***Everyone in this room knew the right answer. Anna had made her wishes crystal clear, so there was nothing to discuss. Yet two hours passed, and we were no closer to coming to a solid conclusion on the next step. The problem wasn’t figuring out what Anna would have wanted; the problem was that no one was ready to let her go.

I’d never use the term “pull the plug” in jest again as long as I lived.

Despite what we all knew in our hearts, the burden of officially making the decision and giving the go-ahead to her doctors lay in the hands of her father.

After a long period of silent rumination, Richard finally shook his head and said what we were all thinking.

“There’s no way around it. We need to respect her wishes. We have to let her go.” He pressed his fingers to his eyes to squelch the tears that came with that confirmation.

We all seemed to nod silently at once. It wasn’t necessary to confirm it aloud even one more time. The thought of having to take her off life support was killing me. And I hadn’t seen Anna in years. I couldn’t imagine what this felt like for her father or Elodie. I could feel tears building in my eyes, but I refused to release them. Out of all of these people, I didn’t have the right to be crying right now, didn’t have the right to upstage their sadness.

At one point, Richard went to speak to her doctor, and when he returned to the room, he looked absolutely devastated. I knew he’d given the go-ahead to turn off the ventilator.

Later that night, the hospital staff came in and did just that. It was quick, but the wait that ensued was excruciating.

A nurse escorted Anna’s grandmother in. I wasn’t sure how Nana Beverly had gotten to the hospital, because no one in this room had left to get her. She had to have been in her nineties now.

As the family held vigil around Anna, the stress of waiting for her granddaughter to die became too much for Bev. This couldn’t have been good for her own health. But I could understand her needing to say goodbye despite that.

Elodie wrapped her arms around Beverly and escorted her out of the room. I followed to make sure everything was okay.

“Someone needs to take her back to the nursing home,” Elodie said. “They sent a driver to bring her here, but I don’t think she should go back alone in this state.”

I was the best candidate to leave the premises, considering I wasn’t sure Anna would’ve wanted me here in the first place. I offered to drive Beverly back, not knowing whether Anna would be alive when I returned.

Nana Beverly definitely didn’t remember me, and I was fine with that. So distraught, the poor woman cried the entire drive. But somehow, focusing on Beverly helped keep my own feelings from spiraling out of control.

After I walked her inside the facility and saw to it that she was safely in her room, I rushed to my car to get back to the hospital.

I’d just fastened my seat belt when my phone lit up.

Elodie.

I picked up. “Hey. I was just heading back. What’s going on?”

There was a long pause.

My heart dropped.

Finally came the words I dreaded.

“She’s gone, Hollis.”Chapter 43* * *ElodieThe days after Bree stopped breathing were a blur. I say stopped breathing, because it was really hard for me to use the word died. Died sounded so final.

I spent every waking hour helping Richard in any way I could: picking an outfit for her to be laid out in, ordering flowers, helping to arrange the after-service meal. While Bree had handled some of her arrangements prior to her death, no one person alone had the mental energy to handle the tasks that remained. So we had to do it as a team.

Hollis, like the rest of us, was still in shock. I hadn’t seen or heard from him in a couple of days, aside from quick check-in texts I initiated. As much as I needed him right now, I knew we also needed to give each other space to grieve.

Adding to the devastation of her final hours was the fact that Hollis hadn’t made it back in time to see her take her last breaths. She might not have been able to hear us, but saying those last goodbyes gave us some solace. Hollis missed a good portion of that because Bree succumbed pretty quickly.

When he’d arrived back at the hospital that night, his eyes were visibly red. I knew he’d had a good cry in the car after my phone call. I would probably never fully understand how he felt. I’d had my own close relationship with Bree, but nothing as intimate as Hollis had. With her gone now, neither he nor I would get the closure we needed. We’d never know whether she knew I was dating him before she died—whether we had her blessing, or whether she would have been upset.

Tags: Penelope Ward, Vi Keeland Romance
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