The Proxy

Her son says she wanted to die. She says he’s lying. The law says he decides.

Hospital ethicist Teresa Nowicki is called to help Eleanor’s family decide. Eleanor’s son, Russell, cries without a sound while soft cuffs tie his mother’s wrists to the bed rails. Then, letter by letter, Eleanor spells with her eyes: IF THEY TELL YOU I WANTED TO DIE THEY ARE LYING. Her daughter calls it delirium, but Eleanor finishes anyway.

Worse, the bleed in Eleanor’s brain has doubled, and that sentence may be her last words. Russell signs for seventy-two hours of treatment. When Teresa mentions a nurse’s questions about Eleanor’s fall, he asks, “Which nurse? I’d like to thank her.”

Teresa told him because she believes families deserve the truth first. By morning he has found the nurse himself, flowers in his arms. Then he tells Teresa, “I’m the one keeping you here.” She can cross him and lose her place beside Eleanor, or keep her head down until the pen is his again. You will have every fact. You will still never be sure he was wrong.