on my machine since the accident. Finally he says, ‘If you don't get that asshole'—meaning you; sorry, Matt—‘to turn off Elle's life support, I will.' So I flew down to Houston, but all he said was he has proof.”

It didn't make sense that Adam would interject himself after all this time. “Bastard,” I said. “Forget him. If he had something substantial, he'd have said what it was.”

Maybe Elle was right. Like other members of my gender, when cornered, I resorted to plastering on the face of courage.

I left Hank with Elle and went to meet Jake at my office, barely noticing the four-block walk. My receptionist had shown him in before I arrived and he was talking on the BlackBerry. I dropped down into the chair opposite his.

“Matt just walked in, Yvette. Yeah, yeah, I'll tell him. Love you,” Jake said, hanging up. “Yvette said to give you a hug. You don't mind if I just tell you instead, right?”

“A hug?” Maybe she wasn't as cold as I'd always thought. “Words will do just fine,” I said.

“Any problems getting out of the hospital?” he asked, referring to the press.

“The rain seems to have scared them off. Or they're losing interest. Hopefully the latter.”

“I doubt it,” he said, opening his briefcase.

“Keisha is going through Elle's things at Bowdoin.”

“Gotta say, I like Professor Sudani. I like her a lot. Talked to her for a couple of hours. A feminist Pro-Lifer,” Jake said. “I can work with that.”

I handed over Elle's will and said the attorney we used had not prepared an advanced directive for Elle. Then I mentioned she'd kept a diary, partially loose letters, partially in composition books.

“And?” Jake leaned back in his seat.

“Nothing that says what she'd want to do under the circumstances. At least not yet.”

He asked how long she had kept a journal, and when I told him, he said he would have his associates read through them.

“No,” I said immediately. “They're private. Anyway, there's something else. Her old … Adam Cunningham—the guy Elle lived with for a while—he's making noise about having some sort of proof that she wouldn't want to live on life support.”

Jake tapped his knuckles against his chin. “Your mother retained an attorney, and this Adam Cunningham was on his witness list. Tell me what you know about him. Had he and Elle kept in touch?”

“Maybe a Christmas card, but nothing more. In terms of his credentials, he got his PhD from Princeton, and he works for NASA as an aerospace engineer. Last I knew, he worked on safety issues like heat tiles on the Space Shuttle.”