Betrayed

“I definitely want one,” Ellen stated. “I don’t want to be kept alive if I’m too sick to ever recover.”

“What do you mean?” Sullivan was bewildered. “Where there is life, there is always hope. You’d want them to pull the plug on you?”

“Well, you don’t have to put it that way.” Ellen’s eyes flashed with the beginnings of annoyance. “Why would I want to lay there and suffer if I’m not going to get well?”

“How would you know whether you’d get well or not?” Sullivan persisted. “That should be in the hands of God, not a decision for some doctor to make. A doctor should do everything humanly possible to save someone’s life! Everything!”

“It’s my decision.” Ellen was adamant. “If I’m ever that sick, then it’s already in God’s hands. Without interference from a doctor, I’d die anyway.”

Sully was equally stubborn. “A doctor is an extension of God’s hands.” His voice rose. “A doctor should use his God-given skills to save life, not take it away! This whole subject is morbid. It’s creepy.”

“If anything is creepy, it’s the idea of keeping a body alive when the brain is dead! A doctor’s job is to alleviate suffering, not prolong it,” Ellen shot back. “A doctor is not God and shouldn’t be playing God with people’s lives!”

The lawyer looked uncomfortable.

“Maybe the two of you should spend some time talking this over before we proceed,” he advised.

“I don’t need to talk it over,” Sullivan retorted. “Do you have some kind of document that’s the opposite of a living will? Something that says a hospital can’t withdraw life support?”

“We can draft something that expresses your desire to be maintained, not to have fluids and nutrition withdrawn,” the attorney answered. “It is no guarantee, but it does give medical personnel and your family a guide to your wishes, in the event you are no longer able to make these types of decisions for yourself.”

“Fine.” Sullivan’s tone was clipped, his lips tight against his teeth. “That’s what we want, then. Draft up a couple of those.”

“How dare you! You will not choose for me!” Ellen exploded. “You’re acting like an arrogant controlling bastard.”

“Ellen!” Sullivan’s face was contorted. “I love you. I’m not trying to control you, dammit. I just can’t face the idea of losing you.”

“I want a living will.” Ellen directed her comment at the attorney. “Give him whatever he wants, but I don’t want to be kept alive like some kind of monster in a horror movie strapped to a bunch of machines.”

“I’m out of here.” Sullivan snatched his jacket from the back of the chair. “You know what I want. Write mine up so nobody can kill me just because I might become inconvenient.”

“Inconvenient!” Ellen was outraged. Sullivan stormed out of the law office with Ellen on his heels. “You think I would make that kind of decision based on convenience?” She was shaking with fury.

“That’s what it sounds like to me!” Sullivan called over his shoulder as he flung the door open and stepped out into the crisp autumn sunshine. The receptionist watched them go, her eyes wide with interest.

“It would!” Ellen yelled, marching out behind him. “You don’t give me any credit at all. None! You’re selfish, Sullivan Proctor! Selfish and cruel.”

They reached the car, and Sullivan unlocked the doors, not bothering to hold Ellen’s door open for her as he usually did. His anger was deep and barely restrained.

“It’s cruel to want to keep you with me? It’s cruel for me to want to live? To want you to live?” He slid behind the wheel and inserted the key. Then he turned to her, his eyes hard. “I’ll tell you what’s cruel. Cruel is taking food and water and medical treatment away from a helpless sick person, someone too weak to fight back. Cruel is starving someone to death who can’t defend himself. I can’t believe you would do that! You’re not the person I thought you were, Ellen. I don’t think I can trust you to make decisions for me.”

“You don’t trust me?” Tears of rage shone in her eyes. “Well, I don’t trust your ass either! How could you insist on keeping my body alive, suffering, possibly for months or even years? Not able to talk, or hear, or move. It’d be a living hell! And you’d put me through that? Now, that’s cruelty! And it’s purely selfish. All because of what YOU want. Nothing about what I want. All to save you grief.”

“It wouldn’t save me any grief, Ellen. If anything happened to you, I’d be grieving more than you can imagine.” Sullivan’s voice held a note of anguish. He started the car, backed out, and pulled carefully into traffic. In a burst of renewed anger, he hit the brakes harder than necessary at the corner and then accelerated recklessly. That was one habit of Sully’s that Ellen disliked intensely, his tendency to express his anger or frustration behind the wheel.

“Slow down, Sully,” she cautioned. He threw her a look of irritation, but backed off the accelerator in deference to her request. It dawned on him they were each focused only on their individual concerns. Logic asserted itself and told him there were four issues here: What would happen to him if he got sick, what would happen to her if she got sick, and each person’s individual response to the situation. But to hell with logic; he decided to appeal to Ellen's emotions.

“Don’t you have any compassion?” He shot her a sideways look, brief but filled with a confused hurt.

“Don’t you?” she returned, equally wounded.

“Look, I love you, Ellen.” Sully took a deep breath. “I love you, goddammit! I’m not going to stop just because you become ill, get hurt in an accident, or get old and feeble.”

“I know that,” Ellen said, her voice still shaky. “But, it wouldn’t be fair to me. And it wouldn’t be fair to you either. I wouldn’t want to live that way! And, you shouldn’t want me to live that way. If you really love me, you’d respect my wishes.”

“Your wishes are wrong,” he stated flatly, and her anger flared again.

“You think you’re so perfect. You think you always have the right answer, and that your way is the only way. I get so tired of it sometimes.” She stared sightlessly out the passenger window, locked in her own thoughts and resentments.

“So, if you get sick, you’d just give up? Leave me? You wouldn’t even try to fight it? I mean so little to you?” He choked on the words. “How could you just leave me?”

Ellen's voice became gentle. 'Honey, if I'm that sick, then I’m already gone. It wouldn’t be a choice.”

He slammed the palms of his hands on the steering wheel. “Bullshit! It is a fucking choice and you’re making it right now.”

She felt her anger suddenly dissipate. His agony was heartbreaking to witness. How could she make him understand?

“You’re right, Sully! It’s my choice. I have the right to make it just as much as you have the right to make your choice.' She turned in the seat to look at him. 'I would never want to leave you. I love you, too. You know that. Sully, you know that. But we’re talking about my body, my life!” She was surprised to see the glimmer of unshed tears in his eyes. They pulled into their driveway and got out. He waited for her on the sidewalk in spite of his anger, and they walked into the house together. As soon as the door closed behind them, the argument resumed.

“We’re talking about my life, too,” he pointed out, tossing his keys onto the hallway table and shrugging out of his jacket. “What would my life be if something happened to you?”

“You’d grieve. But then you’d go on. You’d eventually find someone else, and I’d want you to.”

“I feel like puking.” He sunk to the couch, his expression a mixture of frustration and pain. Ellen put her purse on the coffee table and sat next to him.

“It’s a tough subject,” she agreed. “But I’m glad it came up. We need to find some resolution to this.”

“I just can’t believe life means so little to you,” Sullivan said. “I can’t believe you would let go of it so easily. So, if something happened to me, you’d just give up? Pull the plug on me?”

“No,” she said carefully. “I’d respect your wishes.”

He groaned as her words skewered him. “Touche, Ellen.”

“You’ve never had to make that kind of decision, have you?” Ellen asked, her voice gentle. She picked up his hand and held it tenderly. He was unresponsive, stiff.

“Neither have you,” he replied