A life for a life.

How have I not made a note of every word

You ever said

And time, is not on our side

But I'll pretend that it's alright

She says the Lord has a plan

But admits it's pretty hard to understand

[…]

Before you leave

Leave remember I was with you

And as you leave

I won't hold you back beloved

-Mumford & Sons, Beloved-

Absence.

Nothingness.

Death.

It was the pervading absence that got to Mara the most when she went into that hospital room. Into any room, for that matter. In moments of stillness, at home, where she could sit for hours and drown in the silence—the absence of sound and the nothingness she felt—cut off from life. The same way Zoe had been.

“Mama! Mama! Mama! Watch me, Mama! See how far I can go!”

“I’m watching, honey!”

“Don’t look away! Promise, you won’t look away!” And Mara had promised, clutching her own mother’s simple silver cross pendant tightly from habit and mouthing a silent prayer of protection. But she kept her eyes on Zoe. Always.

Every room in their house was a painful reminder of their loss, every sign of Zoe’s zest for life proudly displayed where Myles had put them up. Unavoidable reminders of Mara’s and Myles’ shooting star included gymnastics medals, debate certificates, track trophies, and graduation certificates. And all the accompanying pictures a painful reminder of their daughter forever lost to them: Zoe’s first steps, her gummy smile wide as a much younger Mara worriedly clutched at her pudgy hands; Zoe learning to ride a bike with her dad holding the handlebars and guiding her path; teenage Zoe at her prom with her dress and afro just so, based on her dream look. The large, framed shot of a robed and capped Zoe, holding the first degree anyone in their entire family had had the drive and privilege to earn.

And surveying all of these relics of a life no longer lived, Mara felt as though her chest were being crushed by the nothingness, the absence of her only child. The hushed mourning that was now her entire existence was only interrupted now and then by well-meaning family and friends, the conciliatory visits having petered out in the past three months. A fatal tragedy is life-altering and life-ending, yet life continues on all around you—whether you want it to or not.

Before, Mara’s faith had helped her cope with and make peace with this inescapable fact; when her parents had passed suddenly in a car accident when she was twenty-one, she had clung closer to God and his word. When her first two pregnancies had ended only months after their inception, in a hospital bed and accompanied by floods of tears and wishes for things to be different, still, Mara had clung to her belief and had been soothed in her distress by the guidance and order offered by the Almighty. He had also calmed her during the overwhelming fears of her third, and last, pregnancy, finally delivering unto her the light of her life—little person she had longed for more than anything. Her Zoe.

“Mama, do we have to go to church this Sunday? It’s just, Annie asked me to go to her family’s beach house this weekend, and—”

“You don’t need to explain anything to me… I’ve told you before, Zoe: your church attendance is your business. But I will be going, because God has never forsaken me in my need, and so I’ll never forsake the very few requirements He has of me.” And Mara had always meant it, because she didn’t want to force her daughter to blithely go along with religion. She wanted her to understand faith, as Mara had come to know it. Zoe never argued; she was strong-willed, but she was wise beyond her years, even at fourteen, and she’d stayed quiet, thinking through the pros and cons. Myles had always been so proud of their girl’s level-headed approach to all dilemmas, whether moral or social.

“Mama, I’ve thought about it, and I want to go to church. With you. So, I asked Annie and she said her dad would drive me back Sunday morning for church.” Mara had been gratified by her daughter’s navigation of the circumstances, but more so that Zoe had expressed a particular desire to be with her, with Mara, as they attended church.

Mara listened to the hollow sounds of the grandfather clock Myles had scrimped and saved to buy all those years ago because Zoe had been obsessed with them since the age of four. Each tick removed her that much further from the last moment her baby had drawn her own breath. Each tick marching them all on towards the inevitable, cruel eventuality that lay ahead. When it chimed seven, Mara clutched the Bible on her lap more tightly, its frayed edges grown familiar to her over the past three months of emotional and spiritual turmoil. She opened it once more and traced the childishly formed letters of Zoe’s name, which she had proudly written upon receiving it as a present when she was only six years old. Then Mara flipped to Ecclesiastes 3.

“It’s my favourite verse, Mama, because it makes so much sense. It shows that all things must exist for their allotted time, and when it’s legitimately over, we should accept it as God’s will. Part of his design, and not to be meddled with by our own agendas,” Zoe had been much more self-assured, when she came home from college, and some of her ideas had been decidedly edgy, to Mara’s way of thinking. But she always remained the kind and considerate girl she’d always been, but now with the steel backbone of someone who knew her worth and what she wanted from life.

“Well, it is poetic, I’ll give you that,” Mara had responded, wary of causing another argument like the previous week where Zoe had been very outspoken about the MeToo movement, and Pro-Choice legislation. Mara wasn’t particularly versed in all the legal and philosophical arguments, but she’d thought her deferral to Biblical law was good enough. Zoe had not thought so, and they had agreed to disagree on the stickier points.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”

Mara’s voice cracked as she read aloud what Zoe had read so many times before; no tears came, because she had emptied herself of those completely. Only barren, empty nothingness remained. She clutched the cross—her mother’s, then Mara’s, then Zoe’s, gifted upon her graduation—now back in Mara’s possession after the hospital had returned all Zoe’s personal effects. So correct, per the rules and regulations.

“Sweetheart.” Myles had come in, had listened quietly as she’d finished her reading. He tried again, his voice thick. “Darlin’, are you goin’ to the hospital today?” He had been walking on eggshells since the night before last, when Mara had shrieked at him to “DO SOMETHING! ANYTHING!” as he’d wrung his hands and hung his head.

“Yes, I will.” She didn’t look at him directly anymore. Zoe had gotten his kind eyes and his square jaw, and seeing the familiar lines of her face swathed in medical tape and her mouth and nose full of tubes was bad enough without having to look at this living, breathing original of her baby’s features.

“D’you want me to give you a ride there?” he had been reaching out as much as possible, trying to connect, but his helplessness in the face of Mara’s sorrow and rage meant there was a gulf now that couldn’t be bridged. Their only baby lay in a hospital bed, day in, day out, to satisfy an immoral legal requirement.

“Please, Myles. I’d appreciate it.” The ticking continued, and she could feel Myles’ desperation for connection.

“D’you want me to come in with y—”

“No.” Mara finally glanced at his face, now stricken and grey with the grief over the defilement of their baby’s body. “No, thank you, Myles. I jus’… I just want to be alone with Zo. To talk to her some. To say goodbye.” He nodded slowly after a few seconds of staring intently at her. Thirty-three years they’d been married, and the only person Mara knew better, whose most closely held dreams and wishes she understood most, had been Zoe. God had given Mara so much, and all he’d asked in exchange had been for her to live by His laws.

“Alright. Let’s get goin’, then. Visiting hours’ll be starting soon.”

The trip was oppressively silent all the way to the hospital where what remained of Zoe lay. Mara prayed for strength from her God. For strength to do what was necessary, and right.

“Have you both ever thought about organ donation? I never thought to ask…” Zoe was wearing a crown she’d gotten in a Christmas cracker, and the three of them were lounging on the sofas, too full to move after their festive dinner.

“Why do you ask?” Mara was slightly nonplussed, but not annoyed. They had always tried to maintain a ‘no secrets’ policy in their house, as far as they were able to.

“There was a case at our firm related to organ donation, and I realised many people don’t know that, unless you specifically opt out, you are considered a viable donor… I didn’t know, and honestly, I think it’s important to find out what the practise entails and try to make an informed decision. For example, I did some research, and I’m a bit scared of the entire ‘organ harvesting’ process. It even scares me to think about being hooked up to machines if I was in a coma, or something like that.”

“So… What did you decide, then?” Myles asked, because he was a regular blood donor, so Mara suspected he’d be very much in favour of organ donation.

“Well, I’m still trying to wrap my head around it, so I’ve opted out for the time being. But I also wanted tell you both, officially, that I have a DNR filed with my doctor, and that you should both probably also give it some thought. You never know when hard decisions need to be made—take it from this lawyer.” Zoe’d toasted them with the last of her tea, and Mara hadn’t thought about it again until the call had come about Zoe’s stroke…

“What do you mean, you can’t honour the DNR? My daughter clearly documented her wishes! And we’re her next of kin, so if her own wishes aren’t acceptable, then you are legally required to honour our wishes, as her medical proxy!”

“I’m truly sorry, Mr and Mrs Ellis, but due to the legal implications and your daughter’s condition—”

“Do you mean to tell me that my daughter’s dignity, her status as a human being with rights over her own body will not be honoured here? What is this world coming to!”

Myles had shouted and Mara had pleaded, but all for nothing. No lawyers nor judges had made a difference over the past weeks, and all applications to the powers that be had fallen on deaf ears. The will of the powerful had superseded the will of the afflicted individual, and their pleas had fallen on the deaf ears of the tyrannical rule of law.

“Just let me know when and I’ll come get you.” Mara had kissed Myles goodbye on the cheek; the only physical contact or tenderness between them in weeks, and he’d looked surprised but hopeful. She didn't know when she'd see him again, nor the circumstances, and though Mara felt bad for giving him false hope that everything would be alright, she also couldn’t withhold such a small kindness from the man she had loved all her life, and who had shared Zoe with her.

Zoe, the light and meaning of Mara’s life, now a brain-dead cadaver being kept technically alive because lawmakers were playing God. A vessel emptied of spirit, but apparently filled with a potential, barely-there existence, forced to breathe and continue in a Frankensteinian sense. An experiment in moral depravity and unnatural hubris.

“Hi, Mrs Ellis. Here to see Zoe?” the over-bright tones didn’t mask the shame in most of the medical staff here, the sympathy. But they were just cogs in a larger machine, with rules that had to be obeyed irrespective of personal feelings and judgment. Mara used to think of religion in the same way; that there were inherent truths—incontrovertible guidelines—that could and should not be breached, and according to which she had lived her life. Commandments like: “Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal.”

“Yes, I am. I’ll just be sitting with her for a bit… Reading,” and Mara smiled as best she could and lifted Zoe’s Bible for the nurse to see. As usual, she was left to her own devices, the cogs in this mechanism running like a well-oiled timepiece that ticked down the time left to her. The nurses came and went according to their usual rotas, the regularity of Mara’s presence and the hopelessness of Zoe’s state having rendered them essentially invisible except for a peremptory check every now and then.

Mara watched through the glass pane in the door as the last nurse for that round of checks disappeared around the corner. According to her previous observations and calculations, it would be another twenty-five minutes at least until someone else came by. Then she flipped the lock, dragged a cabinet against the door, and wedged a metal stand against it to stop it being opened from the outside.

She knew she only needed a handful of minutes at most, to honour Zoe’s wishes.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to he