Jodi Picoult - Lone Wolf

It seems almost cruel to be discussing this, literally, over my father’s unconscious body. I look at his face, at the stitches still raw on his temple. “What happens after that?”

“After the organ recovery, he’s brought to the holding area of the hospital. They’ll contact whatever funeral home you’ve made arrangements with,” Corinne explains. “You’ll also receive an outcome letter from us, telling you about the people who received your father’s organs. We don’t share their names, but it often helps the family left behind see whose lives have been changed by the donor’s gift.”

If I looked into the eyes of a man who had received my father’s corneas, would I still feel like I didn’t measure up?

“There’s one thing you need to know, Edward,” she adds. “DCD isn’t a sure thing, like donation after brain death. Twenty-five percent of the time, patients wind up not being candidates.”

“Why not?”

“Because there’s a chance that your father will not become asystolic in the window of opportunity necessary to recover the organs. Sometimes after the ventilator is turned off, a patient continues to breathe erratically. It’s called agonal breathing, and during that time, his heart will continue beating. If that goes on for more than an hour, the DCD would be canceled because the organs wouldn’t be viable.”

“What would happen to my father?”

“He would die,” she says simply, honestly. “It might take two to three more hours. During that time he’d be kept comfortable, right here in his own bed.” Corinne hesitates. “Even if the DCD isn’t successful, it’s still a wonderful gift. You’d be honoring your father’s wishes, and nothing can take away from that.”

I touch my father’s hand where it lies on top of the covers. It’s like a mannequin’s hand, waxy and cool.

If I fulfill my father’s last wish, does that wipe clean the karmic slate? Am I forgiven for hating him every time he missed a meal with us, for breaking up my parents’ marriage, for ruining Cara’s life, for running away?

Corinne stands. “I’m sure you need some time to think about this,” she says. “To discuss it with your sister.”

My sister has trusted me with this decision, because she’s too close to make it.

“My sister and I have talked,” I say. “She’s a minor. It’s ultimately my decision.”

She nods. “If you don’t have any more questions, then-”

“I do,” I say. “I have one more question.” I look up at her, a silhouette in the dark. “How soon can you do it?”

That night, I tell my mother that Cara and I have talked, that she doesn’t want to deal with this nightmare anymore, and I don’t want her to have to. I tell my mother that I’ve made the decision to let Dad die.

I just don’t tell her when. I am sure she’s thinking that the termination of life support will be a few days from now, that she will have time to help Cara process all those emotions, but really, that’s completely pointless. If I’m doing this to protect Cara, then it should happen fast, before it hurts more than it has to. It’s not enough that I’m making the decision; it has to be carried out as well, so that there’s no more second-guessing and she can’t tear herself up inside.

My mother holds me when I cry on her shoulder, and she cries a little, too. She may have split with my father, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t love him once. I know she’s lost in her thoughts about her life with him, which is probably what keeps her from asking too many questions I cannot answer truthfully. By the time she remembers to ask them, everything will already be done.

After she goes to keep vigil in Cara’s room again, I sign the paperwork and call a funeral home on the list Corinne has given me, and then I leave the hospital. Instead of going to my father’s house, though, I drive to the highway that runs past Redmond’s and park along the shoulder near the reservoir where we once went fishing.

It takes some bushwhacking to find the overgrown trail that my father led me down years ago, the one that heads back toward the wolf enclosures. In the dark, I curse myself for not bringing a flashlight, for having to navigate by the glow of the moon. The snow in these woods is up to my knees; it’s not long before I am soaked and shivering.

I see a light on in the trailer at the top of the hill. Walter’s still awake. I could knock on his door, tell him about this decision I’ve made on my father’s behalf. Maybe he’d break out a bottle and we’d toast the life of the man who was the link between us.

Then again, Walter probably doesn’t have a bottle there. My father always said a wolf’s sense of smell is so advanced it doesn’t just notice shampoos and soaps-it can scent what you’ve digested and when and how, days after you indulged. It can smell fear, excitement, contentment. A wolf pup is born deaf and blind, with only its sense of smell to recognize its mother, and the other members of its pack.

I wonder if the wolves know I am here, just because I am my father’s son.

Suddenly I hear one mournful note, which breaks and falls a few steps into another. There is a beat of silence. The same note sounds again, as clear as a bow drawn across a violin. It makes something inside me sing like a tuning fork.

At first I think the wolves are calling an alarm, because they can smell an intruder, even from this distance.

Then I realize it is an elegy.

A requiem.

A song for a pack member who isn’t coming back.

For the first time since I received that phone call in Thailand, for the first time since I’ve been home, for the first time in a long time, I start to cry.

It is a funeral. We just don’t have the body, yet.

I stand awkwardly next to my father’s bed. It is 9:00 A.M. on the dot. The transplant team is ready in the OR. Corinne is here, and two ICU nurses, and Trina. There’s a woman in a suit-I’ve been told she’s from the legal department. I guess the hospital needs to have all its i ’s dotted and t ’s crossed before they turn off life support.

Trina steps beside me. “Are you all right?” she asks softly. “Can I get you a chair?”

“I’d rather stand,” I say.

In five minutes, my father will be pronounced dead. And somebody else will get a new lease on life.

Dr. Saint-Clare slips into the room, followed by Dr. Zhao, the ICU physician. “Where’s Mr. Warren’s daughter?” Dr. Zhao asks.

All eyes turn to me. “Cara told me to take care of everything,” I reply.

Dr. Zhao frowns. “As of yesterday she wasn’t too keen on the idea to discontinue her father’s life support.”

“Edward assured me that she’d given her consent before he signed the paperwork,” Dr. Saint-Clare says.

Don’t they understand that this is what my father would have wanted? Not just for him to be released from this vegetative hell but for me to protect Cara. I’m saving her from having to make a decision that will break her heart. And I’m saving her from wasting her life as the caretaker of an invalid.

“That’s all very well and good,” the lawyer says, stepping forward, “but I need to hear it from Cara herself.”

Two days after the pack howled in reply to me, I was sitting beneath a tree untangling a trap when the big male wolf stepped out of nowhere and ran toward me at full tilt. The other four wolves appeared like ghosts between the trees, coming to stand like sentries in a line. I was defenseless, sitting down like this. I was certain this was the moment I’d die. I could roll onto my back and offer my throat, but I didn’t know if I had the time to ask the animal for trust before his jaws sank into my flesh.