He extinguished the match with a shake of his hand, then blew out the smoke from his hit. “Jo, I…”
“You smoke,” I stated in shock.
“Huh?” He glanced down to his cigarette and chuckled. “Oh. Yeah.” He nodded. “But I guess not for long. My resources are limited. Anyhow… back to why I brought you out here.”
“I’m sorry. Go on.”
“About your friend. You don’t need a doctor to tell you that it’s bad. Aside from being severely burnt, the woman is suffering from radiation sickness.”
I blinked slowly in confusion. “You… You brought me outside to tell me that.”
“No, I brought you out here to tell you something else.” Tanner hit his cigarette again. “Have you looked at her, Jo? Really looked at her. Her burns are fatal. The chances of someone surviving such burns, even with the best medical treatment, are slim to none. The chances of surviving under these conditions for longer than a few days are nil.”
“Then how did she survive two weeks?” I asked.
“She didn’t,” Tanner explained. “Her burns, Jo. Are fresh.”
“I… I don’t understand.”
“When we met yesterday, I was frazzled.”
“You were busy.”
“I was more than that.” A tone of sadness took over Tanner’s voice. “I was angry. Bitter. Confused. Enough lives had been lost, enough people had been hurt. Did we have to cause more?” he shook his head. “They started burning bodies yesterday. Just before you arrived, they brought in nine patients. Nine people that were mistaken for dead and thrown…”
“Oh, my God.” My eyes closed.
“Your friend was one of the people they threw in the fire.”
It hit me instantaneously with barely time to react. My stomach knotted, then cramped. It felt as if my insides were being yanked from me by route of my throat. I projected my hand over my mouth, spun from Tanner, and raced a few feet away. With a heave of my body, I vomited. After only one expulsion, I weakly dropped to my knees.
“Jo.” Tanner’s voice was close—behind me. “Are you OK?”
I only nodded as I wiped my mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why did you tell me?” I stared at the ground.
“I thought you would want to know.”
“Know what?” I asked angrily and stumbled into a stand. “Know that my friend didn’t have to die? Know that she sought help only to find her death?”
“Jo, this is not my fault.”
“I know it’s not your fault,” I spoke with edge. “I don’t understand why you felt the need to tell me this?”
Tanner was at a loss. It was obvious, he fumbled for words. “I just… maybe… I thought it would make it easier to know she hadn’t been suffering for weeks.”
“The only thing that it makes easier, is taking her out of here.” I began to walk back toward the tent.
“Whoa. Whoa.” Tanner reached out and grabbed my arm, stopping me before I made it a few feet away. “Take her where?”
Sternly I looked at him and answered, “Home.”
“You can’t do that.” Tanner argued.
“She can’t stay here!”
“And she can’t be moved! Not any distance. You think she’s suffering now, Jo? Huh? You move that woman and you spiral her into a world of agony like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Well, at least…” With a grunt I pulled my arm from Tanner. “At home she’ll be more than just a face. She’ll be around those she loves and she’ll die with dignity. Here she’s…”
“Not an infectious risk to a group of healthy people.” Tanner cut me off. “If she survives the trip to your home, and you bring her inside, every hour she lives is a chance you take with those in your shelter. Cholera, meningitis…”
“She won’t live that long.” I started to walk again.
“How do you know? You don’t.”
I spun to face him. “No, Tanner, I do.”
“What are you gonna do, Jo? Take her home to kill her?” he asked with a disbelieving chuckle.
Opting to not respond, I turned and began to walk.
“You are. What? Are you insane?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Humane.”
“How are you gonna do it? Shoot her? Like a sick dog, a horse with a broken leg. Oh, yeah, that’s real humane. What about suffocating her instead. Huh?”
Just before I stepped back into the tent, I froze. I couldn’t move. Tanner’s words began to absorb in me. They sounded cold, cruel. Why did he care? Why was he even taking time to argue with me? I didn’t understand Tanner’s motivation, but I painfully understood what he was trying to say. Uncontrollably my body began to tremble, and I fought back the tears that desperately wanted to flow. Suddenly the big plan that Burke and I had waited all day to implement, sounded less and less grounded.
“Jo,” Tanner whispered, then walked in front of me. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” I shook my head and wiped my hand across my cheek to clear the tear. “You’re right. It isn’t our intention to hurt her anymore. It isn’t. She doesn’t deserve to suffer like this anymore. Not for one minute more. But what choice do we have?” I glanced up at him. “What choice… do we have?”
Where in the eyes of some he would be seen as a messenger of death, I saw Tanner Niles as no less than an angel of mercy. Perhaps it was a premonition that caused him to have that ‘angelic’ or ‘heavenly’ appearance when I first saw him that evening walking into the tent. I don’t know. But Tanner pulled through.
Tanner proved that we didn’t have to move Hebba very far, in order for her to have what Burke and I sought. A mere lift of a canvass tarp, scoot of the cot, and Hebba was out of that tent. We slowly and gently, carried the cot a bit further.
Thousands of people screamed and cried in the area surrounding us. Gunshots blared occasionally, and the sound of a roaring fire was the backdrop. But somehow, on the edge of the camp, ten feet from the tent, it was quiet.
“It’s isolated here. Private,” Tanner spoke soft as he stood with us. “Just know… Out here, Jo, with you two, she’s not just a face. She is with those she loves. She can die…” Tanner grabbed my hand. “With dignity.”
I felt him place an object in my hand. I looked down to see a filled syringe. My eyes rose to him.
Tanner curled my fingers around it. “Inject the entire amount. OK? No pain. Dignity.”
I felt my top lip quiver, and I managed to peep out the words, ‘Thank you.’
Giving a firm squeeze to my hand, Tanner nodded, glanced quickly at Burke, then walked away.
What all I had said to Hebba is a blur. I know I said a lot. Reconciling for arguments of the past, nice things never spoken, they all flowed from me in the moments before I departed her side. To be certain, before I left, I asked Hebba if she understood what was happening. Though she couldn’t speak easily, she conveyed that she did and it was what she wanted. Clutching her hand, I whispered my goodbye, and then handed the syringe to Burke. I believed the last moments of her life should be in private, and alone with her husband. My place wasn’t to intrude. I watched Burke fumble with the syringe, uncapping it, and bringing it to Hebba’s thigh. I stepped back to leave them.
“Jo.” Burke called my name.
I stopped walking and turned around.
“I can’t do it.” Burke held up the syringe. “I can’t be the one.”
“Burke, I…”
“Please.” He wouldn’t even look at me. Extending the needle, he turned to face the other way.
I hesitated. Who wouldn’t? Never did it dawn on me that I would be the one who would be responsible for giving that lethal injection of peace. I did not want to do it. Everything inside of me screamed to tell Burke, ‘No.’ But I didn’t. Laboring in my breathing, I walked over and took the syringe. The second I received it, Burke turned further away and covered his face.