Chapter Twenty-Eight
MATTHEW
From: Erin Walsh
To: Matthew Walsh
Date: December 14 at 01:51 CEST
Subject: RE: Angus had a stroke
Okay, a couple things.
First, I actually have been off the grid since that last email. I mean, I read it, wrote a really nasty response, deleted the whole thing, and then went off the grid.
Second, you’re right about all of it. I know why he’s a dick but I’m not ready to let it go yet. You don’t see how easy you had it, Matt. You’ve never been the subject of his hatred. You’ve just been the one who mediated when he went thermonuclear. We wouldn’t have survived without you, but you have to see that it’s different from being the one who was tossed to the curb. I can’t just get over it right now. I care about you. About all of you guys. I hope you’re okay, but me flying to Boston won’t solve any of this.
Third, I’m not happy to hear about Lauren. I didn’t want that. Yeah, I gave you a hard time, but I was on your side, Matt. I really want it to work out, if that’s what you want. When it does work out, maybe instead of me going to Boston, you can bring Lauren to me.
I’m sorry about everything. I hope you’re okay.
*
No one neededto tell us how bad it was, but they kept doing it anyway.
The seizures came and went, and then there were a few relatively uneventful days where Angus lingered in his coma. He mixed it up when a vessel in his brain blew out, and spent the better part of a day in surgery.
Nick offered a complicated story about intracranial pressure and brain swelling and removing part of his skull, but it might as well have been the weather report for northwestern Siberia because I didn’t give a damn. He also warned us about the drain pumping extra fluid out of Angus’s brain, and that being a freakish sight, though his caution was pointless: we weren’t going in that room any time soon.
Then again, strokes and dying fathers were bad news for normal people, and we stopped being normal people ages ago.
After two additional comatose weeks, Nick scheduled a meeting and put the hospital’s chief neurosurgeons in front of us. It was a dreary Monday morning the week before Christmas, and a full house in the ICU conference room. It seemed like the type of room designed for bad news. Awkward window angles, odd door placement, unnecessarily bright overheard lights. The table was too big and the chairs didn’t match, and nothing good could possibly come from a room like this.
Riley and I filled in the far end while Patrick and Shannon sat in the center, directly across from the surgeons. Sam hovered on the edge, looking like he wanted the floor to open up and eat him. He vacillated between indifference, and the locked and loaded rage he carried for Angus.
The doctors introduced themselves—Chatterjee and Britton, plus their residents—and discussed the complications and intricacies of Angus’s case while Nick leaned against the door. They had all manner of scans and tests, and discussed a handful of treatment plans and care facilities, but one statement stood out: no evidence of brain activity.
Britton glanced between Patrick and Shannon when she finished with the prognosis. “Did you father ever discuss end-of-life care?”
She directed her questions to Patrick because it was obvious to everyone who was in charge, but he shifted toward Shannon and gestured for her to respond.
“No,” Shannon said. “Not with us, that is. And he didn’t leave any advance care directives.”
“Patients don’t come back from these complications. A recovery would be an exceptionality, Miss Walsh. We can make him comfortable, and provide him some peace.” Britton nodded to her team and stood. “Please reach out with any questions. Myself, Dr. Chatterjee, Dr. Acevedo—we’re all available for you and your family.”
The team left and we spent a few minutes staring at each other until I said, “He’s brain dead. It’s over, and I know you’re all thinking the same thing.”
“The life support measures are the only things keeping him alive,” Nick said. “If we discontinued those measures, it could be a matter of minutes or hours, and in some cases days.”
Patrick looked up from the information about long-term care facilities. “Is that the right decision, Nick?”
He lifted his hands, weighing the invisible options. “It wouldn’t be wrong. It would be humane.”
“Then we’ll sign whatever we need to sign,” Shannon said. Her voice cracked, and she put her head in her hands. I hadn’t seen my sister cry in years, maybe even decades, and I couldn’t stay in that room any longer.
Blindly jogging down the stairs and through the halls, I searched for a quiet corner or empty room, something, somewhere to clear my head. I stumbled into a small, dim room and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust, my brain to process. It was a chapel, and though I didn’t believe I belonged there, I couldn’t make myself leave. I sank into the last pew and expelled a ragged breath.
When my mother was alive, she went to church daily. There were always candles to light and prayers to offer, and my father used to say she was there more often than most of the saints. The last time I visited a church was my mother’s funeral. I never thought I’d go back, and after that, why should I?
