White sister

Chapter 62

If we unplug her, will she feel it?" Chooch asked, tears welling in his black eyes.

We were having dinner at Mama's Fish House up on the Malibu coast. It was one of Alexa's favorite places. We sat in a small booth next to a plate-glass window overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

"I've been thinking a lot about that, Chooch. What if they got it right and she's already gone? By keeping her body alive, are we cursing her to stay on earth when she should be free to go to heaven?"

"Do you believe that?"

"I don't know what I believe. I know I don't have the answers." I looked out at the gray Pacific, which was rolling endless, greasy swells toward us, exploding, grenades of white foam under the window. The sun hung low on the horizon lighting a pewter sea.

"I keep thinking she's gonna wake up. She's gonna come back to us," Chooch said.

"It's been a month and a half," I said. "And it was her stated wish not to employ heroic measures. I want desperately to do right by her."

After that, we sat in silence for a while.

"You need to go back to school, son. Classes start in a week. I think they'll readmit you for this semester. Maybe you could even rejoin the team. Your red shirt year won't help you if you don't practice."

"And what will you do?"

"I'll figure that out. I'm not sure I can do anything quite yet. I need to reevaluate a lot of things."

"So, you've made up your mind on Mom regardless of what I think?"

"At first I thought this should be a shared decision, but then I realized it wasn't fair to put something this big on you. I'm her legal guardian. So, yeah, I've made up my mind. Tomorrow I'm gonna tell the people at Bright Horizons it's okay to let her go. I'll just need an hour or so to say good-bye."

The next morning I returned to the hospice. I knew it was going to be the hardest thing I would ever do. Since Chooch didn't agree with my decision, he decided not to come. I didn't force him. I knew it was something each of us felt deeply in our hearts. When I arrived, I found the administrator. He was a skinny old man with slicked-back hair and a pasty complexion. His name was Clark something, and I told him that I had decided to honor Alexa's legal wish.

"I think it's for the best," he said.

"I'll need some time with her first."

We walked down the corridor to her room and went inside.

Alexa wasn't there.

In fact, nothing was there. Not the bed, not the heart-lung machine, not the respirator. Nothing. The entire room had been stripped.

What followed next was a frantic search. Nurses, interns, and Bright Horizons clerical people started running up and down hallways, flinging open doors, startling patients, checking rooms. We couldn't find her anywhere.

"She's got to be here somewhere," Clark said, his now-pale complexion shining with blue-white panic in the harsh fluorescents.

More searching. More frantic looks. Alexa could not be located.

"I've never had anything like this happen before," Clark fretted.

Just then, the fire alarm went off.

"What the hell?" Clark said, and ran from his office with me on his heels.

The fire alarm panel was in the entry closet and when we looked, the LCD screen indicated that there was smoke in the basement storage area. We headed downstairs taking the concrete steps two at a time. When we got to the lower landing there was smoke billowing from the storage room at the end of the hallway.

Then I heard a voice chanting. "Ayyeee-yeee-bammba-bass-mantu-tu. Ayyeee-Ayyeee-bobas bot-y-kon-amakayos."

Bodine.

I barged through door into a large storage area where old broken nightstands and three-legged tables were stacked. In the corner of the room sat Alexa's hospital bed. The Sunday L. A. Times was engulfed in a raging fire, burning inside an upside-down trashcan lid. As the fire alarm brayed, John Bodine danced around the two-foot-high flame. He was stripped to the waist, his skinny body glistening with sweat. He chanted and danced, spinning and jumping, giving his chopped-off dreads a ride.

"What's this bum doing down here?" Clark yelled.

I ran to Alexa's bed. John had already unplugged the heart monitor and respirator with its life-saving tubes. She lay prone, with her eyes shut, dead. John continued to sing and dance around the fire.

Clark started stomping out the blaze in the trash-can lid, the sound of his heels ringing the metal like a giant gong.

"The fuck you doin'?" John brayed, trying to push Clark away.

"Who is this idiot?" Clark screamed. "Get him off me!"

"Eat my dick!" Bodine screamed back.

I grabbed him. "John, what are you doing? Why did you steal Alexa?"

"Chief O always in my ear. Do this. Do that. You try livin' with some two-hundred-year-old African bag-a-wind yammerin' inside your head all day long." That was his explanation.

"You unplugged her?" Clark was trying to catch up.

"All that junk weren't doin' no good," John brayed. "Souls ain't gonna fly 'less they're marked ready, and this one here ain't ready. This be all down in Chief O's book."

I looked down at Alexa again. She was lying inert, but as I watched her, something, some shadow moved behind her eyelids. Then after almost a minute, her chest rose and she took a faltering breath of smoky basement air.

"Look at this!" I shouted. "She's breathing!" "Ain't you been listenin?" John said. "'Course she's breathin'. She ain't done here yet."

We all watched as her chest slowly began to rise and fall, breathing without life support. I touched her hand and then the most wonderful thing happened.

She opened her eyes and looked at me.