“Injuries too severe … no seatbelt … thrown from the car…” The surgeon kept talking, but Jude couldn’t hear him.
A hospital chaplain moved into her field of vision, dressed in black, a crow coming to pick at bones.
She heard someone screaming, and the sound blocked out everything. She pushed at the chaplain.
It was her. She was the one screaming no, crying.
When people tried to hold her—maybe Miles, maybe the chaplain, she didn’t know who was reaching for her—she pushed free and stumbled aside, crying out her daughter’s name.
She heard Miles behind her, firing questions at the surgeon, getting answers, something about cerebral blood flow and pentobarbital. When she heard him say brain death she threw up and sank to her knees in her own vomit.
Then Miles was beside her, handling her with the kind of gentleness that he usually reserved for his elderly patients. He put an arm around her, hoisted her to her feet and steadied her; she kept collapsing inward.
There were people gathered around, staring at her. Take it back, she thought, looking around at them.
Please, God.
Please.
She was making a scene, humiliating herself.
Miles took her into an empty room, where she collapsed onto a plastic chair, bowing forward. It isn’t real. It can’t be. “I was just with her,” she said to Miles, looking up at him through scalding tears.
He sank to his knees in front of her and said nothing. She felt her insides draining away, emptying. Then there was a knock at the door.
How long had they been in here? A minute? An hour?
The chaplain stepped into the room. Beside him, a woman in a cheap blue suit held a clipboard.
“Would you like to see Mia?” the chaplain said.
Jude looked in his blue eyes and saw tears; this stranger was crying for her, and the cold truth settled deep, deep inside her.
“Yes,” Miles said, and it was the first time she even thought of him, of his pain. When she looked at him, she saw that he was crying, too.
They were so fragile. Who had known that? Not her, surely. Until just now, as she reached for her husband’s hand, she’d thought she was a strong woman. Powerful, even. Lucky.
They stood up together and walked down one corridor and then another until they came to the last door on their right. Far from other patients. Of course.
Miles had the strength to open the door, although how, Jude would never know.
The room was brightly lit, which surprised Jude; almost everything in it was stainless steel. And there was noise in here, machines whooshing, thunking. A computer screen showed a heartbeat spiking and falling across a field of black.
“Thank God,” Jude whispered. She’d been wrong. In the roar of I’m sorry, she’d misunderstood. Mia wasn’t gone. She was right here, looking as beautiful as always, her chest rising and falling. “She’s okay.”
Clipboard woman stepped forward. “Actually, she’s not. I’m sorry. It’s called brain death, and I can—”
“Don’t,” Miles said, so harshly the poor woman went pale. “I know why you’re here and how long we have. I’ve spoken with Dr. Adams. We’ll consent. Just leave us alone.”
The woman nodded.
“Consent to what?” Jude looked at Miles. “She looks perfect. A little bruised, but … look how she’s breathing. And her color is good.”
Miles’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s the machines,” he said gently. “Her body is being kept alive, but her mind … our Mia … isn’t in there anymore.”
“She looks—”
“Trust me, Jude. You know how much I’d fight for her if … our girl were still here to fight for.”
She didn’t know how to believe him. Everything inside of her was screaming that this wasn’t fair, that it wasn’t right, that a mistake had been made. She started to pull back, shaking her head, but Miles wouldn’t let her go. He pulled her hard against his chest, held her so tightly she couldn’t move.
“She’s gone,” he whispered into her ear.
She screamed out loud, struggling in his arms, saying no no no, and still he held her against him. She cried until her whole body felt limp and empty, and finally he let her go.
She moved woodenly to her daughter’s bedside.
Mia was surrounded by machines and wires and needles and IVs. She looked healthy enough to wake up any second and say Hola, Madre.
“Hey, Poppet,” Jude said, hating the way her brittle voice cracked on the familiar nickname. “She needs her Daisy Doggy. Why didn’t we bring him?”