45

On Monday morning, feeling very much an intruder, Susan slipped into the small room where Jen’s mom waited with her new husband, Jen’s dad, a social worker, and a nurse. The result of Jen’s latest cerebral flow study showed no blood flow to the brain. She was pronounced brain dead. Terry made the agonizing decision to remove all life support keeping her daughter alive. “You were her friend,” Terry said to Susan. “She’d want you here.”

Susan wanted to be anywhere else in the world. She expected Terry to fall apart, sob and scream about the unfairness and how she couldn’t go on without her daughter, but when she was pushed against it, Terry came through with dignity. Pale, hands clasped so tightly the knuckles were white, her eyes were dry and her voice quiet.

“I have to be proud,” she whispered. “Hold my head up high. For Jen’s sake. I don’t want her to be ashamed of me. I want her to know I love her. She’ll always be with me.” Terry touched her chest with a clenched fist.

A social worker led them to Jen’s room. “If there is anything I can do, if you need anything…”

Susan felt numb, movement was difficult, like she was wading through wet cement. The minister from Terry’s church was there and he hugged her. A nurse rattled the curtain closed around the bed. Cables and wires connected Jen to machines that beeped and flickered, the ventilator pushed air in and out of her chest. She looked young, and peaceful.

With icy fingers, Terry took Susan’s hand and drew her close to the bed. She picked up one of Jen’s limp hands and placed it in Susan’s. Terry went to the other side of the bed and picked up Jen’s other hand. She nodded to the minister.

In a quiet, resonant voice, he said, “Jen, your job here is finished. You’re going to leave this earth and go to a new school far greater than any you could choose. To keep you safe on the journey, we send with you our blessings and all our love.”

Terry said, “I love you, Jennifer. I’ll always be your mother. I’m releasing you. I’ll always love you with all my heart.”

Pain squeezed the air from Susan’s lungs. Softly, she stroked Jen’s cheek with fingertips. “Good-bye, Jen. You’re a great kid. I love you.”

Terry rested her cheek against Jen’s chest, as though listening to the heartbeat for one last time. She straightened and walked away. Susan kissed Jen’s limp fingers and gently put Jen’s hand back on the bed.

*   *   *

One week later, Susan stood on the crumbling wooden bridge. Mitchell Black had fallen, hit his head on a rock, and drowned in five inches of water. A flock of crows rose from the field filling the silence with jeering calls. She could imagine Jen saying something silly like, “Too many rooks spoil the croft.”

That night Susan dreamed, not the dream filled with dread and gunfire, but a dream of Jen on the bridge with her legs dangling through the hole in the rotted boards. Jen smiled. Feeling a great surge of joy, Susan smiled back and started to run toward her. With a shake of her head, Jen slipped through the hole and sat cross-legged on a boulder in the creek. She said something important that Susan didn’t understand, because trickling water distorted her words.

Finally, Jen covered her eyes with her hands and Susan understood what she was saying. Blindness comes in all forms. Blindness where your eyes don’t function, where you can’t understand, where you look the other way, where you jump to the wrong conclusion.

But the very worst was promising to help a young girl and not seeing the disastrous outcome of a promise not kept.