10. Indie
INDIE
JANUARY
“She’s upstairs!”
Without another word, I sprint past Dawn and straight into the house. Teddy is close behind me, following as I dart through the hallway.
My sneakers pound against the hardwood, then the stairs when I take them two at a time, rounding the corner to fly into Ellie’s bedroom.
She’s just where Dawn said—on her bed. Not breathing, not moving. Her gray hair fans out on her purple pillow. Her hands rest, folded on her stomach. For one split second, she looks as though she’s only sleeping.
Dawn woke us up by calling Teddy at 3:44, screaming down the line that Nana wasn’t breathing and was cold. We leapt out of bed, still in our pajamas, and rushed over here, making the fifteen-minute drive in seven.
I didn’t even put on a jacket, just shoved my feet into sneakers and grabbed my keys and phone. Teddy drove like a man possessed, one hand white-knuckled on the wheel, the other gripping mine so tightly it felt like I was the only thing holding him together.
“Nana…” Teddy’s voice is small and broken behind me.
I’m already crouched over her, checking her vitals.
Her pulse—still.
Her skin—cold to the touch.
Her chest—not moving.
I shine the penlight on my keychain into her eyes.
No response.
And yet, I still cling to hope. To save her. Even as my mind screams the truth my heart doesn’t want to face.
“Teddy, help me get her on the floor!” I bark, already moving. I hook my arms beneath Ellie’s shoulders, bracing her head and neck, while Teddy, though his hands shake, grabs her legs.
As we lower her to the floor, he keeps repeating in a wobbly voice, “Nana, Nana.”
Dawn drifts into the room then, one hand braced against the doorframe, her face tear-streaked and dazed.
This is the most undone I’ve ever seen her look.
It’s a bizarre thought, especially at a time like this, but I can’t help it. Trauma is strange. Death even more so. I’ve seen enough of both to know the mind grabs onto ordinary details like they’re the only steady things left in the room.
“Did you call 911?” I shout to Dawn.
She blinks at me like she’s waking from a dream. “No—no, I didn’t—I don’t—”
Fuck.
“Teddy, call 911,” I tell him, my voice firm even as my heart aches at the look on his face.
He looks like he already knows what my own mind is telling me—too late, she’s gone. He nods anyway, pulls out his cellphone with trembling hands, and dials the three digits.
I position the heel of my hand over the center of Ellie’s chest, stack my other hand over it, and start compressions.
One, two, three, four…
CPR isn’t pretty. You’re manually trying to force the most vital muscle in the body to do what it no longer can.
I feel Ellie’s already fragile bones crack under my palms. The sound is awful and ugly. Dawn gasps, and Teddy lets out a choked sob.
I don’t stop pumping.
My mind starts singing Dancing Queen by ABBA, one of the songs my professor used in class to help us keep tempo. Ellie loves ABBA. She owns all their records. She and Ted saw them live in ’79, she told me once, proud as if she had witnessed God in concert.
I sing under my breath, hoping she’ll hear it, hoping it might somehow guide her back.
Ellie, please wake up.
I don’t want you to go.
Teddy needs you.
I need you.
A dispatcher’s voice cracks through the room as Teddy puts the phone on speaker.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“My grandmother!” Teddy chokes out, stumbling over the words. “She’s—my grandmother—she’s not breathing—”
“Teddy, come over to me,” I say, not stopping compressions.
Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen…
Teddy crouches beside me, holding the phone out so the dispatcher can hear, but his gaze stays fixed on Nana.
“This is Dr. Indiana Miller,” I say, forcing my voice steady between compressions. “Female, seventy-two, found unresponsive in bed. No pulse. Skin is cold on contact. Pupils are unreactive. CPR in progress.”
“Dr. Miller,” the dispatcher says, her voice calm and practiced. “How long has she been down?”
“I don’t know,” I bite out before tilting Ellie’s chin, placing my mouth over hers, and breathing two breaths.
Then I start again.
“Any known medical history?”
“Recent history of breast cancer. In remission. Persistent cough over the last month… refused treatment.”
The last part is forced out through gritted teeth.
“Nana, please wake up,” Teddy begs quietly over my shoulder.
I lean down and breathe for her again. Her mouth is cold, already stiffening at the corners.
Goddamn it, Ellie.
She said she would go to the doctor, and with work and the chaos of getting everything ready for Bluewater, I didn’t follow up.
Around Christmas, when I reminded her, she promised she would call. She would set up an appointment. Her color had only been barely better than now. Her cough was still wet-sounding.
I should have fucking insisted. I should have dragged her to the damn hospital myself.
But she would have hated that, and above all, I believe people own their choices about their bodies—treatment or not.
Now she’s dead.
And guilt gnaws at me.
By the time EMS gets here, my arms are cramping, my T-shirt is sticking to my back with sweat, and I feel dizzy from counting, from singing, from fucking praying.
“Ma’am, we have it,” I hear from my right.
I don’t stop.
I can’t stop.
I keep pressing hard on her chest.
Seven, eight, nine, ten…
“Ma’am. Please step back.”
If I stop, it will be real.
It will be over.
They’ll know what I know.
“Indie,” Teddy murmurs, his arms wrapping around my shoulders.
It’s his voice that makes me stop, slicing through my thoughts. I let him pull me away, my body going slack as he holds me to him desperately.
My lungs burn as I try to even out my breathing. My heart keeps slamming in my chest like it wants out.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Dawn standing in Judd’s arms in the doorway. Teddy’s father, Judd, stands with his arms around Dawn, his face sleep-rumpled and irritated.
Dawn’s face is buried in his chest, her fingers clutching at his robe in a white-knuckle grip.
Empathy stings in my chest for her.
No matter what I feel for Dawn, I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.
“Time of death, 4:44 AM.”
The silence after that declaration is thick and heavy, but it lasts only a second before Teddy buries his face in my neck and lets out a horrible sound—a wounded, choking cry that hits me like a knife to my throat.
My body goes numb. I turn in his arms and open mine. He falls into them, and I press his head to my chest, squeezing my eyes closed as he sobs against me.
My heart is breaking for Teddy, my big bear of a boyfriend, as he grieves and breaks and falls apart in my arms.
“Teddy,” Dawn chokes out.
He turns his head toward her, and she’s standing there with her arms open now, Judd gone from behind her.
“Mom…” he sobs, and I release him.
He looks at me for one moment, torn clean down the middle, but I nod. He stands shakily and goes to her, and mother and son fold into each other, grieving their mother and grandmother.
Dawn whispers soft words into Teddy’s hair as he cries, and I frown at the numbness still sitting in my chest. I’m in shock. I know that. It will hit me later, and hard. I know that too.
But for now, I watch as the EMTs speak softly to one another about next steps, their voices low and respectful as they gather equipment and give the family a moment. I crawl to Ellie and kneel beside her.
She looks peaceful, with an almost serene expression on her face. Eyes closed, mouth slightly parted, the corners of her lips tilted upward like she had just begun to smile before she went.
I don’t know what happens after we die, but I do think that Ted called his Ellie home, and she went willingly, happily, ready.
I choose to believe that.
If she had gone to the doctor, they might have been able to treat her.
But I understand why she didn’t, even if I don’t like it.
Ellie had spent so much time in hospitals already that she would have been on oxygen for the rest of her life, in and out of endless appointments and scans and follow-ups.
And it would have only been more time, not more life.
The most important thing I’ve learned as an oncologist is that people want to die with dignity.
Eleanor Ambrose died with dignity, in her sleep, in her bed.
My eyes drift to Dawn and Teddy. He’s crying into her shoulder, but Dawn is staring at me in a way that sends a shiver down my spine.
Grief is strange.
Some people move through grief in a compressed period of time, while others spend years circling the same hurt.
Grief is a beast that can make you cry or laugh.
But the most common symptom of grief that I’ve seen is how quickly it can make people lash out.
And ever since Ellie died a week and a half ago, Dawn has been using me as her outlet. Small things said here and there, but sharp enough to cut.
Death by a thousand papercuts.
“I just wonder if things would be different if someone had pushed harder.”
“I’m not blaming anyone, of course, but grief makes us all ask questions.”
“I thought having a doctor in the family would mean something.”
I try to let every single one roll off my back. She’s grieving. She just lost her mother. They weren’t close, but that’s still her mother.
I have thick skin. I can take it. Patients have said worse to me. Their family has said worse than that.
Teddy is my focus because he’s been a complete wreck, understandably. Crying off and on, waking from nightmares, unable to smile fully, forgetting to eat, and forgetting to drink water.
It’s easier when others are grieving, because while I have deep empathy for them, they’re not my family and I don’t fully understand what they’re feeling.
Teddy is my family.
Teddy is the love of my life.
And Teddy is hurting so deeply that it feels like he is drifting farther and farther out to sea, and no matter how hard I swim, he’s being pulled further. away.