Jodi Picoult - Lone Wolf

“Cara,” Trina says, “this is Abby Lorenzo. She’s a lawyer for the hospital.” Immediately I panic-thinking of the two cops, and the blood test that showed I’d been drinking that night. My mouth goes dry, my tongue feels as thick as a mattress.

Does this mean they’ve figured out what happened?

“I wanted to ask you about your father,” the lawyer says, and in that instant I am sure that I’ve turned to stone, that I can no longer escape.

“You seem upset,” Trina says, frowning. “Edward said you two had talked.”

“I haven’t talked to him since yesterday,” I answer.

My mother puts her hand on mine, squeezes. “My son told me that he and Cara decided that Edward would make the medical decisions for their father from here on.”

“What?” I blink at her. “Are you kidding me?”

The lawyer looks at Trina. “So you haven’t given consent to terminate your father’s life support today?”

I don’t even think. I just stumble off the bed, barefoot, and use my good shoulder to shove my way between the two women. And I run. To the stairwell, down to the ICU floor, clutching my bad arm to my chest and fighting off the pain I feel with each jostle and turn.

Because this time, when I save my father, I’m not going to screw it up.

My Native American friends call it the dance of death: the moment that two predators size each other up. For a wolf in the natural world, the brain doesn’t have a choice. It doesn’t get to say, There’s a bear coming and I’m going to die. Instead, it thinks, What do I know about this bear? What do I know about my environment? What members of my family do I need to protect myself? Suddenly the bear is no longer a threat. He knows that you’re a predator, and you know that he’s a predator. You respect each other’s ground, turning very slowly, eyeball to eyeball. The space between you is the difference between life and death. Does he see you as a prey animal? Or does he see you as something that can injure him as he comes after you? If you can put that doubt in his mind, chances are, he will leave you be.

She is a five-foot, three-inch storm: red-faced, tear-streaked, hair flying out wild. And she’s coming right for me.

“Stop!” Cara says. “He’s a liar!”

The doctors have gone, ready to be paged once we get the attorney’s permission. Corinne has been anxiously pacing; there is a narrow window of opportunity for organ donation that is slipping away moment by moment. I was just doing what Cara had asked. She wanted this to be over, but she was too close to my father; I understood that. It was like the little kid who holds out his arm for a vaccination and shuts his eyes tight, because he doesn’t want to look until it’s all over.

But apparently Cara’s changed her mind. Before she can scratch my eyes out, a nurse grabs her around the waist. Corinne steps forward. “Are you saying that you didn’t give consent to the organ donation?”

“It’s not enough to kill him?” Cara yells at me. “You have to cut him into pieces, too?”

Maybe I should have asked my sister if she wanted to be here. Based on what she’d said yesterday, I figured she wouldn’t have been emotionally capable of it. This outburst only reinforces that.

“It’s not what Dad wanted. He told me so.”

By now, the hospital lawyer and Trina and my mother have reached the room. “Well, that’s not what Dad told me, ” I say.

“When?” she scoffs. “You haven’t lived with us for six years!”

“All right, you two,” the lawyer says. “Nothing’s going to happen today, I’ll tell you that much. I’ll ask for a temporary guardian to be appointed to review your father’s case.”

Cara visibly relaxes. She falls back against my mother, who is staring at me as if she’s never seen me before.

What I do next, I do because I have a letter burning in my breast pocket that’s validation.

Or because I know better than Cara how you have to live with the choices you make.

Or because, for once, I want to be the son my father wanted.

I lean over, bracing my hands on my knees, as if I’m disappointed. Then I dive down to the linoleum, pushing aside the nurse who is sitting beside the machine that’s breathing for my father, waiting for a cue that isn’t going to come.

“I’m sorry,” I say out loud-to my father, my sister, myself-and I yank the plug of the ventilator from its socket.

At first, when the alarm goes off, I don’t even realize what’s happened.

Then I look up from my mother’s shoulder and see Edward on his knees, still gripping the electrical cord that trails from the ventilator. He is holding the plug in his hand as if he cannot believe it is actually there.

I start to scream, and all hell breaks loose.

The nurse near Edward stumbles upright as another nurse calls for security. A burly orderly rushes into the room, shoving my mother out of the way as he tackles Edward. He slams Edward’s hand against the floor, and the electrical cord flies free; immediately, the nurse plugs the machine in again and hits the Reset button.

Maybe all of this takes twenty seconds. It’s the longest twenty seconds of my life.

I hold my breath until my father’s chest starts to rise and fall again, and then I give myself permission to burst into tears.

“Edward,” my mother gasps. “What were you thinking?”

Before he can answer, security arrives. Two guards stuffed like sausages into their uniforms grab Edward’s arms and haul him upright. Dr. Saint-Clare runs into the room, short of breath. He bends over my father, immediately assessing the damage Edward’s done, as a nurse brings him up to speed.

I can feel my mother tensing behind me. “Where are you taking him?” she demands, trailing the officers as they start to drag Edward off. Abby Lorenzo, the hospital lawyer, follows them.

“Stop! Please. He’s been here round the clock, hardly sleeping,” my mother begs. “He wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“I can’t believe you’re defending him!” I say.

I can see the storm in her eyes, the one that’s tearing her in two. I take a step back, putting distance between us. After all, she did it first.

My mother looks at me, apologetic. “He’s still my son,” she murmurs, and she leaves the room.

Immediately, Trina approaches. “Cara, why don’t we sit down somewhere quiet while your mother sorts all this out?”

I ignore her. “Is my dad okay?” I ask Dr. Saint-Clare.

The neurosurgeon looks at me. I know what he’s thinking: Your father wasn’t okay to start with . “It depends on how long he spent without oxygen,” Dr. Saint-Clare says. “If it was longer than a minute, it might be clinically significant.”

“Cara,” Trina says again. “Please.”

She touches my good arm, and I let myself be led away. But the whole time, my mind is racing. What kind of person pulls the plug, literally, on his own father? How much hate did Edward have to be nursing to deliberately go behind my back, to tell all these doctors and nurses that I had agreed to terminate life support, and then, when it didn’t go according to plan, to take matters into his own hands?

Trina leads me down the hall to a lounge. There are a few on the ICU floor, for families who are in for a long wait. This one is empty, with uncomfortable orange couches and magazines from 2003 on the coffee tables. I curl into a ball in the corner of one of the couches. I feel impossibly small, overlooked.