The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts(25)

“Great, that’s so great,” he says, smiling hugely at her and then looking over his shoulder at my brother and me, making sure we are witnessing the beauty. “When your thumb is up like this, it means yes, okay?”

“Na na,” she says.

“Great,” he says. “Okay, relax your hand.” He unfolds her fingers, kisses them, and sets them down on the bed. “Let’s practice. Is your name Teresa?” he says. She raises her hand. I stop breathing.

She flexes her fingers, relaxes them. Holds her hand in the air for three seconds. Every muscle in my body is tensed. My brother is chewing on his thumb.

She clears her throat. Extends her pointer finger. Sets her hand back on the bed. She looks at Davy. Her eyebrows are tensed and furrowed, there are lines across her forehead that signal distress, lines we have come to know too well.

“No problem, honey. Let’s try again,” he says softly and slowly. “Is your name Teresa?”

She raises her hand quickly.

“Good,” he says. “Now see if you can make a fist.”

She makes a fist.

“Yes,” he says, talking quicker now, “and now stick your thumb up,” he says. She moves a few of the fingers on her hand, looks at it, looks at him, looks at it. She thinks about it. Stares and stares. Wiggles a few fingers. And then she sticks up her thumb.

“Yes, yes, yes!” we all three yell, my brother and I jumping up and down, Davy clapping. My mom is beaming, this tender smile that stretches from the midline of her face across the left side, her eyes jumping back and forth among the three of us, watching our joy.

Davy jumps up and grabs the physical therapist as she is passing. “Come see, come see!” he says, pulling her into the room.

“Teresa,” Davy says. She has set her hand back on the bed. “Am I your husband?”

She is still smiling at him.

“Am I your husband?” he asks.

“Na na na,” she says.

“Can you give me a thumbs-up to answer the question, honey?” he asks.

“Na na,” she says. Her hand remains on the bed.

“Remember the thumbs-up you just did? She just did one,” he says. “Can you do that again, to show Linda?” he asks. She is looking at him. She knows he wants something. “Right here, with this hand,” he says, tapping her hand on the bed.

She picks her hand up, holds her arm out straight from her body. She knows we want something from her. Insurance will only pay for therapy—physical, occupational, speech—if the patient makes continual, measurable progress. We need progress. We are desperate.

She sticks her tongue out in concentration. Licks her lips. All our starving eyes, staring.

“Am I your husband? Thumbs-up or thumbs-down?”

Her arm is still out straight. She bends her wrist and her flat hand folds ninety degrees down. The lines crease her forehead again and she is staring at us as if she knows this isn’t what will please us.

“That’s okay,” the therapist says. “I’ve gotta run. I’m so glad to hear you made a thumbs-up. Let’s try it again tomorrow, okay?” she says, but my mom’s mouth stays in a grimace. She is working. She is working so hard.

“See you all tomorrow,” Linda says, closing the door behind her.

“What does Linda know?” Davy says. “Anyway, you’ll show her tomorrow. Ugh. Linda.”

My mom’s brow releases a few of its creases. She sighs out a big huff of air.

“You ready to try again?” he asks.

“Na na na na,” she says.

He will do anything, everything, again and again, to give her a life.

*

A few days later, Davy and I were sitting in the hospital’s hallway, waiting, while my mom’s blood and brain fluid were being sucked out for more tests. In the two months since her stroke, with each step she took toward healing, another crisis occurred—a head wound infection, more internal bleeding, additional small strokes, another required brain surgery (she’d had six brain surgeries already), septic shock, on and on, so it was impossible to keep track of how many or which steps forward or back we were taking. There was just constant crisis, and her pain.

The kindest thing, the doctors said, would be to pull the plugs.

What kind of life will she have now?

Would she want to live it?

Would you?

It is not painful, the hospice workers told us, all of us scrunched in one visiting room, to starve to death. We’ll just cut off her feeding tube. It’s peaceful.

That seems untrue, I said.

Well, we give them a lot of morphine, one of them said. And then your body just shuts down. It’s natural. Not unpleasant.

Not unpleasant?

Well, the hospice worker said, taking my hand. You know, she said, and smiled a frowny smile that made the pockets of her cheeks stand out like overstuffed strudels.

The terrible truth was no. I don’t think she’d want to live this life. I wouldn’t.

Davy and I left the hospice conversation and sat in the waiting area. His back was to the windows overlooking giant trees that might have been hiding mountain lions, anything was possible. It was early evening, and the light was gold and coming in shafts through the window and holding in its arms the ordinary beauty of floating dust particles, and we were both staring at them. It had been two months, only two months, but there was exhaustion to contend with already. There was the turmoil of sustained emergency, which seems like an oxymoron—that emergency could be long-term—but it was, sustained. We were in it. He leaned his head down away from the light and shaded his eyes with one hand. His voice was higher than usual.