Right To Die

8

WHEN WE FINALLY LEFT VICTORIA STATION, I ASKED NEELY TO drop me off in South Boston. The weather was bell clear, and I hadn't made a visit since Thanksgiving.

I bent over stiffly, laying the bunched poinsettias lengthwise to her.

You getting old on me?

"No."

John, you're creaking.

"Finally decided to try the marathon, Beth."

What, the Ironman Triathalon was already booked up?

"You're supposed to be supportive of a poor widower rising to a cha1lenge."

Even when he's being stupid?

I looked down at the shoreline, the chop smacking against the foot of her hillside. Half a mile out, a Coast Guard cutter was knifing its way toward the harbor. During every season, the cod boats have to be watched over and the drug smugglers watched for.

Something besides the marathon's on your mind.

"Tommy Kramer approached me to help a professor who's getting threatened."

And?

"The professor is a woman who pushes for the right to die."

A pause. Why does she bother you?

"I don't know."

I half expected Beth to say, "That's not an acceptable answer, Mr. Cuddy."

John?

"I guess because when her husband was dying, in a lot of pain and frustration, she helped him to die."

Another pause. And that makes you feel…?

"Uncomfortable."

Why?

"I suppose because it makes me think back. To your being in the hospital."

John, we talked about… ending things then.

I stood up. "No, we didn't. We talked around it."

And why do you suppose that was?

"Because I saw it as helping the cancer take you away from me."

Instead of helping me get away from the cancer.

"Right."

John, what we decided to do, or not to do, shouldn't cloud you on other people's views.

"Of course it should."

Another pause. There's something else, too, isn't there?

I kicked at a gum wrapper that somebody should have picked up.

"Nancy."

Trouble?

"It's the holiday business."

In what way?

I told her about Nancy's dad and the blow-up over the tree-lighting.

You remember our first Christmas?

"Yes. You insisted we have a real tree, even though we couldn't afford a stand for it."

So you took that glass jug that held – what was it?

"Grape juice."

So you took that jug and filled it with water and put the tree in it.

"Right."

And what happened?

"I left the window open, and the water froze solid, cracking the glass."

Remember the row we had over your lack of holiday spirit?

I remembered.

"But that's the point, Beth. While the holidays didn't ever mean all that much to me, at least I remember them, even the tree and the argument and all, as real life, something I was part of."

What about the holidays since?

"Empty. I don't know, maybe like a foreigner watching a baseball game."

And now?

"Now?"

With Nancy?

I thought about it. "Not completely a stranger, but not completely a participant either."

An invited guest?

"Who's maybe a little afraid to join in."

Given her family situation, don't you think that's what Nancy really needs? Someone to join in with her?

"Maybe."

John, you want to give it a chance with Nancy, don't you?

"Yes."

Then to give it a chance, you might have to take a chance too.

The other pieces of stone and I watched the Coast Guard cutter pass a point of land and snug back into the harbor.

After a purchase at the Christmas Shop on Tremont, I got to the Suffolk County courthouse about four P.M., going through the metal detector on the first floor. In the district attorney's office the receptionist told me where to find Nancy.

I walked into a courtroom on the ninth floor. High ceilings, nondescript carpeting, failing sunlight fuzzing the large windows. There were a few people standing around, but no judge, no jury, and no Nancy.

I saw a court officer I'd met before and went over to him.

"Carmine."

"John, how're you doing?"

"Fine, thanks. Where is everybody?"

"Judge excused the jury for the day." Carmine inclined his head toward a door near the bench. "He wanted to see counsel in chambers. Little talking to before the defense starts his case-in-chief."

The defendant, a sullen white male in his thirties, sat at a table, a court officer on each side of the chair. The defendant noticed me eyeing him and tried a hard-con stare. Couldn't quite pull it off.

I said to Carmine, "How's Nancy doing?"

A smile, the head this time inclining toward the defendant. "Lemme put it this way. Our boy was Bob Hope, his theme song'd be 'Walpole by Wednesday'. "

"He'd better work on that look before he hits the yard."

"Or put a case of Vaseline in his letter to Santa."

"… and then the judge says to my opponent, 'You're going to have your man take the stand. then?' and the defense attorney, who acted like he was on his first heavy case says, 'Yes, Your Honor.' So then the judge turns to me – a twinkle in his eye, but the court reporter can't dictate that into her machine – and he says, 'Ms. Meagher, if I were fairly certain that perjury had been committed in my courtroom, what do you think I should do?' And I can see the defense attorney losing what little color he has left in his cheeks, and I say, 'Why, inform our office, Your Honor, regarding the perpetrator and accomplices, if any.' And the judge says, like he'd never thought about it before, 'Accomplices? Accomplices, yes, yes. Oh, my, yes.' And the defense attorney coughs and says, 'Uh, Your Honor, might I have a… uh…' and the judge says, 'A moment to confer with your client?' and the kid says 'Yessir.' So we go back to the courtroom, and the kid pleads the guy out ten minutes later."

"And so here we are."

Nancy and I were finishing dinner at The Last Hurrah, a restaurant in the Omni Parker House on School Street, halfway between the courthouse and the subway. Wearing a soft gray suit and a pearl blouse, she'd been doing most of the talking, embellishing a relatively small victory to fill the air. It felt as though Nancy still wasn't over Saturday night either.

I reached into my coat pocket and said, "Hold out your hand."

She did, and I dropped the two-inch-by-six-inch ribboned package into it.

"What's this?"

"Open it."

Nancy tore off the gift wrap and pried open the box. Lifting the Angel Gabriel from enveloping cotton, she hefted him in her palm.

"Kind of light for a paperweight."

"Look under the wings."

"Poor Gabe! He's been disemboweled."

"By design, Ms. Meagher. He's going to be on top of our tree."

Nancy canted her head, the table light dancing 0n her eyes like sunshine on a lake. "Our tree?"

"Our Christmas tree." I reached over and covered the hand that wasn't hefting the angel.