The Choices We Make (26 page)

54

The summer Kate and I were fourteen I was invited to join her and her mom for a monthlong vacation to Canada. Rena was helping her college best friend, Susan, who was recently divorced and who had decided the best way to take charge of her newly single, middle-aged life was to spend her ex-husband's money and escape. So she packed up her life in California, bought a little campground in Ontario's cottage country and convinced Kate's mom she couldn't do it without her. Rena McTavish was nothing if not a loyal friend, who also understood how hard it was to find your way once your identity as a Mrs. was gone. It was decided together they would set up the campground, get the dozen or so cabins fit for guests, and at the same time give Kate and me a fun summer-break experience. Having never traveled beyond California state lines, except for our one family trip to Hawaii, I had my bag packed the moment my mom agreed—two months ahead of time.

What Rena didn't know was how run-down the campground would be—mice had set up nests in nearly every cabin, along with a few red squirrels and the odd raccoon, and the whole place was in desperate need of some elbow grease and vision. The dismay on her face when we arrived was evident, and her quiet, “What have I gotten us into?” as we drove up the pine-needle-covered driveway, surrounded by a forest of trees, made me worry we'd be turning around and heading back to California before even getting out of the car.

But despite its lack of aesthetic appeal, the campground was set on a beautiful lake, whose deep green water hid a rocky bottom and loads of fish to catch. The mosquitoes were fierce, there was no running water at first and Rena mentioned more than once that perhaps we should go home—she had promised my mom a fun adventure, and I think was worried I might report no such thing. But after a few days of hard work the cabins started to show signs of their former campground glory, and Kate and I begged her mom to stay the whole month.

One of our favorite ways to spend the day, while Rena and Susan painted the cabin exteriors, covered in mosquito repellent and sticky brown paint, was to head down to the lake to swim and stuff our faces full of the blueberries that grew wild.

There was one day in particular, probably about a week into our stay, which I will never forget—likely because it was the first time, though not the last, when Kate showed her fearless side and left me giddy with the desire to be just like her. Perhaps it was because my dad died so suddenly and so young that I felt more protective of life, less willing to take risks. Or perhaps I was always that way; stepping out of the familiar and comfortable wasn't easy for me.

On this afternoon the sun trickled through the leaves, illuminating the white birch bark that surrounded this part of the lake with a silver sheen. It was hot, hotter than it had been since we'd arrived. Even with the canopy of trees protecting us from the sun's rays, it was that sort of oppressive heat where you would shed your own skin if that would offer relief. Kate and I lay practically naked in the coolest place we could find, a flat rock a few feet from the lake that was shadowed by a large tree. We lay spread-eagled on old cabin beach towels, dressed in bikinis that were already grungy from a week of lake swimming. I let out a sigh, grumbling about the heat. I felt lazy, almost as if the sun had melted away my motivation as it melted me to my towel. Kate, having flipped to her stomach, turned her head toward the water and cracked open an eye. She seemed to contemplate taking a dip, but then closed her eye and rested her head back on the towel.

It was a good day. We were fourteen and doing exactly what we wanted to be doing on a lazy summer day—absolutely nothing. “I'm hungry,” I said, sitting up. “You hungry?” Kate shrugged, not opening her eyes. “More for me, then.” I grabbed a handful of the wild blueberries from the bucket beside me and shoved the tiny, slightly sour fruit into my mouth. I took another handful and pushed those in, as well. Kate sat up and took her own handful, her jaw moving slowly as she chewed and stared out at the water—which looked as if it had diamonds dancing on its surface thanks to the brilliant sunshine.

With our cheeks bursting with blueberries—looking like the forest chipmunks who would run across our feet to get the peanuts we held out, somehow stuffing nut after nut inside their ever-expanding cheeks—the giggling started, which soon turned into uncontrollable laughter. Blueberry juice dribbled from the corners of our mouths, staining Kate's bathing suit and my towel. I looked at Kate and gave her a big toothy grin, knowing my teeth were purple and filled with the fruit's dark skins.

Laughter burst out of her, along with a few half-chewed berries, which hit me smack on the forehead. Laughing so hard we could barely catch our breaths, we held our stomachs, squeaking out pleas for each other to stop. I felt as though my muscles were about to snap, or that I might actually die from laughing too hard. We finally lay back on our towels, heaving and panting and grinning. An instant later Kate stood up and started running up the hill toward the hanging cliff we always talked about jumping from but as of yet, hadn't found the courage. Scrambling off my towel, I ran after her, shouting for her to wait up.

We burst through the trees on the massive overhanging rock. Kate was a few feet ahead of me, her head held high to the sun. “What do you think?” she asked, not turning around. “Is it time for us to conquer this cliff once and for all?”

A second later, before I could answer her, Kate started running toward the edge and launched herself off the cliff. The sound of her jubilant shout bounced off the rock face as she fell to the water below. I was frozen to my spot, holding my breath, until I heard the splash. Then, trance broken, I lay down carefully to peer over the edge into the long drop to the water. The pine needles stuck sharply into my bare skin, but I barely noticed.

“Kate!” I shouted. “Kate! Are you okay?” I scanned the water, looking for a sign of her white-and-red-starred bikini.

Then I heard “All good!” from the water below. I rushed back down the hill, stumbling a little in my excitement and haste to make sure she really was okay. Kate was dripping wet on the shore, a small gash bleeding on her leg, but with a look of absolute joy on her face.

“You're crazy,” I said, shaking my head and frowning at her leg, which now had a rivulet of blood stretching the length of her shin. “And you're bleeding.” I pointed to her leg, which she then dipped in the water to staunch the blood. A small dot of red appeared almost immediately, but the rivulet it created was much shorter and paler this time.

“Now it's your turn. Let's go.” I protested but allowed Kate to pull me toward the hill. “You won't believe how good it feels to jump off. Just aim a bit left to miss the rock that got me.”

I felt scared but also thrilled as I clambered up the hill behind her. The sun settled on my face as I reached the top of the cliff again, and she grabbed my hand, making sure we stood side by side. Despite the heat, I was shaking hard enough my teeth chattered.

“On the count of three,” Kate said, her eyes shining and her cheeks flushed.

“One...two...three!”
We ran the length of the rock together—hands held tightly—me screaming and Kate whooping gleefully. I felt the rock under my feet disappear, and we were suddenly suspended in the air, hands still clutched together, whooshing down toward the dark, deep water below.

55

As we near the hospital's parking garage David has to get off the phone. The doctors are there, and they need to speak with him. I hang up and give Ben a stricken look.

“Don't go there,” he says, clutching my hand. “We don't know anything yet, okay?” Minutes later we're speeding past the news crews, and the pro-lifers and their signs, and through the entrance, the doors opening automatically but slowly enough I'm practically pressed up to the glass in my haste to get inside. In the lobby we're hit by fluorescent lights and scuffed linoleum, the stale smell of cigarette smoke wafting in from the overflowing ashtrays standing guard on each side of the entrance. And the whole time I'm running, I'm thinking about that cliff, and wishing we could go back—before marriage and babies and the aneurysm threatening to take away the person who understands the only way I will jump is if she jumps with me. I trip as we round a corner and am falling until Ben grabs my arm and yanks me up, tugging me forward so we keep our momentum.

Finally we're in the ICU and we have to adjust our pace, but the adrenaline makes it difficult to slow down. As the nurse directs us to the family room—the same room as before, still with too many chairs and no windows and the pervasive smells of lemon and rubbing alcohol and bad news—my legs feel restless, longing to still be running somewhere.

Dr. Swartzman is in surgery, so it's just me, Ben and Dr. Voss, who assures us the baby is okay for the time being. I ask if David's joining us, having expected him to be in the room, too.

Dr. Voss shakes his head. “No,” he says. “He's with Kate.” I hold my breath, not liking the look on Dr. Voss's face.

“What can you tell us? How is Kate?” Ben leans forward onto the table, nearly putting his elbow into a sticky ring of some kind of spilled and dried liquid. By the color and tackiness of it I'm guessing it's cola. I can't tear my eyes away from the ring, which has bits of lint stuck in it, and wonder how long it's been there—how many elbows have rested into it—and why no one has bothered to wipe it up yet. I put my hands in my lap, far away from the grimy table.

“Unfortunately Kate's had a stroke,” Dr. Voss replies. “Her aneurysm reruptured, and the bleeding into her brain was extensive.”

He clears his throat and I clench my hands more tightly on my lap, my fingertips digging painfully into the tops of my hands. “Like I've explained to David, cases like this generally do not have a positive outcome. The blood is toxic to the brain tissue, and the damage is typically irreversible.”

“What are you saying?” I whisper, though I know the answer. Knew it the moment he told us David was with Kate, instead of in here with us.

“We've done two separate sets of tests, and both show Kate has no brain activity. I'm very sorry.”

“What do you mean ‘no brain activity'?” Ben asks, the table squeaking as he applies more pressure on his elbows, leaning toward Dr. Voss.

“It means Kate is brain-dead, Ben. She's never going to wake up,” I say.

Ben looks at me as if the words I'm speaking are a foreign language. There is no understanding on his face, or panic, or grief. No, that will come later. For now it's simply confusion. Disbelief. I long to go back to the shock, to sit in this lemon-scented family room and rest my arms on the table right in the middle of that sticky, lint-littered soda ring, oblivious to the reality of what this means.

Kate is dead. Machines are keeping her body going, Dr. Voss goes on to explain, but it won't be long before her body begins shutting down.
But what about the ventilator? What about her life support?
Ben asks, still trying to absorb the news. Dr. Voss says life support can keep a body functioning for some time, but eventually the body will start shutting down, organ by organ, system by system. There's simply nothing more they can do.

Kate is dead.
I say it again in my head, but it still isn't registering.

“What about the baby?” Ben asks, and I gasp, which draws a concerned look from Dr. Voss. For one brief moment I forgot about our baby trapped inside Kate's lifeless body.

“We'd like to deliver him as soon as possible,” Dr. Voss says. “We've scheduled the C-section for nine a.m. tomorrow morning, so everyone has a chance to say goodbye to Kate first.”

I check my watch. It's nearly eleven. Ten hours.

In ten hours David will lose his wife. Ava and Josie, their mother.

In ten hours I will become a mother. And at the same time, will lose my best friend and the woman who made it so.

56

I hear Kate's voice, as clear as if she were in the room with us—just another audience member present for Dr. Voss's terrible news.

Time to go throw some eggs, Hannah.

Without explanation I'm up and out the door, sprinting away from the reality of Kate and the stench of rubbing alcohol and to the bank of elevators. But the elevator takes too long so I run to the stairwell, racing down the stairs to the lobby as quickly as I can. I know Ben isn't far behind me. I can hear his voice echoing through the stairwell as he calls my name, his footfalls on the concrete stairs loud as he tries to match my speed.

I stumble out of the stairwell into the lobby and am out the front doors an instant later, my heart pounding. Then I launch myself into the crowd of protesters, grabbing the first sign I see and throwing it across the sidewalk.

“Get out of here!” I shriek, ripping another sign out of a shocked protester's hands and tossing it into the fountain at the front of the hospital. I am creating a scene, and the crowd has stopped moving in its circle, curious and wary of what I'm about to do next, wondering who might stop me if I don't stop myself.

“Go away!” I shout at them, spinning wildly in circles and pointing fingers into surprised faces. “We don't need you! We don't want you here. So take your fucking signs...” As I scream I try to break one of the signs by standing on the rectangular piece of cardboard and yanking on the wooden stake handle, but it's surprisingly resilient. I feel the sharpness of the stake's edge bite into my palm, and look down to see a deep line of blood in my palm. Using my other hand I heave that sign into the crowd, causing a few people to quickly disperse to avoid getting hit. Someone yells back, “Hey! Take it easy.” Someone else is shouting about the police, but I don't stop. Can't stop. “Leave. Now!” I shriek.

For another minute or so—though it feels much longer—I yell at and into the crowd, my words and actions wild. “Don't you see you're making things worse?” I sob out, trying to pry the
Save Baby Matthews
sign from the determined fingers of a middle-aged woman wearing a flashy coral scarf. “Stop...it... Give it...to me.” But she refuses to hand it over and sets her stance wide so she can pull back against me. We're in a tug-of-war, her telling me to let go, me screaming at her to shut up and give me the sign—and then suddenly, I'm pulled away as strong hands grab me.

I kick and fight but am overpowered and being carried away from the crowd, and then the owner of these strong hands—a police officer—presses his fingers into my scalp so I'm forced to duck, making sure I don't hit my head when he puts me in the back of the cruiser.

I see Ben standing a few feet away, straining against the bulk of another police officer who is keeping him from getting to me, his hands on either side of his head and a panicked look on his tear-streaked face.

* * *

“You're lucky. They aren't going to press charges,” Peter says from beside me in the back of the cruiser.

I nod. “Well, I guess that's one good thing.” My voice is hoarse from all the yelling, and there's a horrible pain behind my eyes. I rest my head back against the seat and take a deep breath. “I'm sorry you have to be here. You should be up with Claire and Amelia.”

“Don't worry about that. They're both fine. But you are clearly not. What happened, Hannah?”

“I just needed to throw a few eggs,” I whisper, closing my sore eyes. Then a little louder I say, “I lost it, though I guess that's fairly obvious. Kate is dead, and I totally fucking lost it.”

He says nothing for a moment, the silence of the car punctuated only by the chatter on the cruiser's scanner. “I'm sorry about Kate. I can't imagine what any of you are going through right now. But you need to hold it together, okay? Ben is having a coronary, not literally of course, but he's as stressed as I've ever seen him. Plus, there's a baby that needs you. He needs you to hold it together.”

“I know,” I say. “I'm sorry.”

“You don't need to be sorry.” Peter puts a hand on my arm, and I turn to look at him. “You're free to go. But if you want to take another minute here before you head back upstairs, to get yourself together, take it.”

“Thank you,” I say. “Please don't tell Claire or my mom what happened, okay? They don't need to worry about this.”

“I can't promise they won't find out,” Peter says. “After all, I expect you're making tonight's news, but I won't tell them for now. Promise.” He smiles and I lean into his embrace.

“Can you ask Ben to come in here?”

Peter nods, knocking on his window for the officer outside to open the door. “You bet.”

I take another deep breath as the fresh air wafts into the cruiser through the open door, and a moment later Ben leans in, concern sketched across his face. “Hannah.” He lets my name out in one long breath, and I start to cry. Softly, without drama this time.

“I'm sorry. I'm so... I don't know what happened.”

Ben sits down on the seat and leans on his knees, his tall frame awkward in the cramped backseat. “I just need you to answer one question for me, okay?”

I nod, our eyes meeting.

“Do I need to worry about you? Like, really worry about you?”

I shake my head. “You do not need to worry about me.”

“Okay, because...” He sighs and runs a hand over his face. “Because what just happened out there, well, I'm worried, Hannah.”

“I promise. You do not need to worry. I'm okay.
I'm okay.
” I reach out and press my palm against his cheek, and he takes another deep breath. He takes my hand and turns it over, lifting the piece of bloodstained gauze the officer gave me and looking at the cut in my palm. “You should get this checked out. It looks deep.”

I close my hand, his fingers trapped in my fist, and wait until he looks at me. “It's fine. I'm fine. Now, how about you knock on that window and get us out of here?”

Ben smiles, then with his eyes still on mine, raps his knuckles against window.

“I need to see Kate,” I say. “And David.”

“I know you do.” Ben holds the car door for me. Then he wraps an arm around me, taking some of my weight as we make our way back into the hospital.