After the End(111)

Although really, it’s Grace, who spots Max and breaks away from Jada, scattering petals from her posy as she thunders into him and demands to be picked up. There are more aahs, and a ripple of laughter, and before I know it Dad is slipping my arm from his, and kissing me on the cheek and whispering Proud of you, love, in my ear.

And then the registrar is asking if we’re ready, and could everyone please take their seats now? Jada finds a spot next to Lars, and I stand next to Max, who has Grace wrapped round his neck like a monkey. And as the service begins, the room disappears and it’s just me, Max and Grace, and the registrar, making us all a family again.





before





Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

   I took the one less traveled by,

   And that has made all the difference.

   —ROBERT FROST





fifty-three





Leila


Leila wonders if the judge has a family. She wonders if they visited at the weekend, if Justice Merritt played with his grandchildren and thought about the week ahead, about the decision that lay before him. She wonders if he’ll go home this evening and eat dinner with his wife, and talk about the neighbors, the rubbish collection, a theater trip; or if he’ll sit in his study, the door closed, hoping he made the right choice. She knows he will think about this case for the rest of his life, just as she will.

Justice Merritt has heard all the evidence. He will have done as Leila did, as Pip and Max Adams did—he will have tried to imagine the future. What will life be like if Dylan has treatment in America? What will it be like if his care is palliative only? Which is better? Which is kinder? Which is right? He will have asked himself question after question, and searched for the answers in the evidence put before him.

And now he has decided.

Leila feels light-headed, as though she’s been sprinting and has stopped, suddenly, at the finish line. Her body is still, but her pulse is still racing, the adrenaline still fizzing, nowhere to go.

She looks around the courtroom and sees not people, but feelings. Anticipation. Fear. Sorrow. Regret. Determination. Pip and Max stare straight ahead, their hands clasped tightly together. Leila has never known a couple so well suited. She grieves for what this has done to them, and she hopes they will stay strong. They will need each other, no matter what the outcome of today.

“I would like to thank the medical team at St. Elizabeth’s Children’s Hospital, and the numerous experts who have given evidence over the last three days.” Justice Merritt speaks slowly and clearly. “You have treated Dylan with the dignity and compassion he deserves, and you should be commended for such. Most importantly, I thank Dylan’s parents, Max and Philippa Adams, who have conducted themselves in this uniquely difficult situation with bravery and dignity, and with nothing but their son’s interests at heart.”

Dylan’s parents are hollowed out with grief. Leila tries to imagine what it must feel like to have your own private hell made public, and finds that she cannot. She feels a flash of anger toward paramedic Jim, and his disregard for the Adamses’ feelings.

“My judgment today is incredibly difficult, but the parameters of my decision-making are simple. I must decide what is in Dylan’s best interests. I must consider his emotional needs, as well as his medical ones.”

It is hard enough to have a child in intensive care, Leila knows. It is harder to know that they may not survive, harder still to be asked to take their life in your own two hands, and then decide where to place it.

“The question on which this sad case hinges,” says the judge, “is not only will proton beam therapy extend Dylan’s life, but what is the quality of that life? Indeed, what is a life?”

How much harder must it be, Leila wonders, to face all of this with the world watching? To walk past a newsstand filled with your photographs, to turn on a radio and hear your own name? To read tabloid columns and broadsheet think pieces that lay bare the fears that plague you at night?

Leila feels suddenly nauseous.

“My decision is not based on what I would do, but on what I believe is right for this child, in this circumstance. It is made on the basis of the laws that govern us and protect us.”

Leila stands up. She fights the urge to run, and instead walks as fast as she can across the courtroom. Her shoes echo in a void where a dropped pin would clang like an iron bar. There is no break in Justice Merritt’s speech, and Leila does not look back to see if he disapproves of her abrupt departure. His words are swallowed by the soft shush of the courtroom door as it closes, and Leila walks out onto the concourse.

She is momentarily thrown by the realization that life is still proceeding at the same pace. There are people moving about in this limbo between courtrooms, between opening and closing speeches. There are barristers and witnesses, applicants and respondents. Journalists. Somewhere outside are Habibeh and Wilma. Life continues.

But for Pip and Max Adams—for Dylan Adams—life will never be the same again. And Leila feels suddenly that it is wrong to share this pivotal moment with them—to take for entertainment something as life-altering as this. She cannot stop the newspapers printing their stories, or the chat show hosts planning their debates. She cannot tell the millions of people on Twitter to stop passing judgment, to stop this invasion of privacy. She cannot tell the crowds outside the court to go home. But she can close her own ears, for just a little longer. She can give Max and Pip this tiny piece of privacy, of respect.