Ellie nodded. “Can I see her?”
“Of course you can but I’m afraid there’s a difficult decision you must make.”
“You want me to agree to switch off the life support.”
Ellie’s voice was utterly emotionless and if it wasn’t for Stuart holding her against him in that moment she might have believed that she had become completely detached from her own body.
“Yes, I know it’s a delicate matter but your mother’s insurance doesn’t cover us artificially prolonging her life.”
Ellie merely nodded.
“I’d like to see her now, please.”
The doctor studied her for a moment before opening his mouth as though he was going to continue arguing about it.
“If you say it again I’ll scream and I won’t stop screaming until someone comes in here and sedates me. And if that happens then I won’t be capable of making the difficult decision.”
Ellie couldn’t help the sarcasm that came through in her voice as she stared up at the doctor. This was her mother he was talking about, someone she loved and cared for and he was treating it as though money was the only consideration she should have.
Why did everything always come back to money? When did the world become such a cruel, hard place that valued currency above the lives of the people on the planet?
The doctor nodded, his expression hardening.
“I’ll take you through to her right now.”
Without a backwards glance the doctor turned on his heel and moved down the hall. He moved like he expected her to simply follow him and Ellie wanted to but her body didn’t want to cooperate. She fought to take a step, to move after him and failed.
Stuart, as though sensing her inability to, held onto her until she took the first tentative step forward. Once she was moving it was like being trapped on a conveyor belt, one that wouldn’t stop going forward until she was standing at the bottom of her mother’s bed.
* * *
Reaching the door, Ellie paused and stepped away from Stuart.
“I need to do this myself. Get Ricky.”
He didn’t say anything, just nodded and smiled, his dimple briefly flashing in his cheek.
Stepping into the room, the constant whooshing sound gave her the chills.
Rosalind lay in the bed, her body looking even smaller and more withered than normal. But then her mother wasn’t in there anymore. The life that had belonged to her mother was now gone, the shell the only thing that remained to say she had existed.
Moving over to the bed, Ellie picked her mother’s limp hand up in her own. The skin was cold and clammy to the touch and even though Ellie knew it was her mother in the bed it didn’t feel like it, not anymore.
“I’m so sorry, Mom, I should have been there.”
Ellie’s voice cracked as she spoke.
There was nothing. No response. No flicker of her eyelids, no tensing of her fingers.
The bleeping of the monitor and the noise the mechanical lungs made Ellie’s chest hurt.
She should have stayed home. If she had been there, maybe her mother wouldn’t have felt so alone, so deserted.
After all wasn’t that exactly what had happened? Everyone had left her.
“I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought if I made enough money I could…”
Ellie trailed off, suddenly uncertain of what she had thought. No amount of money would ever have made her mother better. There was no cure, there had never been any hope.
Anger flooded into Ellie’s chest making it difficult to breathe.
All of it, everything had been for nothing.
The despair of the situation settled down over Ellie and she started to sob. The tears poured out of her, every emotion she had kept bottled up inside for the last year slipped out in the salty tracks that dripped down her cheeks.
She sat at the side of her mother’s bed for what felt like an eternity until finally empty she stood and moved to the door.
The doctor stood in the hall and Ellie nodded.
There was a moment of hesitation in his eyes as though he expected her to change her mind. When she didn’t, he stepped forward, a clipboard held in his hands.
“I’ll need you to sign some things before we switch it all off.”
“I’ll sign it, if you’ll wait for my brother to come in and say goodbye.”
“Where’s your brother?”
“He’s coming.”
The doctor sighed and nodded before he tucked the clipboard back under his arm once more and disappeared down the hall, leaving Ellie alone with what was left of her mother.
Chapter 15
Breaking the news to Ricky had been surprisingly easy, he seemed to take it far better than Stuart had expected.
“Ellie wants you to come in, so you can say goodbye.”
“I’ll get my jacket.”
Ricky’s bruises were beginning to heal and Stuart knew something would have to be done once he was fully recovered. He couldn’t continue to live in fear of retribution from Grey, but if Stuart was honest he had no idea what he would do to fix it.
Stuart waited with Ellie’s car outside the house and stared up at the night sky. It wasn’t the evening he had planned. After the party he had planned on paying Ellie a visit, telling her exactly how he felt.
Of course all of that was pointless now, he was just glad he was the one there for her when it had all gone down.
Ricky appeared on the steps, struggling with the sleeves on his jacket. He moved down the steps and climbed into the car as Stuart slid into the driver’s side.
“What happened to her?” Ricky asked, his voice low and thoughtful as Stuart drove down the winding road.
“A seizure. The doctors said her brain was starved of oxygen.”
“And how do you know all of this? How do you know more about my mother than I do?”
Ricky’s voice was tinged with anger as he stared straight ahead out through the windscreen.
“I was there when Ellie got the call.”
“What do you mean when she got the call?”
Ricky turned in the seat and Stuart could feel his cold gaze heavy upon him.
“It means she was at work when she received a phone call telling her to get to the hospital.”
“So she wasn’t even there?”
Stuart shook his head and Ricky fell silent. He could practically feel the anger rolling from the man sitting next to him.
“It wasn’t your sister’s fault, Ricky. She’s done her best…”
“What the hell would you know? Done her best? Doing her best would have been her being there when our mother needed her. Doing her best would have meant Ellie giving up her control freak ways and actually letting our mother go into a hospice instead of keeping her at home.”
“Ellie loves her, she wanted to do what was best for her and you know it… I know you’re angry but being pissed at your sister for something that wasn’t her fault isn’t the way to handle this.”
Ricky didn’t answer him and Stuart kept the car moving forward. He knew what was coming and all he could hope was that once he got Ricky to the hospital that he didn’t blow up as badly as Stuart had a feeling he would. Grief had a habit of doing terrible things to people, and tearing people apart was one excellent way of it presenting itself.
Chapter 16
“Where is she? Rosalind Blair, I want to see her!”
Ellie sat up in the chair next to her mother’s bed.
Ricky’s voice was unmistakable. The anger in his voice was even more unmistakable and Ellie’s heart constricted in her chest as she stood and moved out into the hall.
“You!”
His face was red and the bruises he had seemed to blend into the background.
“You weren’t even there for her! You were out on a fucking date!”
Ricky’s anger washed over Ellie, making the blood in her veins run cold.
Date? What the hell did he mean by date?
“I was at work, I wasn’t out a date, Ricky… I was trying to earn enough money to keep paying for her care.”
“Don’t pretend, Eleanor. I know what time the diner closes at. I know it was a date you were out on, there’s no point in lying.”
“Ricky, I’m not lying. Why would you even think that?”
“I don’t know how you can live with yourself. First our father and now Mom. Am I next on the list? When I’m dead you won’t have anyone left, Ellie, there’ll be no one else to worry about. You’ll be free.”
He shook his head and attempted to push past her. Ellie reached out to him. His words had cut into her like knives, and she honestly felt sick to her stomach. To think that he could believe something so terrible of her. That he could believe that she would rather be out enjoying herself while their mother died… That he blamed her for everything that had happened.
Tears filled Ellie’s eyes as she tried to stop him from simply brushing her off.
“Ricky, if I had known I wouldn’t have gone to work tonight… I’d have stayed with her.”
“Fat lot of good that would have done. If you had just let her go into care, if you’d just let the professionals care for her the way they were supposed to this wouldn’t be happening right now, Ellie. I’ll never forgive you for this.”
He jerked free of her grip and pushed into the room.
Ellie felt the air whoosh from her lungs and her knees buckled beneath her as she stood in the hall.
Ricky was wrong but it still didn’t stop his words from hurting her. It didn’t matter how wrong Ellie knew he was, it wouldn’t change the fact that he blamed her for the death of their parents.
Ellie’s back slammed into the wall and she slid to the floor.
Stuart crouched down beside her, his hands gathering her in against his chest, holding her, comforting her.
There was a moment when Ellie contemplated pushing him away. It wasn’t as though she deserved to have his comfort. She didn’t deserve to have anyone’s comfort. And then the feeling of guilt and responsibility passed and Ellie clung to him, great racking sobs escaping her as she held onto him.
Ellie cried until it didn’t seem possible that there could be any more tears left within her and yet still she could feel them coursing down her face. She couldn’t tell anymore what wounded her the most: Ricky’s words, or the feeling that she had let their mother down.
And through it all, Stuart sat with her, his arms around her, his grip strong and warm. It was in that moment of complete and utter despair that Ellie realised despite the fact that she barely seemed to know him, there was no one else she would rather have with her in that hospital hallway.
* * *
“Miss Blair?”
Ellie instantly recognised the voice of the doctor from earlier and she turned her face up to look at him.
He didn’t seem to be fazed by the tears drying on her cheeks.
“I know this is difficult but if you’ve said your goodbyes then we need to start moving forward.”
It was difficult, one of the most difficult things Ellie had ever had to deal with in her life and yet she knew there was no choice.
Her mother was gone and it wasn’t right to keep holding her physical body in limbo.
She nodded and scrubbed her hands across her cheeks. She coughed, an attempt to clear the tears that still sat at the back of her throat.
“Of course. Whatever you need me to sign I’ll do it.”
He nodded and gave her a thin, sympathetic smile.
“I know it probably doesn’t feel like it but you’re doing the right thing.”
Ellie shook her head as she pushed up from her place on the floor.
“You’re right, it doesn’t feel like the right thing. None of it feels right. She shouldn’t even be in that bed in the first place.”
The doctor didn’t answer, keeping his plastic sympathetic smile in place and Ellie couldn’t help but feel resentment towards him.
“I guess life’s not fair.”
She sighed and took the offered clipboard.
“I’ve marked the places where I need your signature.”
Ellie didn’t answer him, her eyes scanning down over the document in her hand. With shaking hands she pulled the pen from the clip at the top of the paper and scrawled her signature through the boxes he had marked.
There was a moment of hesitation on Ellie’s behalf as she stared down at the form. Her mind suddenly throwing up a million questions, a million possible scenarios.
“How sure are you that she’s really gone?”
Ellie lifted her gaze and stared into his face.
“We’re sure, Miss Blair, your mother is really gone.”
Ellie nodded and gave him a watery smile as she handed the signed papers back over.
“I suppose you hear that question a lot.”
“I wish there was a different answer I could give you. If you’d like to step into the room, we’ll set everything up.”
He gestured for her to move into the room and Ellie found herself hesitating.
Ricky sat by the bed, his face buried against the covers.
Ellie stepped into the room, her shoulders tensing as Ricky lifted his face to stare at her.
“Can’t I even have time alone with her? You want to take that away from me too?”
“Ricky, it’s time… They’re going to switch everything off now.”
“They can’t, it’s not time. She needs more time, Ellie, she needs a chance. She could wake up.”
His voice was filled with hope and Ellie wanted to reach out to him, to take him in her arms and hug him. But she knew if she tried he wouldn’t let her.
“She’s not going to wake up, she’s already gone. It’s just the machines keeping her breathing.”
“Are you a doctor now? Should I be worried, Ellie, if anything ever happened to me would you be this quick to write me off?”
“Ricky, that’s not fair. The doctors said she’s brain dead, there’s nothing of the woman we knew and loved left in there. You have to let her go—it’s the right thing to do…”
The doctor stepped into the room followed by a nurse and they moved around the bed.
“You can’t do this, I won’t let you,” Ricky declared, barring the nurse from getting up to the top of the bed.
“Ricky, you have to let them do their job.”
“They can’t just kill someone…”
Stuart moved up beside Ricky, taking his arm and moving him away from the bed. A scuffle erupted and Ellie watched as Stuart struggled to subdue her brother.
“I’m afraid, Mr Blair, we have the right. Miss Blair signed the documents giving us the right. If you don’t settle down, I’ll have to have you removed.”
Ricky instantly stopped struggling, his face turning pale white beneath the healing bruises on his face.
“You signed her life away?”
His voice was filled with shock and Ellie’s heart broke in her chest. She went to him, her hand catching his as she tried to explain why.
“It’s not like that, Ricky. I’m the named executor and the insurance wouldn’t cover this… We don’t have the money to keep her here like this and it wouldn’t be right… Not when she’s really gone.”
Ricky shrugged out of Stuart’s grip, his eyes narrowing as he stared down at Ellie.
“I thought you were heartless before but this… this is a new low even for you, Eleanor Blair. I will never forgive you for killing our parents, never!”
He stormed out of the room and Ellie reeled backwards. It felt as though his words had punched a hole through her and in a way he may as well have.
“Miss Blair?” The doctor spoke, drawing Ellie from the thoughts that swirled in her mind.
“Yes?”
“We’re ready.”
Ellie watched as he checked the machines and then one by one they flipped the switches. Part of her wanted to scream at him to stop, to give her more time but she remained silent.
>
The mechanical lungs rattled upwards once more inside the machine, the air whooshing out as they slowly lowered and came to a complete stop.
Silence reigned in the room and Ellie stared at the woman she called Mother lying in the bed.
The silence didn’t feel right. Ellie hadn’t known what to expect but the dead calm in the room wasn’t it.
She moved to the edge of the bed and stared down at her mother.
Suddenly she moved, the air the machine had pumped in suddenly sighing from her mouth. Her chest sank and the stillness returned.
“I thought you said she was gone?” Ellie said, her hand automatically closing around her mother’s.
“She is, that was simply a muscle reflex, the body’s way of coming to a complete stop.”
Ellie shook her head.
“You’re wrong, you have to be wrong.”
She dropped down into the chair next to the bed, clutching her mother’s hand in her own as she stared into her lifeless face.
There was something so final and terrible about it all.
Throughout her mother’s sickness Ellie had always held the hope that she would somehow recover. She’d hoped that one day she would walk into the room and her mother would smile at her but it had never happened and now it never would.
Chapter 17
Watching the fallout that occurred between Ellie and Ricky made Stuart feel utterly helpless. He had no idea what he was supposed to do to help either of them.
However, the fact that Ricky had stormed off hadn’t been entirely wasted on him. Ricky wasn’t safe as long as Grey wanted him.
Stuart stood and watched as Ellie held her mother’s hand. She looked utterly lost and Stuart wished there was something he could do… In that moment he would have given anything to take away her pain.
Time passed slowly and Stuart stayed with Ellie until the nurses reappeared in the doorway.
“We need to prepare the body,” the nurse whispered to Stuart and he nodded before slowly pushing away from the wall.
Breaker's Point Bad Boy Billionaires Boxset Page 13
