Mitigation Read online

Page 1

  I vaguely note that Matt is wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes… an outfit that I’ve never seen him in before. It’s a far cry from the tailored business suits and silk ties he always wears.

  No matter what he’s wearing, when I release my mom’s hand and turn to walk into his outstretched arms, I finally feel a small measure of comfort.

  Matt wraps himself around me, and I lay my head on his chest. He smells like fresh soap, and I could care less how obvious I am when I turn my nose into his shirt and inhale him deeply. Unfortunately, it makes me painfully aware that I probably smell like a garbage dump since I haven’t showered in over a day and a half.

  Pressing his lips to the top of my head, Matt just holds me until I’m ready to break free. But I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready. This is the first time in our tortured game that he has held me just to comfort me, with no expectation of getting anything in return. It’s a side of Matt I’ve never seen, and I probably won’t see again after he leaves.

  Which now makes me realize… why is he here? This is very anti-Matt. We eat dinner together… we have sex. That’s all there is.

  But I can’t let that be one of my worries because I have enough on my plate. For now… I’ll just enjoy Matt’s strong embrace and worry about everything else later.

  Unfortunately, my peaceful moment is disturbed when my stomach gives an incredibly loud and embarrassingly long rumble of hunger. It sounds like Chewbacca and a T-Rex having a mixed martial arts contest inside my stomach.

  Matt pulls slightly back and looks down at me. “When’s the last time you’ve eaten?”

  “When I had dinner with you, I guess,” I answer, because I think that’s the last time I’d eaten. Wracking my brain, I couldn’t remember putting anything else in my stomach other than coffee, which is probably why it felt full of burning acid right now.

  Grabbing my hand, Matt says, “Let’s rectify that. ”

  I pull back, glancing in worry at my mom laying in the bed… the respirator slowly whooshing in and out. “I can’t leave her. ”

  Matt’s eyes turn warm, but they are stern. “Mac… she’ll be fine if you leave for just a few minutes. The nurses’ station is right outside her door. We’ll come right back, but you need to eat to keep up your strength. Okay?”

  He waits for me to decide, which again is very anti-Matt. The Matt I’ve come to know and ‘love to hate sometimes’ would have dragged me kicking and screaming down to the cafeteria and shoved food down my throat. Now, he’s presenting me with an option and leaving the choice up to me.

  “If you don’t want to leave her,” he continues, “I’ll go down, get you something, and bring it back. But I think you should come with me… stretch those legs a bit. ”

  I glance back at my mom and feel tremendous guilt for leaving her side for even a minute. But then rationality comes back and I realize… she won’t even know I’m gone. She won’t know anything, ever again.

  I nod at Matt and he takes me by the hand, linking his fingers with mine as we walk through the hospital. Following the signs pointing to the cafeteria, we walk in silence for a bit because I’m still stunned that he’s here. I can’t figure out why. It’s not something he should be doing as my employer. But he doesn’t seem to have any feelings for me outside of the bedroom, so that doesn’t make sense either.

  Deciding to go ahead and put this worry to rest so I can concentrate on the more important things, I stop and turn to look at Matt. “Why are you here?”

  “Because no one should go through something like this alone,” he says simply.

  “Yeah… but I’m not your responsibility or concern. ”

  Matt shrugs his shoulders and resumes walking. “Truth be told, Mac… I’m not really sure why I’m here. When I got into the office this morning, Miss Anders told me what happened. I guess Macy called her. ”

  “Yeah, I vaguely recall telling Macy to call the office for me. ”

  “Well, I called Macy back to get more details. She was beside herself fretting about you. Said you hadn’t called her, and you weren’t returning her calls. She wasn’t sure whether to get on a plane to fly to be by your side or not, but then she said you sort of told her you didn’t want her there, so she didn’t want to intrude. I’m telling you… she was a mess. ”

  Guilt courses through me for doing that to Macy, and honestly… I don’t even remember doing that. I think I was operating in a state of shock. I make a note to call her as soon as I finish eating something.

  Matt continues. “Anyway, I decided to take the worrying away from Macy and told her I would fly down here to help you out. I made a quick stop at home to pack a small bag, and here I am. ”

  “Thank you for coming,” I say in a small voice. “You really didn’t have to. ”

  “I know,” is all he says, and then the subject is closed.

  Matt walks me through the line but nothing looks good to me, so he proceeds to fill my tray up with a variety of items. After he pays, we find a seat and he points at the food. “Eat. ”

  “You always have to be in control, don’t you?” I grumble, even as I pick my fork up and take a small bite of mac and cheese.

  Damn, that’s good.

  Matt just gives me a knowing smile and watches me while I eat. If I look like I’m ready to slow down, he points at the food and that’s all he has to do to urge me to eat. When I’m done to Matt’s satisfaction, I push the tray off to the side and lean back in my chair. I’m exhausted, and I scrub my hands over my face in an attempt to revive myself.

  Finally, I focus on Matt, who is patiently waiting for me to talk… if I want to.

  “I don’t know what to do,” is the first thing I say to him.

  He gazes at me in understanding and sympathy. “Tell me what’s going on, and we’ll talk it out. ”

  I inhale deeply, sucking all the oxygen in that I can hold. After slowly letting it out, I tell him, “The doctor is going to come by tonight and talk to me in more detail about her condition, but from what they’ve told me so far, she isn’t going to recover. She has minimal brain activity… The machines are keeping her alive right now. I think tonight… I think he wants to talk to me about taking her off life support. ”

  “Did your mom have a Living Will or any other health care directive?”

  I knew this question would be coming from Matt—he’s a lawyer after all—but it’s like a sharp slap in the face when it comes. Tears well up in my eyes, and I shake my head in the negative.

  “I’m so stupid,” I say vehemently. “I’m a f**king lawyer, and I never thought to have my mom do one. ”

  Reaching across the table, Matt takes my hands and attempts to soothe me by rubbing them gently with his own. “Don’t do that to yourself. It has no purpose here to dwell on those things. ”

  Pulling my lower lip between my teeth, I bite down hard to feel some type of physical pain that will force the emotional tears back. It works and, with a few blinks, the wetness dissipates.

  “Did you and your mom ever talk about this?” Matt asks.

  “No,” I say miserably, staring at the Formica table in front of me. “Not even when my dad died. He had a heart attack. It was so quick… We never thought about something like this happening. I never thought I’d have to make these decisions. ”

  Matt’s quiet for a moment, and then he says, “Okay… let’s figure out what your mom would want then. Tell me about her?”

  A slow smile creeps onto my face, and I raise my eyes to Matt’s. I know what he’s doing, and it’s brilliant. He wants to make me focus on the type of person my mom is… I mean really focus, so that I could determine what her inherent wishes may be.

  “She’s energetic…
always on the go. She works full time, but in her spare time, I don’t think she sleeps. She’s always been so active with her church, and she does volunteer work. Oh, and she loves to garden. She always said she was happiest when her hands were about three inches deep in soil. ”

  “Tell me about her church,” Matt says. “What sorts of things does she do there?”

  And it goes on and on. Matt sits there, using all of his skills he’s acquired as an attorney, and he questions me like I’m a witness with a juicy piece of information that he’s trying to discover. He’s trying to help me discover what my mom would want. Except he’s amazingly gentle with his questions, like he’s leading a small child on the witness stand.

  Matt gets me to talk for almost an hour straight, and things start to get clearer. My mother loved life too much to ever want to live life in a bed, stuck to a respirator.

  “What about you, Matt? What would you want if this happened to you?”

  “If I was just like your mom? I’d want to be let go. ”

  I nod, because that’s exactly what I would want, too.

  Matt and I head back to the room and wait for the doctor. I marvel at how Matt seems to be at ease in this situation, and I can only guess that has come from years of dealing with people, such as lawyers, judges, and doctors. I think it’s probably very hard to get Matt Connover flustered about anything. He’s a rock, and it’s something I sorely needed today.

  While we wait for the doctor, Matt and I work a crossword puzzle together. Every once in a while, I’ll take a break and walk over to my mom. I’ll stroke her cheek or hold her hand for a bit.

  I start my goodbyes.

  The doctor finally comes, and I introduce Matt as a “friend”. Dr. Fritz is a neurosurgeon and was called in last night to evaluate my mom. He’s a warm and outgoing guy, maybe in his mid-fifties, and I don’t think I’ve ever met a doctor more personable. But he’s very grave when talking to me about my mom’s condition. He uses a lot of large words that I don’t understand, but at the end of the conversation, he pats my knee gently and says, “Bottom line… there is almost absolutely no hope of your mother regaining brain function. ”

  Matt reaches out to take my hand, and I’m grateful for the contact. He turns to the doctor and says, “Put it in a percentage for us to understand, Dr. Fritz. ”

  The kind doctor looks at Matt seriously. “Less than a one-percent chance. I mean… far less than one percent. It would be a medical miracle. ”

  Less than one percent. A medical miracle. The thing that sucks about that phraseology is that it still implies there is some hope, no matter how infinitesimal it is.

  “If it was your mother… what would you do?” I ask.

  Dr. Fritz gives me a knowing smile, and I can tell this is not the first time he’s been asked that question. “Miss Dawson, if my mother was in the same exact circumstances as your mother… there’s no question. I’d discontinue extraordinary measures and let her go. ”

  Taking a deep breath, I nod. I know what has to be done.

  Matt checked us into the The Hermitage in downtown Nashville and immediately sent me to take a hot shower while he ordered room service. It took a whole lot of fighting on his part, but he finally got me to agree to sleep in a hotel rather than in a chair in mom’s room. My time with her is running short, and I want to be with her every minute. I feel guilty now. . . at this very moment, as I stand under the hot water and let it cleanse my body. I feel guilty because I only have precious hours left with my mom, but here I am in the comforts of a swank hotel.

  The only reason I’m here is because Matt gently reminded me that my mother is essentially gone already. That she has no comprehension, and she wouldn’t know if I was sitting by her side or sitting in a hotel. But the real kicker—the way Matt got me—was he told me that based on what he’d learned about my mom that day, she wouldn’t want her daughter suffering and would want her to get some rest.