Lone Wolf

Before we can bicker any further, the sheriff walks into the courtroom. “Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye, all rise!” He faces the gallery. “All those having business before the district court shall now join near, give their attendance, and they shall be heard. The Honorable Nettie McGrue presiding!”

The judge is a tiny bird of a woman with a cap of frighteningly yellow hair and a sharp, pointed nose. Her judicial robe has a profusion of lace at the collar that makes me think of a rabid, frothing dog. “Counsel,” she says, “I will take any formal matters that are scheduled for arraignment.”

Beside me, Joe stands. “Your Honor, I’m ready in the matter of Edward Warren.”

“Mr. Warren, come forward,” the judge says, as Joe hauls me upright. “Clerk, arraign the defendant.”

We walk to the front of the courtroom, and I give my name and address-well, I give my father’s address, anyway. “Mr. Warren,” the judge says, “I see you’re represented by counsel… Would Counsel identify himself for the record?”

“Joe Ng, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Warren, you’re before the court having been charged by complaint with second-degree assault against Maureen Cullen, a nurse at Beresford Memorial Hospital. What say you to this charge?”

My fingers curl around the cuff of my father’s jacket. “I’m not guilty, Your Honor.”

“I see bail was set at five thousand dollars personal recognizance. The defendant, having appeared here voluntarily, is released on the same recognizance. Mr. Warren, I’m going to set the same bail conditions that were set by the bail commissioner: you are ordered to have a psychiatric evaluation, and there’s a no contact order with your father, and a no trespass order with Beresford Memorial Hospital.” She fixes her bright, black eyes on me. “You realize that if you fail to have the evaluation performed within the next ten days, or if you go to the hospital to see your father, you could be brought back and held without bail at the county jail pending a hearing? Do you understand the terms and conditions of your release?”

She asks me to raise my right hand and swear that I’ll be back here in ten days for a probable cause hearing, whatever that is.

“Next matter,” the judge says, and then it’s over.

The whole procedure takes about two minutes, tops.

“That’s it?” I say to Joe.

“Would you prefer it to drag on longer?” He pulls me out of the courtroom.

I follow him through the parking lot to his car.

“Now what?” I ask, my words shifting shape in the cold. I stamp my feet while he unlocks the door.

“Now you do what the judge said. You get your psychiatric evaluation and you sit tight while I try to figure out how to get this case thrown out.” He turns on the ignition and backs out of his spot. “I’ll drive you back to your father’s-”

He is interrupted by a blast of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Startled, I fiddle with the radio to turn it down, but it isn’t even switched on. “Joe Ng,” he announces out loud, to nobody.

Then I hear another voice, broadcast through the hands-free phone system. “Joe? This is Danny Boyle, the county attorney.”

“Danny,” Joe says, wary. “What can I do for you?”

“Actually, it’s the other way around. Your stepson was indicted today for the attempted murder of his father-”

“What the hell?” I burst out.

Joe punches me in the arm. “Sorry. Let me turn down the radio here,” he says, and he shoots me a deathly look and puts his finger to his lips: silence. “I think you might have that charge wrong,” Joe continues. “He was arraigned for second-degree assault.”

“Well, Joe”-the other voice is smooth, oily-“I have the indictment sitting right here in my hand. This was a professional courtesy call, to be frank. Instead of having him picked up, I thought you might prefer to surrender him to the police department.”

“Yes,” Joe replies. “I’ll bring him in. Thanks for the call.” He pushes a button on his steering wheel, disconnecting the call, and looks at me. “You,” he says, “are in deep shit.”

“I wasn’t trying to kill my father,” I insist, as Joe drains his cup of coffee in a single gulp, then holds it out to the diner waitress to refill. “Well, I mean, I was, but not because I wanted him dead. Because it’s what he wanted.”

“And you know this how?”

I fumble in my coat pocket for the letter I signed for my father-but then realize it’s in my sweatshirt back home. “I have a note he signed, giving me the power to make medical decisions for him if he wasn’t capable of making them,” I say. “He told me if he was ever in a condition like this, he wouldn’t want to be kept alive.”

At this, Joe raises his brows. “When did he sign this note?”

“When I was fifteen,” I admit, and Joe buries his face in his hands.

“I’m going to work this out,” he promises, “but you have to tell me exactly what happened yesterday.”

“I already have-”

“Tell me again.”

I draw in my breath. I tell him about the meeting at Cara’s bedside, how the neurosurgeon and the ICU doctor both said my father wasn’t going to recover, and that we would have to make some choices about his health care. I tell him how Cara went ballistic, how the nurse shooed everyone out. “Cara said she couldn’t do this,” I explain. “She couldn’t keep listening to all these doctors telling her there wasn’t any hope. So I told her I’d take care of everything. And I did.”

“So she never actually said that she wanted you to terminate your father’s life support…”

“Of course not. Neither of us wanted it. Who would, when it means someone in your family is going to die? But Cara couldn’t face the fact that my father isn’t ever going to live again, either.” I shake my head. “There is no miracle around the corner, if we give it a week or a month or a year. It is what it is. And that sucks, but it means our options are sticking him in a nursing home forever or terminating life support, and either one of those choices is something Cara doesn’t want to make. I may not have been around much when she was growing up, but I’m still her big brother, and I’m supposed to be the one who protects her-from bullies, and from crappy boyfriends, and from horrible situations like this. That’s why I decided I’d make the call. That way, she didn’t have to carry around that little bit of guilt for the rest of her life.”

“But you would,” Joe says.

I look up at him. “Yeah.”

“So what did you do?”

“I talked to my father’s surgeon. I wanted to make sure that what he was really saying was that my dad wasn’t coming back. Ever. I told him I wanted to talk to the organ donation people.”

“Why?”

“My dad’s license says he wanted to be a donor,” I say. “So I met with them, and signed all the forms, and they scheduled everything to happen the next morning.”

“Why didn’t you go back and talk to Cara about this?”

“She was sedated. That’s how upset she got after the doctors told her there wasn’t a chance in hell for my father.” I shrug. “You can ask my mother if you don’t believe me.”

“Then what happened?”

“At nine, I was in my father’s hospital room with a couple of nurses and the hospital lawyer and the neurosurgeon, and the ICU doctor asked where Cara was. Next thing I know, she bursts into the room screaming that I’m trying to kill my father.” I pick up my fork, toying with it. “The hospital lawyer told everyone to step back, that this couldn’t continue as planned. But all I could think was, I can’t let this drag on anymore. It wasn’t going to get any easier, no matter how long we waited, whether or not Cara wanted to admit it. So I bent down and pulled the plug of the ventilator out of the wall.” I glance at Joe. “I bumped into the nurse when I reached for the plug, but I didn’t shove her.”

“The nurse is the least of your worries now,” Joe says. “Did you say anything when you pulled out the plug?”

I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”