I was so torn, my insides twisting at the idea of trying to tell her, not knowing how or if I really should.
The woman and Ginger lingered by a bench, then a trash can, then a bush. I walked to the edge of the pond. Closer, the flashes of light on the water were brighter, almost painfully so, sharp pinpricks cutting across my vision. I closed my eyes, breathing deeply, willing her away. Letting indecision be my decision, like I had with the woman at the coffee shop.
When I finally went back to my blanket, she was gone.
And I felt awful.
Chapter 15
“Today we’re going to talk about right and wrong.”
That was how Lucas introduced his lesson. Back home, it would have been “Tell me the first line of the Gettysburg address.” Here it was life and death, good and bad, the meaning of existence.
“Ethics is the study of right and wrong, derived from the Greek word ethos, or habit,” he said. “We are what we repeatedly do. Anyone ever heard that before?”
A few nods.
“It’s one of my dad’s favorite sayings,” Lucas said. “I always hated it.”
A few laughs. Already I could tell he was good and definitely more fun to watch than my teachers in Ashville. I’d been surprised Lucas would actually be teaching classes, but he was hardly on his own, with Professor McMillan right there watching and taking notes.
Lucas recapped some of the philosophies we’d covered: Plato’s three souls—that “right” was when the mind, will, and desire were all working for the same goal—and Aristotle’s “choice-worthy” actions, ones that avoided extremes. He moved on to Kant, who was beyond confusing. I’d had to search the Internet to learn that he thought you should do your duty, no matter what.
I’d spent a lot of time on this week’s readings after seeing that woman in the park with her dog.
I hadn’t looked her up. Didn’t want to read about how her life had ended and who she’d left behind or hadn’t. I was sure she’d died—no longer needed the black-and-white confirmation—but I couldn’t stop thinking about whether I’d done the right thing.
At the front of the room, Lucas kept talking, but I wasn’t really listening to him, unable to ignore the question that had been less than a whisper when Nan died, but grew louder, more insistent, each time I saw the mark. Should I tell or not?
I’d scoured the philosophy readings, but it wasn’t there. None of them ever got down to how to tackle a real problem, one with lots more gray than black and white. I’d hoped for more. I wanted answers. So when Lucas paused, asking if we had any questions, I raised my hand, my throat tightening at the thought of speaking it aloud. But I had to. Had to know.
“Maybe I missed it, but for all the time the philosophers spent talking about making the right choice, none of them ever talked about how to do it when the choices are hard.”
“What kinds of choices are you thinking about, Ms. Renfield?”
I pretended to think, then took a deep breath and asked it. “Let’s say you somehow knew someone was about to die.” My stomach was in knots as I finally said aloud what I’d barely been willing to ask myself. “Should you tell them? Or not? What’s the right thing to do?” Everyone was looking at me.
Lucas frowned. “You know they’re about to die? What do you mean? Like a doctor who can see a cancer?”
Not what I had in mind, but that would do. “Sure.”
He nodded. “Well, I think both Aristotle and Kant would say the doctor’s responsibility is clear: to tell the patient so they could explore treatment options.”
“What if there were no treatment options? The cancer was too far along, definitely fatal.”
“I think they’d say it’s still the doctor’s responsibility to tell the patient.”
“Why?”
“So the person can decide how to spend their remaining time.”
“Why is that the better course? If there’s no cure and happiness is the greatest good, wouldn’t it be better for the doctor to let the patient live in happiness?”
Lucas thought for a moment. “Well. Incurable diseases are not painless. The person would be suffering and has come to the doctor for an answer. The doctor’s role is to provide health. In this case, maybe he can’t provide physical health, but he could provide mental rest by telling the patient the truth. It is what the patient has come seeking. It is the doctor’s duty to provide it.”
“Okay.” I paused, regrouping. This wasn’t going the way I wanted it to. “What if the patient hadn’t come seeking it?”
“How could that be?”
“Well … let’s say the patient doesn’t feel any pain. They’re just at the doctor for a routine physical, but the doctor finds this incurable cancer, widespread. Untreatable. The patient is totally unaware of a problem. If there’s nothing that can be done for the patient—their physical health can’t be improved and their mental health may be harmed by the news—what is the doctor’s responsibility?”
Lucas looked at me hard, a small smile at the corners of his mouth. “What an interesting dilemma, Ms. Renfield. Let’s ask the class.”
Cop-out, I thought. I waited for Professor McMillan to jump in and answer, but he only watched as hands shot up around the room. For a while, I listened to the discussion, but my classmates gave me nothing. I’d already covered every scenario, every opinion they had, on my own.
Plato had talked about reconciling what we knew we should do with our fear of doing it and our desire to do something else. But his arguments assumed I knew what I should do. I didn’t. Same with Kant—I couldn’t do my duty if I didn’t know what it was.
It was frustrating. Throughout the room, students were debating, some passionately—definitely our best discussion so far. Great. The abstract was fun in class, but I wanted the concrete in my life. I needed, as Aristotle said, a target to aim at. It made me think of Tasha standing in her garage, facing the concentric circles of the hay-bound target what felt like a hundred years ago. I wished I could go back there, challenge her to a winner-takes-all round of archery, the stakes nothing more than coffee and a chocolate chip muffin from Jake’s Deli.
Around me, zippers were being opened, papers rustling, books snapping shut. At the front of the room, Professor McMillan reminded us of our assignment for the next week. “Great discussion,” he said as people started to file out of the room. “Ms. Renfield, thank you for getting us started.”