“Effie!” George huffed as she rushed up to them. “Where did you get these?” She held up the prescription bottle to show her—and in a brief second, the old Effie was back.
She tried to snatch the bottle from George’s hand. “Why are you snooping around in my personal belongings?” she snapped, her shawl falling to the floor
George shook her finger at her. “Oh, no, Effie Sampson. I didn’t go digging in your medicine cabinets. No, ma’am! They were right on top of your cosmetics bag for all the world to see!”
In an instant, all the progress they’d made was gone. Her angry face and thinned lips said so. “Give them to me, young lady!”
“I will not! These will kill you, Effie!”
“I know!” she howled, grabbing the bottle and snatching it from George.
George’s mouth fell open. She knew. Of course she knew, silly, and George knew what she planned to do, too. Yet, for some reason, she needed verification. She needed to actually hear Effie confirm she wanted to take her life so there was no mistaking her intent.
Grasping at straws, she asked, “Where did you get those? It’s illegal to be in possession of a deadly substance!”
Effie’s tired face, lined with her outrage, turned red. “Not that I have to justify myself to you, but I have money, and when you have money you make connections, and that’s all you need to know!”
George had to fight to keep her temper in check. How could she consider something so…so singular, so lonely?
You mean the way you considered the same thing for very different reasons?
George shook off the memory. This wasn’t about her. “Effie. You can’t—”
She shook the bottle of pills, her fingers wrapped tightly around the plastic, thwarting George’s admonishment. “I can!” she yelled. “This is my life, young lady, and I won’t suffer through your lectures because you want to talk ethics! I’m done with chemo and being someone’s pin cushion only to tack on a couple of months to a life that’s destined to end in agony!”
During her explosive conversation with Effie, Dex had remained silent, but now—now he stepped between then, giving George a look so cold, she wouldn’t soon forget the expression.
“It’s time to go, George,” he said, his words stiff as he put an elbow under her arm to usher her out.
But she yanked it away. “Dex! How can you—”
“Because I said it’s time to go,” he said, cutting her off, his tone unsettling her but firm in its resolve. “Effie, if you need us, don’t hesitate to call. I’ll check in with you before you leave for Cabo.”
Taking her by the hand, he firmly led her out of Effie’s little house and toward her car. The wind tore at her hair, but she was so surprised by Dex physically dragging her out of Effie’s that she didn’t really notice anything except how angry she was.
“Hey, guys. How’d it go?” Wanda, who, at Dex’s request, had come by after work to drive George back to Marty’s, hopped out of her car with a smile and a wave. That is, until she saw George’s face.
She clenched her teeth together but somehow managed to remain polite. It wasn’t Wanda’s fault Dex was a jerk. “Can I have a moment alone with Dex, please, Wanda?”
“Everything okay with you two?” she asked, her beautiful face filled with concern.
“It’s fine. Just give us a sec,” George all but demanded.
Wanda hopped in the backseat of the car with a sharp nod of her head, and George took the opportunity to go around the back of the vehicle to confront Dex.
“How could you, Dex?” was all she managed to spit out, while he had the audacity to stare her down with eyeballs of daggers.
“How could I what, George? How could I let Effie make decisions about her life? I repeat, her life!”
She’d never seen him like this—so adamant—so fiery. He was always so calm and cool, but right now, he looked livid.
George shook her finger at him, her whole body quaking. “Oh, no. You don’t get to do that to me. You don’t get to lecture me about what’s right and wrong when I’m only trying to do my job, and my job is to help people. Doesn’t helping people mean showing them all the options? How could you let her go off to Cabo and end her life with no one by her side? She’ll be all alone, Dex. Alone!”
“Because that’s what Effie wants, George. She wants to do this on her own!” he yelled back.
Yelled. He was yelling at her. Holy spit.
But wait one second… “However, this isn’t just about her, is it? How could you not advise her to tell that poor man David, her son, that she’s going to leave this world and never be able to have a relationship with him because she’s going to die!” she cried into the roaring wind. “She’s going to meet him under false pretenses and that’s not fair!”
“Well, well, look who just realized life’s not fair! That’s not what we do as guardians, George. We don’t decide to run someone’s life!”
She was outraged. Incensed. How could he ignore what this might do to David? “She’s going to Cabo to take her life, Dex. Take. Her. Life! He thinks she’s going for a vacation. He probably thinks when she gets back, they’ll have time to get to know one another, but they won’t, will they?” she sneered. “Because Effie’s taking matters into her own hands.”
“We don’t interfere,” he reminded quietly, almost too quietly for her comfort. “You can’t force your will—your selfish needs—on someone else.”
“My selfish needs?” she screamed in disbelief, not even caring a little that they were in a parking lot and someone might hear them. “Mine? How can you say that when a woman is going to take her own life? Isn’t that against all the rules upstairs, Dex? How dare you say I’m forcing my will!”
He lifted his
