At the Seams

Chapter 23: Day 18 - 2:22 pm

Chapter 23: Day 18 - 2:22 pm

Ginger’s elfin features corkscrew into a contorted mask. Her milky skin purples with rage. Her eyes squint, two raisins tucked into the flesh beneath her brows. Her face drips with tears and snot. Her tiny fists twist into red knots at her sides. She stamps her size five foot on the hardwood floor. The impact makes a surprising racket in the room full of beeping machinery. “I forbid it!” Ginger screams, her voice strained, her words bouncing around the room.

Sam says nothing. He hopes his eyes aren’t laughing. Her anguish isn’t funny, but her antics remind him vividly of Yosemite Sam and he feels laughter in his throat. He keeps silent; better closed lips than flapping ones. Besides, Ginger has more to say.

“I forbid you to give up on my daughter!” she cries at him. They are alone in the Rabbit Hole, but for Mary and Jay. Sam is sure Mary is gone, and hopes he’s right. He wouldn’t want her to witness her family collapsing. Ginger is sure Mary is present, but apparently doesn’t care to spare her daughter the scene. Ginger will insist up to the second Sam pulls the tube. He expects and accepts Ginger’s ire, but will stand his ground.

“Ginger, I told you before, I have no choice,” Sam explains calmly when he trusts his lips to part without laughing. “Neither you nor Simon seem to grasp the decision is already made. Mary made it, years ago. I’m just doing what I’m legally obligated—“

Ginger screws her face up again as she screams. “That’s bullshit and you know it! Simon says she’s conscious. That means she can change her mind.”

“Yet, here we are, ten days away from her last day on Earth and she still hasn’t communicated with us. Her EEG has shown nothing but sleep since I’ve been home. I don’t think she’s there.”

Ginger sobs. “Yes she is, she’s there!”

Sam sighs briefly. “Alright, Ginger, if she’s there, she knows what’s going to happen. If she didn’t know before we started talking about her like she’s not in the room, she certainly knows now. If she could communicate, she would have told us something by now. Maybe she doesn’t want to change her instructions, if she’s there.”

Ginger sobs again, and Sam’s heart wrenches. He wants to touch her, comfort her, tell her that he suffers as she does. He can do none of these things. As many tend to, Sam mistakes kindness for weakness. He fears his empathy will lessen his resolve. He only listens, as Ginger says, “My baby girl is a fighter, she would never give up!” Ginger’s motherly conviction is a fist in Sam’s guts.

“Mary is a fighter, Ginger—” she asked Sam to stop calling her Mom days ago—“but in all the times she’s put up her fists, has it ever been in defense of herself? Mary had little actual regard for her own survival, which is why she traveled and worked as she did. You know all this, but you want to believe Mary would stick it out in her nightmarish state. You want to believe that because it would make you feel better keeping her alive, disregarding her wishes, and disrespecting her husband.”

“You’re a pig,” Ginger spits.

Sam looks at the floor; her comment stings. “I know what you see when you look at me, Ginger. You see a man too young to comprehend the seriousness of Mary’s situation. You see someone who benefits substantially upon Mary’s death. You see someone who actively and diligently fights to end your daughter’s life. You see a murderer, don’t you?”

Ginger says nothing, but when Sam looks into her face, she cannot quickly enough hide the assent displayed there. Sam waits for an answer. Finally, after a long, stony silence, she says, “Not a murderer. But I see someone who doesn’t deserve my daughter.”

Ginger’s jaw drops when Sam softly smiles. “I couldn’t convince her of that, either. But what I do or don’t deserve, regarding my treatment of Mary’s illness or besides it, doesn’t matter. What does Mary deserve?”

“Mary deserves to live!”

“Mary does deserve to live, I agree, but only if her existence isn’t pure torture. Is the conceptual difference that elusive?” Sam watches Ginger. She says nothing, only pouts petulantly. Sam continues. “Ginger, you know Mary. Can you imagine her living the next twenty years, unable to do anything but watch her life disappear around her? Can you imagine?”

“She could wake up any day, it doesn’t have to be twenty years—”

Sam interrupts, as he had when Simon made the same argument. “Ginger, do you hear yourself? Even the slightest chance that you might get what you want is enough for you to betray what she wants. Even if that means torturing her! Screw twenty years, Ginger—why are you willing to torture Mary for even one unnecessary day?” Sam loathes speaking plainly, particularly to upset women, but he must. He owes it to Mary to make her family understand what she wants, even if that means bending over a barrel.

Ginger stares incredulously at him, her eyes big as the firmament, writhing with stars. Were Sam more superstitious, he might believe she cursed him with her glare. She speaks quietly, far more terrible than her rage. “You’re not giving this up, are you? No matter how I beg?”

Sam meets her wild, desperate eyes and holds them. “No matter how you beg,” he says, trying to soften his voice to show her he means no harm to her, only to protect Mary. His words come out sounding only hard-nosed and stubborn. Just as Ginger’s face crumbles, Jay looses a barrage of noises from the hospital bed. Both Ginger and Sam jump and rush to Mary’s side. Nothing strange has occurred since the water and the bizarre bite on the cheek, but both husband and mother fear the source of Jay’s sudden outburst.