Paint Me True by E.M. Tippetts

Author:E.M. Tippetts
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, love, cancer, latter-day saints, mormon, lds, chick lit, BRCA, art, painter
Published: 2013-12-14T05:00:00+00:00

Back at the house, I threw the deadbolt on the front door, then made a beeline for the computer. My dad’s Skype icon was green. I double clicked and then lifted Pip onto my lap. His stubby tail thumped against my hip.

“Hello?” Audio only, no video.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Everything okay, honey?”

“No. And I don’t know what to do.”

“What’s going on?”

“Aunt Nora won’t let the doctors do scans, and I just found out that I’m her agent on her living will and her sole heir and-”

“Slow down. Nora’s doing what?”

“They did an MRI and found a tumor, maybe more than one. They want to do more scans, but she refuses.”

“So she doesn’t want to face having cancer?”

“She says she hates the machines and being in the hospital. She’s got an old surgical scar that she refuses to talk about. When the doctor mentioned it, she threw him out of the room.”

“Surgical scar from what?”

“Like I said, she won’t talk about it, so I wouldn’t know.”

“Did she have a hysterectomy-”

“No, look, I’ve already thought about stuff like that.” Women with the BCRA mutation did sometimes get preventative hysterectomies, but I’d seen her womb in the MRI, her ovaries hadn’t been removed, and she had two children, which meant if she’d had a hysterectomy, it’d be after they were born, and thus in her British medical history. “She won’t talk to me. So I went to her lawyer-”

“You say you’re her agent on her living will?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. I wish she hadn’t done that. Talk about stress.”

“And I’m her sole heir.”

“Well, sure. If you’re the person she trusts.”

“Dad, if it’s my job to decide whether or not she gets treatment, that’s kind of a problem because if she dies, I get all her money.”

“Whoa, back up. Is her living will active?”

“Huh?”

“Or... go find it. Does it say it’s effective now or only if she can’t make her own decisions?”

“How do they usually work?”

“It depends on the local law and how it’s drafted. Unfortunately, I would know. Check hers.”

I tucked Pip under one arm and hauled Nora’s legal file from the desk into my lap. It took a little digging. I couldn’t find anything called a living will, but I did find a document titled, “Power of Attorney for Health and Welfare” that was written in such thick legalese that I had to re-read the first sentence five times before I gave up and moved on. “It says it stays effective if she is declared incompetent,” I said. “Does that mean it’s active now?”

“We-ell, I am guessing here but I would guess that this means that she still makes her decisions. Even if that thing is technically active, I don’t think they’d let you overrule her. I mean, the doctors would have let you know if that was the case, and I’ve never heard of a situation like that. Let’s assume it means you don’t make decisions unless she’s unable, so it isn’t your responsibility right now.”

“Her alternate agents are Great Uncle Morrie, who died last year and his ex-wife Cathy.

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