Overkill(100)
In the event…
… a condition determined to be irreversible…
… I request that all treatments be discontinued or withheld…
… allow me to die as gently as possible…
… no life-sustaining measures…
… no feeding tube or other device…
It was dated months after their divorce was finalized. Rebecca had signed it in her flourishing handwriting. It had also been witnessed by two people Zach had never heard of.
He looked at Doug with a mix of fury and incomprehension, shaking the paper in front of his face. “Why?”
“Because her choices went against my beliefs.”
“Your beliefs? Your beliefs! My life,” Zach shouted. “Rebecca’s life. You son of a bitch! You expressly went against what she stipulated. How many times have you gotten in my face, yelling about adhering to Rebecca’s wishes? And all along…? God, when I think of the hell you’ve put me through!”
He was so furious, he could feel the heated blood pulsing through the veins in his temples. He raised both hands, one still fisting the directive, and barely resisted the urge to throttle the man.
“You think having a Bible at your elbow makes you holy? Righteous? That it gives you license to play with other people’s lives? You’re an unforgiving, lying, vindictive hypocrite.”
He looked down at the directive and slapped the back of his hand against it. “These witnesses. Who are they? Do they even exist? If so, where have they been? Why haven’t they come forward to expose your deceit? Was this ever filed with an attorney?”
Doug let him smolder for what seemed a very long time. When he did answer, it was in an infuriatingly bland tone. “After your divorce, Rebecca was flitting from here to there, never staying in any one place for long. She used our mailing address as hers, so she wouldn’t miss any official or important correspondence.
“Your attorney sent the notification that you’d changed your will and directives. I advised her to do likewise. She planned to come down for Mardi Gras. She said she would take care of it then.
“I printed out the Louisiana state forms off the internet. They were standard, nothing fancy, but officially binding. It was supposed to be easy. But when we got down to it, Rebecca did a one-eighty on the life-sustaining instructions. She said that when y’all drew up the originals, she’d gone against your leanings just to aggravate you.”
“That part I believe,” Zach said, still seething. “What about the witnesses?”
“Men from my church.”
“Like-minded?”
“Yes.” Doug puffed his chest up. “Men who believe only God can give or take a life.”
“Wrong,” Zach fired back. “Unless you believe that Eban Clarke was carrying out God’s will last night when he killed Theo Simpson in cold blood.”
“The devil does his work, too.”
“He sure as hell does. This is the result of it.” He raised the directive again. “How did you get away with this?”
Doug’s lips formed a stubborn line, and he stayed mute for so long that Zach thought he might have to wring the answer out of him. Eventually he said, “I swore the witnesses to secrecy. Since they shared my beliefs on the matter, they swore an oath never to reveal that this document existed.”
“Not even when Rebecca lost all brain function.”
“Especially then.”
Zach’s anger had gradually ebbed into dismay. How could a man who wore religion on his sleeve, who was so proud of his piety, be so deceitful? “You never filed this with a lawyer?”
“No. Only Rebecca’s new will and a POA for business matters.”
“She didn’t follow up?”
“No. She was off in England with a tennis pro.”
“I remember. Their affair ran hot and was all the rage.”
“Only for the length of the Wimbledon tournament.”
Hearing the note of sorrow in Doug’s voice, Zach felt a twinge of pity for him. Which the man didn’t deserve, he reminded himself. “What did Mary have to say about this new directive?”
“She knew nothing about it. When you showed up at the hospital in Atlanta, she was under the impression that the old one was still valid. She was so afraid that you would side with the doctors’ recommendations, exercise that substituted judgment thing they kept harping about, and take Rebecca off life support.”
Zach thought about the reason he hadn’t followed the doctors’ recommendations: Rebecca’s unknown pregnancy. Had Mary and Doug known of it, he imagined the additional hysteria it would have caused. Quietly, he asked, “What if I had decided to exercise substituted judgment, Doug? Would you have produced this then?” He slapped at the document again.
“No. Mary and I would have had to let her die.”
“Yes, let her die, but let me take the fall for it. For doing precisely what Rebecca had mandated in this new directive.”
Doug raised his shoulders in a shrug before letting them slump back into place.
Zach gave a bitter laugh. “You made me out to be the bad guy who sailed in and welcomed the opportunity to kill my cheating ex-wife.”
Doug just looked at him from beneath his sagging eyelids.
“You fed me to the cannibals. Why? Was that my punishment for divorcing your daughter?”