She locked the door, went over to her husband, took his hands, and kissed his lips.
“This is for you, Jare. I love you.”
Deirdre reached across Jared’s body, her finger poised on the ventilator, and paused. She had come to the precipice, but she couldn’t go through with it. She couldn’t stop her husband, the father of her children, from living.
She looked at Jared’s face and so many memories came flooding back, as if his life was flashing before her eyes.
She remembered the night they sat on a stone wall high on a hill in some park near where Jared grew up, watching the moon rise. It was fall, and Deirdre was nestled into Jared to keep warm. Ninety minutes passed as the moon traced its arc from the horizon to the sky. Neither one spoke and neither one moved. It was a perfect evening.
She remembered the day Jared took Megan, when she was three, to her first movie. Jackie was in kindergarten, and the legislature wasn’t in session. The two of them, Jared and Megan, came home covered in popcorn butter and cotton candy, singing, dancing, and hugging. Until that day, Jared hadn’t really seemed to connect with Megan, and Deirdre was beginning to worry. She thought maybe there wasn’t enough love in his heart for two children, but Megan, who was persistent, won him over.
She could still see in her mind’s eye the day they buried Deirdre’s mother. Jared was so full of compassion and so full of strength that Deirdre just let her entire being collapse into him. He was stronger than anyone she’d ever known.
And now, now he was this.
Deirdre took a deep breath and closed her eyes, looking for the courage to do what her Jared wanted, but it wasn’t there. She drew her hand back.
Then she opened her eyes and looked up.
The lens of a camera—the crew not bothering to hide the cameras in the sick room—was trained directly on her face. The convex curve of the glass distorted her features, stretched them like a funhouse mirror. On the other side of that glass, she knew, was the rest of the world. They sat there, gawkers at a zoo. It disgusted her. It made her angry.
It gave her all the strength she needed.
Deirdre removed the pillow from under Jared’s head, took the pillowcase off, and tossed it over the camera. Then she leaned forward, turned off the ventilator, and put the pillow over her husband’s face. A throbbing pain exploded behind her eyelids, but she didn’t flinch. Deirdre was prepared to stay there until the end of time.
***
“Young lady.” Jackie heard Sister Benedict’s voice through the door. “We know you have Andersona’s phone. Mr. Overbee is coming here now. You would be a smart girl to just give it back to us.”
Jackie panicked. They knew. They knew before her mother had a chance to do what she had to do. Maybe they knew about that, too. Maybe it was already over. She looked at the bathroom window, trying to figure out if she could wriggle through and escape, but she was pretty sure it was too small.
“Is she still in there?” It was Ethan’s voice. There was no answer from the Sister, which Jackie thought was strange. Not sure what else to do, Jackie started the video recording on Andersona’s phone.
“This is Jackie Stone,” she whispered with urgency, pointing the camera at her face. “I’m trapped in my own bathroom with a stolen iPhone. The Life and Death producer, Ethan Overbee, and that nun, Sister Benedict, are outside the door demanding I—”
“Sister?” Ethan asked, alarm in his voice. “What is it?”
“NOOOOO!!!!” the Sister wailed. “The control truck … they’re saying … it’s Deirdre! She’s, she’s …”
“Fuck, no!” Ethan yelled in response.
Jackie heard them both running down the hall away from the bathroom. With the phone still recording, she opened the door to see what was going on.
***
Megan was overwhelmed. Sister Benedict made it to the door first, with Ethan hot on her heels. The doctors arrived only seconds later. All of them were shouting at Megan to move.
“Out of our way!” the Sister bellowed.
“Megan, please!” Ethan implored.
“We need to get in,” one of the doctors said, panic in his voice.
Only they were all talking at once, creating a wall of sound that was indecipherable. The Sister’s piercing scream cut through it all.
“Enough!” she shouted. The hallway went silent. “Move, you insolent brat. Your mother is in there committing murder! Move! Now!”
When Megan didn’t budge, Sister Benedict slapped her across the face. It was a hard slap, and it stung.
In the wake of the startled silence created by that slap, the echo of hand on cheek reverberating through the house, a noise of movement from down the hall drew everyone’s attention. All the heads turned as one, just in time to see Jackie holding the phone out in front of her and pointing it at the assembled crowd. She left the bathroom, ran down the stairs, and raced out of the house.