Bitter Root (22 page)

“What information?”

“About J.B. Nerbass. I want to know about him, before he became
what he is now.”

Mabel paled and sat heavily on the recliner. “I don’t have
anything to say about that man.”

“But your body language says you do, Mabel. Look, I don’t want to
cause you any trouble. In fact, I brought you a treat. Here.” She handed over
the éclairs.

“You can’t buy me, lady. I’m not for sale.”

“I’m not interested in buying you. I just want to ask you a
couple of questions.”

“I mind my own business. I don’t have anything to say.”

“Let me tell you a story, then? Would that be okay?”

“Go on.” She flipped open the bakery box and pulled out one of
the pastries.

“There was a young girl, from a really small town. Her father was
a really nice guy, a shrimper, but he died, and the girl was left with her
mother. The mother wasn’t a very nice person and didn’t treat the girl very
well. Then the mother met someone, a man. And one day, when she was about
fourteen, the girl disappeared. No one knew what happened to her. Does this
sound familiar?”

“Familiar? Hell, girl, that story happens all the time. In my
case, though, the girl was a delinquent and she ran off to her boyfriend’s
house. It’s a story that plays out down here about a hundred times a year. What
makes your story different?”

“My story is about the girl who disappeared. She’s a woman now,
and still hiding from what she left behind. I want to help her.”

Griffith watched Mabel’s eyes narrow.
She knows exactly who I’m talking about.

“Maybe you should just keep your yap shut. Maybe that girl ran
for a reason.”

“Maybe. She’s kind of shut down, you know, not living her life
completely. I think if she can face what she ran from, she can let it go.”
Please don’t be someone I
shouldn’t have trusted.

“And I say maybe what she left behind should be left alone. Maybe
she knows it could hurt her.”

“But I have to find out, don’t you see? I have to know so I can
support her, either way.” Griffith heard herself say the words and her breath
caught as their meaning registered.
I
want to be there for Adi. I don’t want to be anywhere else. I really, really
want her to be safe and happy. Screw the article.

“What’s this girl to you? Aren’t you just a reporter?”

She could
be everything to me. I have to find out what I am to her
. “I am. But
she’s also my friend and I care about her. I want to see her free of the weight
of her past.”

“You’re stirring up a hornet’s nest, messing with this. The
people you want to talk about are serious people. Dangerous people.”

Griffith had guessed as much. Why else would Adi be so afraid of
him? It was good to know Mabel felt that way too. She wouldn’t be running to
Nerbass to tell him about Griff’s questions. And if she was right about who it
was, dangerous probably wasn’t the right word. But in her line of work, she’d
come up against plenty of vile people who deserved to be taken down. That in
itself wasn’t going to get her to back down.

“So, why would you think this girl would be in danger if she came
back home?”

“Seems to me, if you run away you probably have a reason. If you
run away when you’re fourteen, it’s probably a
good
reason.”

“Okay, but a reason that could hurt her now that she’s an adult?”

“Look. You said J.B. Nerbass. I know all about his daughter and
her disappearance. I always figured her body was out in the marsh somewhere.
Never thought she might still be alive. Now you come around here with this
story, and you make me wonder. I’ll tell you right now, if your friend is
Merley Nerbass, she’s lucky she got away. Everybody in Dulac knows J.B.
would’ve made sure she didn’t live to see fifteen if she’d stayed around.”

“Why? What reason would he have to harm his daughter?”

“That man has two faces. He could get you to believe he’s a
saint, but that ain’t the real man. She lived under his roof. She’d know.”

“Who is he, then?”

“I can’t say. All I know is that when she disappeared, J.B. gave
the papers and the police every kind of anxious face they wanted, but when he
come around asking after her with her friends, he let us all know she was in
for big trouble.”

“He came here? Were Kendrick and Merley close?”

“They knew each other from school, of course, but they had a good
friend in common back then. Rachel Comeaux. If anyone knows about Merley
running away, it would be her.”

“Does she still live here?”

“Oh sure. Rachel’s family owns the grocery store. Conq’s. She
still works there.”

“Thanks, Mabel. I won’t trouble you any further. I appreciate
your help.”

“Listen. You steer clear of J.B. Nerbass. We have a name for him
down here.”

“What’s that?”

“
La mort
cachée
. The hidden death.”

Griffith saw that Mabel was being completely serious. Her fear
was tangible. She nodded her thanks to Mabel and left.
I’m coming for you, Nerbass.

Adi felt someone shaking her. She was disoriented when she
opened her eyes, unsure where she was.

“Get up, Adi. The doctor is here.”

It was T’Claude. The hospital. She sat up and looked at her
watch. They had been at the hospital since eleven forty-five the night before.
It was well after ten in the morning now.

“Ms. Bergeron? I’m Dr. Klein.”

“How’s Bertie?”

“Let’s go sit in the conference room, okay?” He pointed to a
nearby door. T’Claude and Adi followed him and stepped into the small room when
he motioned them ahead. There was a small couch and two stuffed chairs in the
room, as well as a table and a phone.

“Sit down. Please.”

They sat side by side on the couch.

“Ms. Durall suffered a severe stroke. We’ve done all we can for
her, but her prognosis isn’t good.”

Adi felt like she had been punched in the gut. Her ears erupted
in white noise, and she struggled to make sense as the doctor continued to
talk. She held out a hand.

“Wait, wait. Give me a minute.” She put her head down and took
deep breaths to gain control. She needed to hear everything he had to say.

“Could you say that again, please?”

“Yes, of course. I was saying, we’ve done all we can. She hasn’t
woken and is unlikely to regain consciousness. Her stroke was hemorrhagic,
bleeding into her brain. We have stabilized her, but as I said, it doesn’t look
good.”

“So what does that mean? You’ve stabilized her? If she’s stable,
why won’t she wake up?”

“Ms. Bergeron, in a stroke like this one the tissues of the brain
get flooded with blood and die. The location of Ms. Durall’s bleed is causing
her to remain unconscious. When I say we have stabilized her, I mean we’ve
inserted a breathing tube and have done our best to stop the bleeding. She
remains unresponsive, but we’re keeping her alive with the ventilator. Her
chances of waking up from this are very slim, and even then, she’ll be very
different than she has been.”

“So you’re telling me she’s only alive because you’re breathing
for her? And if you took the tube out…”

“Yes, that’s basically it.”

Adi didn’t know what to say or ask at that point. She was numb
with the shock and frightened at what it all meant.

T’Claude’s arm tightened around her. “I’m here, Adi. We’re going
to get through this together.”

“I’ll let you all have a moment. I’ll be right back.” Dr. Klein
rose and left the room.

Adi turned into T’Claude and let him hold her. She couldn’t hold
back her tears any longer. She felt the dam burst and the warm, hot trails
racing down her cheeks. “What are we going to do, T?”

“First, we’re just going to feel. Then we’ll listen and decide
what we do next. For sure, we aren’t going to decide anything right now.”

Adi heard his grief in his voice and knew he was right. Whatever
Bertie’s prognosis, they would wait until they had a handle on all possible
outcomes before they made any decisions about next steps.

“Listen, I’m going to go call Jacques. Bertie’s brother needs to
know what’s going on. I’ll call Jose too. Will you be okay on your own for a
few minutes?”

“Yes. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay then. I’ll be back.” T’Claude pushed through the door and
Adi was alone.
Brain
hemorrhage.
That wasn’t good at all. She wished she had Bertie
sitting here beside her. She relied on her to help her with the hard stuff. She
never expected Bertie to
be
the hard stuff. When they had filled out the medical powers of attorney, she
felt that was a precaution in case her past ever found her. She never imagined
she would be the one using it. She pulled out her phone and started searching
for articles about hemorrhagic strokes.

Twenty minutes later, Dr. Klein returned and Adi felt more able
to process the conversation.

“How are we doing?”

“Better.”

“Good. I’m here to answer any questions you might have.”

“Is Bertie going to survive this? I mean, what part of her brain
is involved?”

“The bleeding was in the lower brain, specifically, the brain
stem. This is the part of the brain that controls breathing, heartbeat, and
blood pressure, as well as speech, swallowing, hearing, and eye movement. I
want you to understand that it is possible, but rare, to have a good recovery
from a brain stem bleed.”

“Then why did you tell me her prognosis isn’t good? If it’s
possible to recover, Bertie will.”

“Ms. Bergeron, the bleeding has been controlled now, but there
was quite a bit of damage done before we could stop it. We really won’t know
the level of her impairment until she wakes, but I can tell you, there will be
impairment. I can’t tell you if she
will
wake up. Best-case scenario, she wakes and can respond when spoken to. She will
need months of therapy, physical and occupational, possibly speech. But she
could recover.”

“What’s the worst-case scenario?”

“Providing she wakes up?”

“Yes.”

“She could be trapped in what we call ‘locked-in syndrome.’ That
would mean her entire body, with the exception of her eyes, would be paralyzed.
She could learn to communicate through eye movements, such as blinking. She
would essentially be on a ventilator, a catheter, and a feeding tube for the
remainder of her life. That’s providing she wakes up. I have to say, though,
given the severity of the bleeding she experienced, the chances she will regain
consciousness are really quite slim.”

“So what do we do now?”

“This is hard, Ms. Bergeron. I know how hard, but you have to
decide whether or not you want to take a gamble and see how she does. I
understand from Mr. Michaud that you hold her medical power of attorney.”

“Yes, I do.”

“And you can produce it if requested?”

“Yes. There is a copy in that folder. But the certified copy is
in the safe deposit box at the bank.”

“Okay. Well, it falls to you to decide whether or not to continue
care.”

“What? What does that mean?”

“You have to decide if Ms. Durall would want to risk any of the
outcomes we have discussed. If you decide she would want to take a chance, we
will continue life support and place her in a medically induced coma. That way
we can slowly bring her out as the healing process works. If you decide she
wouldn’t like to risk these possible outcomes, then we discontinue care.
Basically, we would turn off the ventilator and allow her to pass peacefully.”

“What? You mean… I have to decide whether or not Bertie lives or
dies? I can’t do that. That’s not for me to decide. What if I want her body to
decide?”

“That’s what this is about, Ms. Bergeron. If it were me, I would
let nature take its course and not go to extreme measures to skew the outcome.
I would allow her to be slowly removed from mechanical care and see what
happens. The problem is that the most likely scenario would be death. It’s a
truly difficult decision. It’s hard not to think of yourself and how the loss
would affect you. You have to decide, though, and try to think about what she
would want, and if she could live with the possibility of being paralyzed, fed
by tubes, unable to communicate. I’m going to leave now, but I’ll be back in
after my rounds for your decision.”

Adi felt like her heart was being ripped out of her chest. Bertie
was everything to her.
It’s
not fair.
No one should have to decide something like this. She
rubbed at her arms, trying to warm them. Why were hospitals always so darn
cold? And where was T’Claude? She got up from the couch and walked into the
waiting area. Suddenly, she needed to get out of there, be somewhere without
cold walls and squeaky floors. She headed toward the exit door.

“Hey, where you running off too, Adi?” T’Claude called.

She stopped and let him catch up with her. “I have to get out of
here for a minute, T. I can’t breathe.”

“Okay. Let’s go get some coffee.”

He drove them to a coffee shop nearby and ordered coffee and
Danishes. “So what upset you enough to get you to leave the hospital?”

“I have to decide whether or not to keep Bertie’s ventilator on.
I have to choose if she lives or dies.”

“Now wait, you don’t have anything to do with her living or
dying, kiddo. That’s out of your hands. See, when Bertie had the stroke, the
decision went into the hands of someone higher up. She lived through the night.
She’s alive now. So you aren’t in charge of that decision at all.”

“But, T, they want me to tell them to either unplug the breathing
machine or keep her body alive, whether or not she ever wakes up. Doc said she
could very well be alive and conscious but paralyzed except for her eyes. How
could I choose that for Bertie? How could I decide she should live but never
taste again? I can’t do that. She wouldn’t want that.”