The Promise of Stardust

by Priscille Sibley

  I turned toward him. “This baby might look like Elle, too.”

  “That’s low, Matt.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s manipulative.”

  I sat on the arm of the sofa. “Why? It’s the truth. Elle’s carrying a baby, her baby, a part of her that could live on. The baby won’t be Elle, but you know how much she wanted a child. Just think about what Elle was like. She took care of you when you were a scared, motherless, little boy. She put off her own dreams for you, Chris, for you. She took herself off a tether in space, going seventeen thousand miles an hour, three hundred and fifty miles above the earth, to save another astronaut. She would do anything to save someone she cared about.” My voice cracked. “She would have loved this baby. She would even stay on life support for her child.”

  “I don’t know.” He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I don’t know. One of my clearest memories is of Elle crying. Mom was sick. And Elle was sitting with her. Then suddenly Elle got up and ran into the kitchen. She kept saying that it was wrong, that we were torturing my mom, and there was no point to it.”

  “There’s a difference. Your mother was going to die no matter what happened, and the only thing to come out of keeping her alive was that she suffered longer. Elle is pregnant. There is a point to keeping her alive until the baby is born. What about the baby? Doesn’t the baby matter? And Elle isn’t in pain. She doesn’t know what’s happening to her body. And afterward …” I paused, trying to find a way to wrap my tongue around the words. “I’ll make sure she finds peace. I’ll petition the court to discontinue her life support.” Or, I didn’t say, I’ll slip something into her feeding tube so she never will feel pain or suffer again. I dropped my head into my hands.

  “Let’s not fight about this. Let’s just go,” he said. “You’re okay, right?”

  I nodded. I wasn’t having another heart attack, but I needed another minute more, so I stalled. “Do me a favor. Walk through the upstairs. Make sure the windows are closed. I probably shouldn’t go up a full flight yet.”

  “Sure.” He took the front staircase two steps at a time.

  “Show-off,” I muttered as I lumbered back into the kitchen. I removed Elle’s car keys from her bag and went outside, planning to move the car into the barn. I thought I could manage that much.

  I couldn’t say I slid into the driver’s seat. My body was still moving like an old man’s, but I hated that I needed a chauffeur. I crawled inside and closed my eyes while I waited for the muscles to stop hurting. When I slipped the key into the ignition, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something purple on the passenger seat. No. Not purple. Indigo blue, faded from the sunlight through the windshield to purple.

  “Jesus,” I said aloud as I flipped it over. It was a baby book. And a ballpoint pen was stuck inside it like a bookmark.

  I read the page and knew this was exactly what I’d been searching for.

  “Matt?” Chris called.

  I rolled down the window. “I’m here. Come read this.”

  52

  Day 40

  Adam approached the bench with the intensity of a bull charging a matador, and the court officer stepped between him and the judge.

  “Order!” Wheeler said. “Dr. Cunningham, you do not approach the bench without my permission. Do you understand? I realize that you have not retained counsel, but you still have to obey procedure. I don’t want to have to hold you in contempt. This is your last warning.”

  “Yes, Your Honor, but why haven’t we heard about this baby book prior to this? Did you ever hear of discovery?” Adam directed at Jake.

  “You address the court, Dr. Cunningham,” Wheeler said. “That means you don’t speak directly to Mr. Sutter. You ask if you can speak to me. This is a serious matter, not traffic court. As I said before, you should retain counsel.”

  “Right. I’m sorry, Your Honor.”

  Jake turned slowly toward Adam, wearing a condescending smile. “Your Honor, we didn’t know about the baby book until this weekend. It was in Elle’s car, which had been sitting in her brother’s driveway since the day of the accident. My client was a little too preoccupied with his wife’s illness, and more recently his own, to think about her car.”

  “Or, perhaps, you were concealing evidence?” Adam snapped.

  “To me,” Wheeler said. “You address your remarks to the bench.”

  Jake’s lips tightened in a parental-type purse. “As I was saying, Your Honor, Elle’s brother moved the car to Dr. Beaulieu’s house last Thursday. Dr. Beaulieu was still in the hospital. On Saturday, he went to move the car into the garage and found the baby book. We haven’t been concealing anything.”

  “I’m going to allow this,” Wheeler said. “You may continue questioning Dr. Beaulieu, Mr. Sutter.”

  Adam sat down, all the while aiming a seething glare in my direction.

  “Thank you, Your Honor.” Jake returned to the witness stand and handed me the baby book. “Do you recognize Elle’s handwriting in the book?”

  “Yes. It’s Elle’s.”

  “Would you please read what she wrote?”

  I recalled the message I found a few days after her accident, the scrawled words on the steamed-up bathroom mirror. This was what she meant. “It’s dated August thirteenth,” I said, and then proceeded to read aloud the passage that Elle wrote:

  “You are the sweetest thing … a little miracle. Dear Sweet Thing, that’s what I’m going to call you until you have a real name.”

  [I read, hearing Elle’s voice and not my own].

  “About an hour ago I found out you’re inside me. The very first thing you should know is that your mommy already loves you. Your daddy will, too, as soon as I tell him tonight. We have always wanted to have children. We have always wanted you.”

  I drew a deep breath and wondered how I would have reacted that night if she didn’t fall off the ladder and instead we had taken that long walk on the beach she suggested in her last voice mail. I would have been afraid for her—and for the baby. I would have worried for months. I wished I had those troubles instead of sitting here pleading for our child’s life.

  “Matt,” Jake said, “please continue.”

  “We didn’t plan to wait so long, but sometimes things happen that mommies and daddies don’t expect.”

  I took measure of my voice as I glanced at the judge.

  “None of that matters now. You’re coming into this beautiful world. Oh, I have so much I want to share with you. So much I want you to see and know. The world is a big place. And a small one. Someday I’ll tell you about how I had the privilege of seeing it the way few had seen it before me. But for a baby, probably the only thing you need to know is love. You need to feel safe and warm, and day by day your world will grow. You just need a chance. And time. And love.

  “We will give you that. I promise.”

  I promised the baby, too. I would love this child enough for both Elle and me.

  “You will be born healthy and strong. I’ll eat right, stay on bed rest for the next nine months—if necessary. I’ll—groan—take shots—I’ll tell you about that later when you’re older—how Mommy is afraid of needles—but I’ll take the shots. I’d do anything for you. Anything at all.

  “Oh, baby! Boy? Girl? A girl, I think. Why do I think you’re a girl? But maybe you’re a boy. A boy would be as perfect as a girl. Whatever you are, whoever you are, you’re loved.

  “I could sit here all day, talking to you, but I have to go to your uncle’s house for a couple of hours. Tomorrow we’ll go see the baby doctor, and then there will be shots. For me. Not you! Not yet. And don’t worry if I say ‘ouch.’ It’s really not that bad.

  “Everything is going to be fine. I promise you. I’ll make sure of it.

  Love,

  Mommy”

  I had read and reread the note. These weren’t her last words. But they were the last ones that mattered.

  The baby book had to be e
nough. I studied the judge’s face. He was hard to read; still, something softened in the set of his jaw.

  I glanced around the courtroom. Mom sat behind Jake, sniffling. Sitting next to my mother, Chris rubbed his eyes. After he read the baby book on Saturday, he finally agreed with me that Elle would do this for the baby’s sake.

  Jake was staring at the judge, gawking really. “I have no further questions,” Jake said.

  The judge reached up under the sleeve of his robe and played with his cuff for a moment. “Dr. Cunningham, do you have questions for Dr. Beaulieu?”

  Even Adam looked a little shaken. “May I have a few minutes first, Your Honor?”

  “We’ll reconvene in ten minutes,” the judge said.

  We all stood as the judge swept out of the courtroom.

  I’d become somewhat oblivious to the court reporters, stopped feeling conspicuous as they scrutinized me. Thirteen days post– heart attack, cardiac arrest, and open-heart surgery, I stepped down from the witness stand. Phil emerged from the gallery, fell into step with me, and grabbed my wrist to check my pulse. “Any chest pain?”

  “I’m just a little tired.”

  He grunted. Worried about me taking the stand again, Phil had gone so far as to enlist a few paramedics to come and sit outside the courtroom. “You evaded the question. Chest pain? Yes or no.”

  “No, Doctor. You can have your friends stand down now. I promise I won’t die, but convey my thanks for having them spend their lunch hour here.”

  “It’s too soon for you to be doing something like this.”

  “You’ve said that already, but if this convinces the judge, my stress level will ease considerably.”

  “All right.” He clucked his tongue. “Sit down over here, and let me take your blood pressure.”

  I gritted my teeth and rolled up my sleeve. “This is not necessary.”

  “Are you okay, Matt?” Jake asked.

  “Fine. Please, everyone, stop hovering.”

  Phil patted my shoulder. “Your pressure’s good. All right. By the way, I was wrong. The passage convinced me.”

  I met his gaze. “Thanks. But it’s the judge it has to convince.”

  Mom set a water bottle in front of me.

  “Thanks, Mom.” I took a long draft.

  A short time later the court officer said, “All rise.”

  So we did like a well-rehearsed band of dancers—up, then down.

  Wheeler made eye contact with me for the first time, then he lowered his eyes as he sat. “Are you ready to proceed, Dr. Beaulieu?”

  I walked up to the front of the room, hoping Adam couldn’t pull apart my testimony.

  Adam looked a little leery as he approached the witness stand. “Did Elle ever ask you to make health care decisions for her?”

  I rubbed my chin. “Well, I signed medical consents for her before, when she was admitted to the hospital last February. She needed a blood transfusion. And they took her to the OR because of the hemorrhaging. I signed that consent. She didn’t have an issue with it.”

  “But she never officially made an advanced health care plan, naming you, did she?”

  “Not so far as I know.”

  “When she wrote her will, did she write a new advanced health care directive, which named you to make her health care decisions?”

  “No.”

  “She didn’t trust you, did she, Matt?”

  “Actually, I believe she did—with everything. Our money. Our hearts. I was her best friend. Even when she was living with you, Adam, I was her best friend. She was mine.” I shrugged my shoulders. “But I think I know why she didn’t make it official.”

  “This ought to be good,” Adam said.

  “Dr. Cunningham, and Dr. Beaulieu, refrain from personal commentary, please.” Wheeler shook his head.

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Adam turned to me. “Could it be that she didn’t think you’d do what she wanted?”

  “No, I didn’t even want to make a will. I resisted it. I procrastinated. She knew that I worried a great deal about her health after we found out about the APS—even though the odds were we could have a child with minimal risks. But as a physician, I’ve seen too many bad things happen. She knew I couldn’t face losing her. I didn’t even want to face my own mortality. The last few weeks have been a real stretch for me.”

  There were a few grim-looking smiles in the gallery.

  “I’m not a brave man, not brave the way she was anyway. You never would have found me applying to become an astronaut. I’d never strap myself to the rocket boosters. And she did that.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Adam said.

  “Please let me finish, Your Honor.”

  “Dr. Beaulieu, we have procedures we have to follow,” Wheeler said. “The attorneys, er, the opposing side, asks the questions. You answer them.”

  “All I want to say is that she was a selfless person, not that she didn’t have her own dreams, but—”

  “Your Honor, you just told him to stop talking and he’s—” Adam said.

  Wheeler’s gaze rested on Adam. “What you say is ‘move to strike,’ ” then he paused for a moment. “So stricken.”

  “It takes a brave man to make tough decisions, doesn’t it?” Adam said.

  “That’s not where I was going,” I said.

  “And she knew you couldn’t make a tough decision, didn’t she?”

  “I make tough decisions every day.”

  “But you couldn’t make the decision to let Elle die in peace, could you?”

  Jake stood. “Objection, Your Honor? The witness—”

  I interrupted Jake. “I’d like to answer that question, please.”

  Wheeler’s eyes narrowed. “Go ahead, Doctor.”

  “She knew I could make life-and-death decisions. I’m a neurosurgeon. I was going to let her go. Then I found out she was carrying our baby. I was thinking about what Elle would want me to do. Let me see if I can explain this … Elle signed an organ-donor card. She was willing to donate her organs to save a stranger. If she’d do that, certainly she would let her own child use her organs for a few months. Elle’s gone. She’s already gone. She’s not in any pain. She has no awareness of her surroundings. The pain and the idea of feeling trapped was what scared her. She watched her mother suffer. We all did.” I took measure of my voice again. Steady, I thought. “You heard what she wrote. She would have done anything for this baby, stayed in bed, taken shots. I realize that isn’t the same as staying on a ventilator, but knowing Elle, she would have even stayed on life support. She was a brilliant woman, and to a court of law all that matters is what she would have wanted to do, and I knew her. I believe she’d have sacrificed herself for this baby who she called the sweetest thing.”

  Adam’s summation was surprisingly eloquent. He didn’t speak to me afterward, he just sat there in court, wearing a suit, staring straight ahead, a little grief bearing down on him, too. Later Adam gave an interview to Barbara Walters where he portrayed Elle as heroic. It wasn’t a bad tribute, nor was he completely off base. Skewed by his opinion, but still, he said some things for which Elle should be remembered.

  I was asked to talk to all sorts of people, from Katie Couric to Oprah. I never did. For me, this was personal, and Elle was never a public person—even after the Space Shuttle accident, when she appeared on the cover of Time and Newsweek, she never spoke about anything personal. She would have hated that her life had become the subject of public discussion.

  When Wheeler delivered his ruling, I thought my heart would stop, not something unprecedented as of late.

  His robes billowed as he sat. Everything seemed exaggerated, from the way the sun shone through the transoms to the musky smell of my own sweat and the dryness of my mouth.

  “In the matter before the court, I am denying the petition for fetal guardianship. The state of Maine has no statute for guardianship of an unborn child, no legal precedents. A guardian cannot be appointed to a fetus. And there’s no precedent
to apply the First Amendment’s right to religious freedom to a situation like this.”

  I tried to keep breathing in and out while I scribbled on Jake’s legal pad. Can we still appeal?

  Jake focused on the judge as he nodded.

  Wheeler continued: “Regarding the advanced health care directive, which named Dr. Adam Cunningham as Elle McClure’s health care agent, I must disregard Texas law. Maine does not overturn an advanced directive during pregnancy unless specifically stipulated. Moreover, I question if she revoked the 2003 advanced directive somewhere, sometime, because of her signature and initials on the February second hospital admission form, which stated she did not have any such advanced health care directive.” He leaned back, and we waited for him to continue. “It’s also possible that since she was in shock on February second, she initialed that document not knowing its meaning. Elle Beaulieu had long since severed her relationship with Dr. Cunningham and had maintained no significant personal relationship with him afterward. And Linney Beaulieu is now in agreement with her son.”

  I drew a breath and held it.

  “It is not the job of the court to make moral judgments. We are here to determine what Elle Beaulieu would choose if she were competent to do so. From the notation in the baby book she wrote the morning of the accident, I believe she would want this pregnancy to continue.”

  Jake put his hand on my shoulder.

  “However,” Wheeler said, “she also made it clear to everyone who has testified that she did not want to continue on if there were no hope of a meaningful recovery. I am instructing her caregivers that her life support continue until such time as this pregnancy ends.”

  “Thank you, God,” I whispered.

  “Dr. Beaulieu …” the judge said, turning toward me. “I admired your wife. And I am very sorry for your loss. I do hope that the pregnancy brings you a healthy child. I wish your family well. At such time as Elle Beaulieu gives birth or miscarries, a hearing will convene to determine the terms of the cessation of her life support. Court adjourned.”

  I hugged Jake. And Hank. And every person who came my way. But Adam sat alone, staring out the window.