The Wave by Kristen Crusoe (ebook reader online txt) 📗

that easy. We currently have a significant physician shortage in our community, and it has to be a doctor – not a nurse practitioner or physician assistant. It could take a while, and then that person will have to treat you long enough to know you. They face big liability if they write for death with dignity without meeting all the criteria. Clair, this isn’t a quick fix. This won’t be your suicide pill.’

Clair exhaled. Her shoulders slumped.

‘I am not suicidal anymore. That isn’t what this is about. The issue here is one of failure of you all being able to understand my experience. This is about me, and only me. If I am going to die anyway, and that is what I just heard Dr Ellerby say, then I want it to be on my terms. It won’t be suicide because the cancer is the cause, not my own hand. It’s just my time. And I want it to be done my way, not wasting away, being a burden to others. What others? There’s that as well.’

‘Clair, we’ll stay here and help,’ Jodie cried out. ‘You know we will.’

‘I don’t want you to, Jodie. I want you and Ben to go back to your work, where you are needed. I have money. I can hire a caregiver. I don’t want anyone to bother with me.’

‘I’ll help,’ Adam said, his voice uncertain. ‘If you’ll have me.’

Shaking her head, she brought both hands up to her face. ‘I don’t want anyone’s help. I don’t deserve it,’ she said. ‘Don’t you understand?’

Dr Ellerby shifted in his chair, ‘Clair, how about letting me at least get the PET scan, while you’re going about the steps to apply for the death with dignity? And then maybe, we can just start some treatment. This cancer is fast. And we need to know if it has already spread to other parts of your body. It won’t delay death with dignity. In fact, it might look better for you if you are in treatment when the board receives your application. Right now, you do have a choice. If we wait, even a few weeks, that choice will be very different. And Clair, it won’t be pretty. It will be painful and messy. The cancer will eat away at your flesh, causing open wounds that will cause terrible suffering. We might not be able to rescue you once it gets that far. I don’t want you to suffer. Please, let me help.’

His frank and honest talk moved her. And it made sense to her. She liked the idea of doing something while waiting for death. It was a form of shedding, losing the bits and pieces of herself, readying for her final liberation. Like Devon, she thought, he began as a tiny spark, grew into an infant, a boy, then like a sun, exploded into an infinite possibility pattern, freed from the constraints of time. She will do the same only in reverse order. And they will meet, she knew, where the edges of time meet space.

‘OK, I’ll do it. I’ll take treatment. But only if I can get out of this place.’ She looked at Dr Bernstein. ‘If this isn’t proof I’m no longer suicidal, then I don’t know what is.’

Dr Bernstein laughed. ‘I think you’re right there. Clair, I’ll make up a conditional release from commitment for you and you can go home, as soon as Dr Ellerby releases you.’

‘Just like that?’ Clair asked.

‘Yes, just like that. I’m sure the judge will sign off, once she receives my discharge order. There will be certain conditions that must be met. And you will need to have a responsible adult to ensure you meet them. I will need a home address for you, though, and a plan for regular sessions with a therapist. As well as regular visits with me or another psychiatrist. And I can have our case manager refer you to a primary care physician. I also expect the district attorney will drop the criminal case, especially now. You are no longer a danger to Adam, or anyone else.’

Clair turned her head, looking out the window, at the rain cascading down the side of the glass. Home. The very word sent her into paroxysms of guilt, remorse, sadness at all she had been and not been. There had never been a home for her, she thought, maybe that’s why I failed to create a safe haven for Devon.

The house she had grown up in was never home. Clean as a realtor’s showcase, even her own room was a designer model. The housekeeper was on orders to pick up every object that didn’t fit Mother’s ideas of décor. Lavender, yellow, and pale pink. She almost gagged remembering how awkward she felt in that space, unable to close the door, not allowed to bring a friend over. Always on display. The only thing out of order, in her mother’s eyes, was Clair’s cello. That was tolerated because she received merit for her playing. Accolades and awards to brag about to her friends at the club and on her many boards and committees.

She had wanted the opposite for Devon. She had tried to create a space that was warm, inviting, loving. Giving him freedom to roam, and explore. Even with his disability. Maybe, surely, she had gone too far. Too much freedom, and she had let go. She had lost him.

‘I don’t know,’ she said shrugging her shoulders, gazing around the small group, feeling detached, remote from all that was happening to her.

Adam pushed himself off the wall. He stood, hands in his pockets, rocking side to side, looking like a nervous school boy.

‘I’ll take you home, Clair. If you’ll come.’

She looked up at him, seeing hope in his eyes. Could she do this? The commitment was meant to force her to live, when she only wanted, yearned, to die. Without that, and the safety of the psychiatric unit, if free, what would she do? Now, she was at