Life Support (10 page)

“What if it blows up?” she asked.

“You can only do your best,” Fletchall said quietly. “I'm not sure it will work myself, but I don't see any better options at this point.”

Everyone was silent for several moments. Still uneasy, Alexia wanted to say no but couldn't see how to refuse without appearing grossly insubordinate. She spoke slowly, “Okay, I'll see what I can do.”

Leggitt gave her a congratulatory smile. “Good. We'll send you up in a private plane. Be ready to leave in ten minutes. I'll call Ezra and recommend that he avoid any contact with Rena until you are on the scene to mediate any problems.”

Alexia hurried back to her office with a folder containing copies of the documents from Baxter's file in her hand.

“Gwen!” she called. “Come in here.”

“Did they chew you out again?” the secretary asked belligerently. “If they did, I think—”

“No, it wasn't about me,” Alexia interrupted. “It's the Richardson situation. I'm leaving town in ten minutes to go to the hospital in Greenville. Call the people on my appointment calendar and reschedule for early next week.”

Gwen paused. Then she added in a matter-of-fact voice, “It's the money. The poor, young wife wants the money, and the Richardson family is trying to squeeze her out.”

Startled by Gwen's accuracy, Alexia didn't immediately respond. Her secretary had been married three times—once widowed and twice divorced. She knew both men and in-laws.

“Well?” Gwen insisted.

“Not exactly,” Alexia replied hesitantly. “Listen, I don't have time to talk. I have to leave in a few minutes.”

“You don't have to tell me,” Gwen said with satisfaction. “The truth is written all over your face.”

After Gwen left the office, Alexia stopped to make sure she wasn't forgetting anything. She saw the open phone book on her desk and remembered Marilyn Simpson. She wrote down the phone number for the other lawyer on a slip of paper and put it in her purse so she could call while driving to the airstrip.

Returning to Gwen's desk, she asked, “What am I forgetting?”

“Don't let them mistreat the girl. Her husband is dying, and someone will need to stand up for her.”

“You're impossible,” Alexia responded. “If Mr. Leggitt heard you say that, he'd send you out the door. I'm on a peacekeeping mission.”

“He doesn't scare me, and you're a warrior, not a diplomat. You're in your natural element in the heat of battle, not sitting around trying to get everyone to agree to a group hug.”

Alexia grinned. “I hope you're wrong about this one.”

“I'm not. When will you be back?”

“I'm not sure.”

“If you have to spend the night, I'll check on your pets. Is the key in the same place?”

“Yes. On top of the lantern by the front door. Thanks.”

9

Remember him—before the silver cord is severed.

ECCLESIASTES 12:6

D
uring the solitary drive from Mitchell County to Greenville Memorial Hospital, Rena's emotions raged unchecked as she alternatively screamed in frustration and cried in sorrow. Second thoughts and regrets about what she had done crept to the edge of her consciousness, but she furiously fought them back. The consequences of admitting guilt were more abominable than the prospect of living with secret sin.

As she neared the hospital, she wiped her eyes with a tissue and checked her appearance in the mirror on the sun visor. At least she had the visage of a grief-stricken wife. She pulled into the parking lot but didn't immediately get out of her vehicle. The sun had set and darkness was at hand. There was still the opportunity to run. Vanishing into the night had an anonymous attraction; remaining created the risk that she would spend the rest of her life in a prison cell—or worse.

She opened her purse and counted several hundred dollars in cash. But how far would that take her? She wasn't an Eric Rudolph who could isappear into a remote wilderness and frustrate the efforts of men and dogs to track him down. Instinctively, she knew that any effort on her part to become a fugitive would be short-lived. She would be caught within minutes of the first time she used her credit card, and by running away she would abandon any chance to salvage the life of safety and security she'd risked so much to obtain.

Back and forth, the debate raged.

In the end, Baxter vicariously persuaded her to enter the front doors of the hospital. She remembered the look of death on his face as he lay broken at the base of the waterfall. She shuddered again at the thought of his unseeing expression, but the image gave her hope that her husband was incapable of telling the police what had happened. If she ran away, Rena would be found guilty in absentia. By staying, she could influence events.

When she walked into the ICU waiting room, Giles Porter was there to greet her. At the sight of the detective, Rena's resolve disintegrated, and the urge to turn and flee returned with a vengeance.

“I should have offered to drive you,” he said.

“Uh, that's okay,” she managed. “How is Baxter?”

“I talked briefly with a nurse. All I know is that he's unconscious and listed in critical condition. They've taken him to the operating room.”

Rena sighed with relief. The first hurdle was passed. Baxter was not giving interviews to scar-faced detectives.

“Are you going to stay?” she asked.

“I'll be glad to hang around for a while if you need me.”

“No!” Rena said sharply. “That's not necessary.”

The detective touched the scar on the top of his head. The gesture made Rena feel squeamish. It was a subtle threat sending a subliminal message—
tell me what you know, or you'll end up with one of these across your skull.

“I'll be going,” the detective said. “If I can help in any way, let me know.”

“No, thanks,” Rena said as civilly as possible.

She started to turn away and then remembered Baxter's father.

“Wait,” she said. “Could you contact my husband's father in Santee? I left a message on his answering machine but didn't tell him what had happened. There are other numbers where it may be possible to reach him. It's too painful for me to talk to him yet.”

The detective nodded. “Of course. What's his name and the numbers?”

Rena gave the contact information for Ezra. Once again, the detective made no effort to write down any of the data.

“I'll try to contact him as soon as possible,” he said. “I hope your husband makes it.”

After the detective left, Rena approached a male hospital employee who was monitoring ICU visitation. The young man was sitting behind a desk in a corner of the waiting area. A clipboard rested on the desk in front of him.

“I'm Rena Richardson,” she said. “They told me at the entrance to come here and wait for news about my husband. He's in surgery.”

“Was he in the ICU unit prior to surgery?”

“No. He was in an accident and came to the hospital in a helicopter.”

“Okay, then he's not on my list. I'll let you know as soon as he's brought to a room.” Rena sat down in a gold vinyl chair with wooden arms. Fatigue returned, but it was impossible to get comfortable. She made an effort to doze for a few minutes; however, whenever she closed her eyes, she replayed images from the edge of the cliff. By refusing to die, Baxter had doomed her to ongoing connection with him. His death grip remained. She flipped through a few stale magazines but couldn't focus on the words and pictures, which portrayed a world that seemed so phony when compared to the harshness of her reality.

It was almost midnight when the desk clerk answered a phone call. Then he looked in her direction and called her name.

“Mrs. Richardson!”

A few seconds of sleep had finally come to her shortly before he spoke, and Rena awoke with a start.

“No!” she said in a loud voice that caused the other people in the room to give her a puzzled look.

Coming to her senses, she walked to the table.

“They called from the nurses' station,” the young man said. “Your husband came up from the recovery room a few minutes ago and is in a room. You can go back and see him.”

Her heart pounding, Rena opened the door and went into the ICU area.

The patient rooms were clustered in a circle around an open area where nurses constantly monitored the condition of the patients. She walked up to the nurses' station. A young nurse looked up from a chart, and Rena introduced herself. The woman's face immediately registered concern.

“I'm sorry about your husband,” she said. “He's in room 3824. Dr. Kolb, the neurosurgeon, had to go into another surgery and won't be here for a while. I'll go with you.”

Rena followed the nurse toward the door. She wasn't sure how she should or would react to the sight of her husband. The nurse slowly opened the door. Rena held back slightly. As the nurse moved to the side, Rena stepped forward and reluctantly renewed contact with her husband.

Baxter was lying on his back with his eyes closed and was surrounded by tubes running to all four points of the compass. His chest rose and fell in rhythm in response to a ventilator that was inflating his lungs via a tube inserted into his nose. The machine made a slight hissing noise that immediately grated on Rena's nerves. A heart monitor was emitting a low-level beep, and an EKG of his cardiac function played across a small screen on the wall behind his head. His broken right leg had been set and im-mobilized in an air cast. An IV was attached to the back of his left hand.

Rena stared. It was Baxter but then not Baxter. His skin was a pale yellow, and his eyes were sunk into his skull. She shook her head. It was a pitiful sight. He would have looked better in a casket. At least a mortician could have applied a fake tan that mimicked the effects of the sun after a day on the golf course.

Something else was different, but she couldn't put her finger on it. It wasn't just the high-tech apparatus. It was more basic. Then she realized the change. Baxter's hair was parted on the opposite side. Rena wondered if he had been mistaken about the location of his natural part for his entire life. She instinctively stepped forward to brush it back but recoiled at the thought of touching the corpse. The nurse misinterpreted her gesture.

“You can touch him,” she said. “Just avoid the life support apparatus. He's in a coma.”

“A coma?” Rena said. She quickly looked to see if Baxter responded to the sound of her voice.

He didn't move a millimeter.

“Yes. The doctor will explain what's happened, but your husband is better off unconscious at this point.”

“Is he going to wake up?”

The nurse touched Baxter's arm. “Dr. Kolb will give you the details. Most of your husband's chart is still at surgery, so I don't know much more myself. I'll leave you alone. I'm sorry but visits are limited to five minutes every hour.”

The nurse left, and Rena took inventory. She was surprised at how calm she felt. Baxter's immobility lessened the immediate threat. A twinge of the remorse she'd felt at the cliff and during the drive to the hospital returned, but she pushed it away. She blinked quickly as she moved closer to the bed and watched herself reach over and unplug the ventilator. An alarm sounded but no nurses came rushing into the room. Baxter's chest heaved a few times, but the electrical impulses from his damaged spinal cord could not command the lungs to function in regular sequence. His unassisted efforts to maintain life were as futile as trying to start a car with a dead battery. It was over in a matter of seconds. Baxter was at peace. He would never awaken to accuse her.

Rena stepped away from the bed and returned to the real world.

She sighed. The hissing noise of the ventilator cried out to be silenced. She put her hand on the tube that ran from the machine to her husband's mouth and bent it shut for a couple of seconds. Nothing happened. No alarm. Perhaps that would be the way. An interruption of the flow of oxygen without turning off the machine. She squeezed again and held it longer.

“Please don't try to adjust the breathing tube,” a voice said.

Rena jerked back her hand. An older, African-American nurse carrying a blood pressure cuff had entered the room.

“I know it's hard to see him like this, but you shouldn't touch the equipment,” the nurse said. “Are you his wife?”

Rena nodded. “Yes. Do I need to leave?”

The nurse gave her a compassionate smile. “No, I'm just going to check his vital signs, then you can finish your visit. Even though a patient is unconscious, we encourage family members to spend time with their loved ones. You never know what effect your presence may have on him.”

Rena moved to the end of the bed and watched the nurse efficiently perform her duties.

“His blood pressure is normal, he has a slight fever, and his heart is strong,” the nurse concluded. “His vital signs have stabilized.”

“That's good,” Rena responded woodenly. “You're not going to write down that I tried to adjust his breathing tube, are you? I don't want to get in trouble.”

“Of course not. I know you meant well, but it's better to call us if you think there is a problem. That's why we're here.”

When the nurse left, Rena sat in a chair staring at the heart monitor while the sound of the ventilator continued its relentless assault against her future. Baxter was tethered to the earth by thin threads of plastic that served as artificial conduits for breath and nutrition. For all practical purposes, he was dead, and the best way for her to cope would be to classify him as a nonentity. If he were not truly human, it would be easier to contemplate the best method to sever the cord and set him free.

Ralph Leggitt was right when he said that Alexia had a lot of experience handling difficult matters for distraught women. The situation facing Rena Richardson was different from a divorce, but the dynamics would be the same. As Alexia drove to the airport, she planned her basic strategy. She would patiently listen to the young woman pour out streams of relevant and irrelevant information, identify the important data, and summarize options without painting a picture that was too rosy or too bleak. Only when she'd won the client's trust would she offer strong advice. By that point, most of her clients were ready to heed it.