Whisper Me This(34)

But then her breath catches. There’s a horrible gurgling sound in her throat.

And then everything stops.

Her hand falls back to the bed. Her head stays where it is, turned toward me so I can see the closed eyes, the slackness of her mouth.

She doesn’t breathe out.

I hold my own breath, waiting for her, willing her to start back up. She can’t just lie there, like a wind-up toy that’s stopped in midmotion.

A clock ticks.

Nothing happens.

I erupt out of my chair and burst out into the hallway, looking for somebody—anybody—to help. There’s a button or something I should have pushed, but I can’t remember where it is, and I’m not going back now.

“Help me! She’s not breathing!”

A thin, sparse-haired man wielding a mop in the hallway looks up at me. “What room?”

“I don’t know. I can’t think. Just get somebody!”

“Be right back,” he says. “Just hold tight.”

He sets off around the corner. I run back into Mom’s room, hoping hoping hoping this is all part of my faulty imagination, and she’s breathing again.

She hasn’t moved.

Her skin has taken on a dusky-blue color.

I grab her hand, which already feels colder, and start babbling a stream of incoherence. “I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry; please don’t die now, not like this. Give me a chance to make it right . . .”

Sharp voices come through the speakers out in the hall.

“Code blue, ACU.”

A nurse comes in, on the run. My nurse, the one who listened and patted my hand. She’s at Mom’s bedside, feeling for a pulse in her throat, then leaning over to listen with her stethoscope.

“What are you waiting for?” I demand. “She’s not breathing.”

The nurse straightens, slowly, and meets my gaze. “Her heart’s not beating.”

“Aren’t you going to do CPR? What are you waiting for?” I’m stuck in a horror movie where nothing makes sense. I put my own hands on Mom’s chest, as if I’m going to do CPR myself, only I haven’t a clue what I’m supposed to do.

“She’s a no code, honey,” the nurse says, pronouncing each word carefully. “You agreed to that. It’s in the doctor’s orders and hanging above her bed.”

I shake my head.

“No. Whatever I said before, it was wrong. I was wrong. You have to bring her back. I’m not ready . . .”

Running feet pounding in the hallway. A rattling sound.

Three staff members hit the room, one of them pushing a cart.

My nurse holds up a warning hand. “She’s a no code.”

“No, she’s not,” I say. “Thank God you guys are here.”

The man looks from the nurse to me, and then to the No Code sign posted above Mom’s bed.

“I’m her daughter. I agreed to the no code, but I didn’t know—I didn’t mean—I changed my mind. Please, help her.”

“Family wishes,” the man says to my nurse. “No time to argue. We’re on or we’re off.”

“Is she the decision maker?” another nurse asks.

My nurse nods, and the three go into instant action. I step back to the corner of the room, forgotten and out of the way. The male nurse kneels on Mom’s bed, puts his hands on the center of her chest and starts CPR compressions. Her body jolts like a rag doll.

One of the nurses rips off Mom’s gown, slapping pads on her chest, hooking her up to a machine. Another administers medication into her IV with a syringe. Somebody else holds a mask attached to a bag over her nose and mouth, pumping air into her lungs.

I can’t even see her anymore, she’s so surrounded by people.

Then, just like on TV, somebody shouts, “Clear!” The man doing CPR lifts his hands. Everything stops. Mom’s body jolts. They all wait.

And then it starts again.

A hand grasps mine, and I glance up into blue eyes luminous with compassion. “Come away. You don’t need to watch this.”

It’s tempting to let this kind person lead me away, but I twist free of her and shake my head. This is my fault, all this noise and chaos. I insisted on trying to bring Mom back; if she chooses to come back, the least I can do is be here when it happens. To listen if there’s a miracle of last words. To tell her, if she regains consciousness, that I’m sorry.

And still, through all this overwhelming grief and fear and loss, my anger is an ever-present demon. It tangles itself in all the other emotions, stealing the sweetness from my love, poisoning my fear. I watch from the doorway, until finally everything stops.

“I’m calling it,” somebody says. “It’s 9:56.”

Shoulders droop. Heads bow. But only for an instant. Then gloves and gowns start coming off. Leads are disconnected. Machines are turned off. Somebody rolls the crash cart out of the room.

A pair of eyes finds me; the man who called time. “Oh my God. What is she doing here?” he asks a nurse who is pulling a sheet up over my mother.

But nobody stops me as I drift from my corner over to the bed. Mom is naked under the hastily pulled-up sheet. There’s a tube taped to her mouth. IVs in both arms. Pads stuck to her chest. Her hair sticks up wildly on her head.

The room is deathly silent.