Chapter Eighteen #2
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Joan didn’t look up from her book. It was the same method she’d used to deny his requests for an extra slice of cake, another order of fries, over the years. She had worried over his cholesterol and heart, and for what?
“I’ve been doing research. We can get morphine.”
She set down her book. “You’re serious?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
He’d married her because she was calm, she reminded herself. “I just go to the store?”
“You ask the hospital. It’s part of palliative care.”
“And then what do I do?”
“You inject it.” He closed his eyes. “And I get to leave.”
“I can refer a nursing service that’ll keep you comfortable,” Dr. Marcus said when Bill reiterated his request for morphine.
Joan sat next to him in the hospital room—she accompanied him whenever he left the house now.
Dr. Marcus was Bill’s general physician whom he’d seen for years; Bill preferred his care managed through him.
Joan thought in general Dr. Marcus should be sadder about Bill, as they were friends and occasionally socialized.
They’d dined together multiple times, and Dr. Marcus had once shown them what he claimed was a Renoir at his house in Hillsborough.
“In my situation, a nursing service is table stakes,” Bill said. “You know it and I know it.”
“What else are you looking for?” Dr. Marcus cast a quick glance at Joan, which for some reason made her nervous; she bowed her head and searched her tote for the container of grapes she had packed for Bill that morning.
“Something that will actually help. Something that gives me a real choice in all this.”
“The nurses will help you.”
“Al,” Bill said. “I’m not asking you as my doctor. I’m asking you as my friend. As a human .”
Dr. Marcus studied Bill carefully and, when he didn’t relent, released a sigh of frustration.
He removed a white pad from his pocket and rolled his stool to the counter.
“Morphine isn’t what I’d recommend, at least not for beyond pain,” he said in a clipped voice, his back turned.
“I’m writing here a prescription for a certain sedative.
Don’t fill it downstairs. Take it to the Longs across town.
” He swiveled and handed Bill the paper.
“I appreciate this,” Bill said. He seemed in command, calm; he appeared more lively than Joan had seen in weeks.
“What I just gave you, it’s powerful and needs to be carefully managed. Whether for pain or what you’re asking. It should only be used if and when absolutely necessary.”
“Of course,” Bill said. “That goes without saying.”
“Well, let me be clear right now that I am saying. And that I’m surprised by this request, Bill. You really don’t seem like the type. I usually have a good feel for such matters.” When Dr. Marcus said this last part, he didn’t look at Bill but, rather, Joan. His eyes were hard and his mouth tight.
Does he think I’m who gave Bill the idea for drugs?
Joan thought. Given that they were technically friends, this shocked her, though she supposed Dr. Marcus had encountered many difficult situations over the years.
It had been only months since Bill’s diagnosis; Joan could see how after years a caretaker might yearn for relief.
Bill asked Joan to fill the prescription, and so she did, and received a white bag with an amber bottle containing shiny red pills.
Bill didn’t say anything about the pills afterward, and neither did she.
A week later he felt good enough for a walk.
They called Theo after. Bill spoke to him for half an hour and then gestured Joan over and handed her the phone.
“Hello?” Joan said. Theo hung up.
Juliet was on vacation in Marrakesh, so they recorded a tape of Bill speaking to her.
This was Joan’s idea, as she had done the same with Lee and Jamie when they were little, recorded their small voices knowing that one day those voices would be gone and she would miss them.
She figured Juliet would miss her father’s voice too.
Bill spoke for a few minutes and then Joan asked if he would like to say something to Theo. “We could record another.”
“No.”
“Maybe something short. A favorite memory together. He’d want that.”
“I’ve heard enough of what he wants already. That’s the only thing he talks about these days. What he wants from me after I’m dead.”
They watched TV that evening. Bill fell asleep after ten minutes.
He slept twelve hours and the next day he stopped eating.
The palliative service Dr. Marcus referred sent a nurse to visit.
“We’ll glide his way when the time comes,” Debby said.
The nurse was no-nonsense; she had seen this conclusion many times.
On weekends she worked as a pottery instructor.
As she spoke, she casually picked up the bottle containing the red pills from the dresser.
She read the label and shook the bottle and then set it back down.
That night Joan sat on the bed and looked at Bill.
She wouldn’t be able to do this, be with him on their bed, for much longer, as Debby had said they’d need to install a hospital recliner.
Bill was emphatic that he wanted to die in his own bed.
A hospital bed at home was the same as dying in the hospital, he said.
Joan opened the amber bottle. The capsules inside were the sort she could easily open and mix the contents into cranberry juice.
Put a straw in the glass, lift it to one’s mouth.
Oh, Joan had her regrets. She regretted each time she had been deliberately difficult: when she’d refused to dine with Bill’s oafish friends; when she’d said she was too tired for sex; when she’d interrupted him mid-explanation because she was bored of listening to Bill go on and on when she had other things to do.
All these actions had been related to her pride; she’d thought they were essential to her well-being, a line in the sand.
In her mind’s eye, if she squinted, she could see the justification in her rebellions—she had believed, in acquiescing, that she would be giving something of herself away.
But. Your life was the most terrible thing to give away. Day after day, when you passed it not as you wanted, when you spent it as a compromise.
“We’re all in one state of dying or another.
” Who had said this? Was it the nurse? No, Debby wouldn’t have spouted such foolishness—it’d been Dr. Marcus, Joan recalled.
Well, Joan didn’t buy it. From what she’d seen, there was a time when you were living, and it ended for most before their heart actually stopped.
It had already ended for Bill, she knew.
If she did this for him, what he wanted with the pills, it would be the most loving, heroic act she was capable of.
Bill opened his eyes, but there was nothing there.
She stroked his face. She was ready with the juice but understood there was no need.
His breaths had become further and further spaced.
She held his hand and was remorseful: for every moment she’d mused about life apart; for every dream she’d had of another man grasping her arm, bringing his mouth near.
She held Bill’s hand and waited; he did not breathe again.