I nod stiffly, still feeling numb, and take the offered seat. I do take her hand now, and it’s warm and soft, like always. Aunt Sarah wasn’t exceptionally affectionate, but a touch on the hand or shoulder was as good as a hug from her.Is. I can’t think of her in the past tense. Not yet.I stroke her palm and let out a gasp as her fingers twitch in my hand.
“She moved!” I cry.
The nurse gives me a small smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “That’s good,” she says as she goes back to her computer and starts typing and clicking away again.
I get the feeling this reaction isn’t all that good.
Sometime later, I’m not sure how long, as time seems to move at a crawl in this room, a small group of people enter. One woman is wearing faded blue scrubs that are a bit wrinkled. She pushes her glasses higher on her nose as she scrolls through the tablet tucked in the crook of her arm. Another woman with a white coat over her black pencil skirt and white Oxford is speaking to a very young-looking man also in a white coat and white button-down shirt. His dark blue tie dangles away from his body with no tie clip holding it back, and I wonder how he hasn’t managed to get that stuck in some bodily fluid. They continue talking amongst themselves, seemingly oblivious to the presence of anyone else in the room.
At last, the young man looks up at me, offering a sad sort of smile before he returns his attention to the other doctors. They move to the bed and surround my aunt and me, their faces masks of professionalism, aside from the young one who must be a student and hasn’t learned to hide every emotion yet.
“Please lead off, Doctor Vinton,” pencil skirt says.
“The Countess Lady Sarah Graf, eighty-seven years old,” begins the woman in the faded scrubs. “Suffered an ischemic stroke to the left cerebellum, last known well was three hours prior to arrival. TPA was started at the thirty-minute mark and completed an hour ago. No improvement of the right-sided hemiplegia since TPA administration, and the patient continues to be responsive only to painful stimuli.”
The young doctor is scribbling furiously on the clipboard in his hands. I’m trying to meet someone’s eyes, but they’re all focused on their tablets and clipboards.
“Past medical history of hypercholesterolemia and hypothyroidism,” the first doctor continues. “Past surgical history of a cholecystectomy in her forties and carotid artery endarterectomy five years ago. The patient is not a smoker but does consume wine daily.”
They’re still not making eye contact with me or even attempting to include me in this conversation. All their jargon is making me feel like I’m on the outside of a big secret. It’s making me want to scream. None of them have even looked at my aunt besides a cursory glance when they first entered theroom. The nurse, who has remained in the room since I arrived, is bustling about, addressing the monitors and adjusting the medications that are pumping into her patient.
“Excuse me,” I finally cut in after at least five minutes of conversation that I’m struggling to understand.
The doctors look startled, as if they had forgotten I was even there.
“This is Lady Graf’s great niece,” the nurse supplies.
“And have we been in contact with the next of kin?” pencil skirt asks.
“I am the next of kin.” I try to keep the wavering from my voice. I don’t want them to mistake my anxiety for anything but worry over my aunt.Technically, the next of kin is Uncle Jonas, but lord knows where that man is.
“Very well, then. And your name is?”
I straighten in the hard plastic chair. “Aurelia Sumner.”
“Miss Sumner, has your aunt expressed any of her wishes to you?”
“Wishes?”
Pencil skirt moves to the side of the hospital bed across from me. I can read her hospital badge at this distance, Doctor Monceaux. Neurology. Her eyes travel the length of Aunt Sarah’s body before she comes to rest on me. “Lady Graf is showing no improvement after receiving the medicine to break down the clot causing the stroke. Ideally, we would seesome changes by now, either in movement or level of consciousness.”
“What does that mean?” I wish someone would speak plainly in here. I have a basic understanding of strokes, but only enough to have me jumping to all kinds of horrific conclusions, and I hate this guessing game they’re playing with me.
Scrubs puts a hand on my shoulder. “It means that despite our efforts, the likelihood of recovery is slim.”
I blink a few times, thoughts bouncing around in my head, but not really making sense. Eventually, I stammer out, “But slim chance means there’s still some, right?”
“Negligible might be a better word,” the student puts in.
My eyes start to prickle, and my throat feels tight. The room feels suddenly very cramped and very cold.
“There are a few options from here, Miss Sumner, but it is unlikely any will make much of a difference in this case.”
I nod. I think I know where this is going, and if none of them have the guts to say it out loud, I will. “So, your initial question about her wishes, you mean what she wants when she’s dying.”
I flick my gaze among all of the doctors around me. Now they look right at me. Young guy looks stunned at my frankness; the other two are subdued but not shocked.
“Yes, Miss Sumner, how does your aunt wish to live out her last days?”
