Monday morning. I woke up jittery and ill tempered, as if I had a hangover. The look on Anderson’s face and his body pressed against mine was enough to make my temples throb. It was still Christmas vacation and Madeleine would be coming over soon to stay with the kids. I dressed quickly, kissed the children goodbye and left early for work hoping to miss him during the morning shift change. My plan was to see Finn that morning. We had made such headway last week.
I shook the snow off my boots and changed into low heels. Josie was in the sallyport going through security. “That fucking bastard,” she said, balling her hands into a fist when she saw me. “I couldn’t stop thinking about what you told me at the party. You should’ve let me take care of him. Given him a kick right where it hurts. I was a cop remember? Had to learn how to defend myself. Are you gonna report him to the warden? Maybe I can threaten him with sexual harassment.”
Her monologue made my head ache more. “Josie, no. It didn’t happen at work. He probably just had too much to drink. What would I say, he tried to kiss me?” It occurred to me Josie was taking this too much to heart. “Why does this bother you so much?”
“Because he’s a fuckin’ bendejo, that’s why! A real jodon.”
“I don’t know what those words mean, Josie.” I tried to make light of it. “Let’s just forget about it. I kneed him pretty well. That’ll give him something to remember me by.” The officers were looking at us and I laughed self-consciously. “Thank God I have an ex-cop who was a sex crimes investigator on my side. I gotta get back to work. I’m seeing Mr. Koski this morning. I heard from the warden that he’ll complete his sentence soon.”
“Just remember, if you want me to do something about it, I will, okay?” Josie said as we parted. “I don’t want anybody messin’ with you.”
I wouldn’t want to be on Josie’s bad side, I thought as I said goodbye and headed to my office for my session with Finn.
Stillness on my part usually made the patient uncomfortable enough to start talking but a full minute went by before Finn said anything. His shoulders shook under his prison-issued shirt. “You shoulda seen her, Doc,” he finally said, his eyes widening as though he were seeing his wife again. “Eva looked like a newly hatched robin. Cold and blue, her skin stretched across her bones like a drum. I tried to make her drink the Ensure the hospital gave us, but she hated it.”
The way he described her, I understood they were, neither of them, any longer the dewy young man and woman they had once been. They had almost become redundant. That’s what happened when you got old. One day you woke to find yourself extraneous, hidden in the body of an old woman. A caricature of your former self, with something about the eyes remaining. I remembered it from my own grandmother.
“After the last chemo, we went home and she collapsed on the sofa. She tried not to cry. After almost fifty years of marriage …” He took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. His sobs wracked his slender body. “You know what she said to me?” he asked without waiting for an answer. “She said, ‘Finn, you’ve been a good man. I know I shouldn’t ask you to help me, but I can’t do this alone. Will you help me put an end to this?’ She begged me, Doc! After that, I paced all night. I couldn’t lose her after a lifetime together. Finally, I lay in bed beside her. I didn’t know if I could do it.”
I nodded encouragingly. Time seemed to stand still
“I pleaded with her to drink some water but she refused. She let me wipe her lips with a wet washcloth wrapped around ice chips. I crushed her pills into applesauce, but Eva couldn’t swallow the mixture. I raised her head to help her breathing. She used to stop breathing and it scared me half out of my wits.
“One day she said, ‘Now, Finn. I’m ready now.’ She had suffered so much. I kissed her on her lips and picked up the pillow. I told her I loved her and then I pressed the pillow over her face.”
I reached for a tissue and dabbed at my eyes. The silence in the room lay as thick as smoke. “What happened next?” I whispered.
“Eh?”
“What happened next?” I spoke louder and unconsciously pressed my ballpoint pen hard enough to tear the yellow legal pad. I could barely breathe.
“The visiting nurse rang the doorbell and looked through the glass door. She ran in screaming, asking what I was doin’. I told her I was doin’ what Eva asked me to do.”
“Oh, my god.” I brought my hand up to my mouth.
“She pushed me aside and ripped the pillow away from Eva’s face. Eva was as white as a ghost. Already on her way to Heaven. Mrs. Jacobson pressed her hands into the center of Eva’s chest, leaned in and began pushin.’ She screamed, ‘Call 911’ but I wouldn’t do it. Eva was gone. She wouldn’t have wanted to be brought back again to suffer.”
I remembered a baby bird I’d once crushed in my sleep and a vision of that lifeless body crept across my brain.
“She kept pressin’ down on Eva’s chest. One-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand. I yelled at her to stop. Her weight would crush Eva’s rib cage. I still see those blood-red fingers of hers pressing into Eva’s chest.”
I pictured Mrs. Jacobson crushing Eva’s fragile ribs, the bones cracking and splintering into sharp, jagged spears, and Finn helpless to stop her.
“I sat and stared out the window. The first yellow leaves were flutterin’ to the ground. Fall was Eva’s favorite season. Mrs. Jacobson finally gave up, too exhausted to continue. She closed Eva’s eyes and covered her with her sheet. She told me she had to call the sheriff and that what I had done was wrong. I waited for the sheriff and told her it may be the only thing I’d ever done that was right. I think that’s about all I can say right now.”
Finn’s face was as dark and overcast as the day. The phone buzzed in the mole-sized office. “I’m so sorry. Will you excuse me for just a moment?” I said, frowning under my professional facade.
“Dr. Rendeau speaking.” I picked up my pen and tapped it against my desk.
“Grace? It’s me.”
“Alex! What a surprise. How are you?” I should have sent the call to voicemail. I tried to keep my private life completely separate from my job with inmates but just one brief conversation couldn’t hurt.
“I was wondering if we could get together sometime this week.”
“Can I call you back? I’m in the middle of something right now. Okay. Talk to you later.” I smoothed my skirt and turned toward Finn. “Now … where were we?”
Finn sat perched on the edge of his seat, his hands burrowed in his pockets. He had been listening intently, I was sure of it.
“I was saying that’s about all I can say about it.” Finn stood. “I think I’d better get back to the unit now.”
I thanked him and told him I appreciated how difficult it must have been for him to tell me this. He left the office like a wind-driven cloud.
As medicine struggled to pull people away from the edge of death, it could do little to alleviate intractable suffering in terminal conditions. Did society have a moral right to protect and preserve all life? As I pondered Mr. Koski’s tragic situation, there was a knock at the door. It was Emanuel. I had been so deep in thought about Mr. Koski’s dilemma of ending his wife’s suffering, that I had forgotten it was my day to see Emanuel Venegas.