The Measure

by Nikki Erlick

Nina knew that her girlfriend, as a Black woman, was already at a heightened risk in a medical setting, that women’s pain and Black people’s pain had a long history of being misdiagnosed or ignored. And now this? The injustice never failed to astound her. Of course, Maura wouldn’t have to tell them about her string. She could lie and say she had never looked. But would they actually treat her differently, if they knew the truth? It might not be a conscious decision, Nina realized. Surely, if a doctor had to choose between saving a patient who was eight or seventy-eight, they would save the child first, right? Maybe this was the same? Help the long-stringer first? Nina was terrified by the thought that Maura might be abandoned as a hopeless cause simply because of her string. But the part that really created chaos in Nina’s orderly brain was the question that emerged from it all: Did a patient receive less care because her string was short, or was a patient’s string short because she received less care?

Any other short-stringers seeing impacts on their health insurance? I had informed my insurance about my string and was just denied coverage for tests that I thought would be covered! Also heard rumors of some short-stringers’ premiums increasing suddenly.

secrets from you. I just wanted you to know how I feel. That apparently it’s possible to regret something, or at least wonder about something, while still knowing it was the right choice.”

Dear B, During a vocab lesson today, one of my students defined “foolhardy” as “funny,” and I had to tell her that she was wrong. She looked so confused, and then she said, “I’m sorry. I thought it meant what I wanted it to mean.” I’ve never heard a student phrase it like that before, and I’ve been thinking about it all day. Maybe the boxes are like that, too. Nobody can offer any foolproof explanation for them, so they just end up meaning whatever we want them to mean—whether that’s God or fate or magic. And no matter how long your string is, that, too, can mean whatever you want it to—a license to behave however you want, to stop dieting, to seek revenge, to quit your job, to take a risk, to travel the world. I don’t have

Hank screwed his mouth to the side, thinking. “You know, that actually wasn’t the only reason. That’s what I told my boss and my colleagues, but the truth is that I just didn’t want to be a doctor anymore. There I was, thinking that I had brought hundreds of people back from the edge of death. That I had confronted death and won. And then I found out that maybe I hadn’t. Maybe I had only saved the ones who weren’t going to die anyway, the ones who still had more time on their strings. And, as for the other ones who I tried to save and failed, maybe they couldn’t have been saved. No doctor could have helped them.”

“That sounds like it might almost be comforting?” Ben

“Except it’s hard to keep fighting against something once you realize it’s not a fair...

be a good son.” Hank leaned back slowly in his chair. “You know, I watched a lot of people come to the end, and everyone around them kept begging them to fight. It takes real strength to keep on fighting, and yes, usually that’s the right answer. Keep fighting, keep holding on, no matter what. But sometimes I think we forget that it also takes strength to be able to let go.”

He could picture every flatline on the monitor. A string spread taut across the screen.

“All those people with the long strings who you thought you saved,” Ben said, “you did save them. Their strings were long because you were meant to save them. Their strings were long because of you.”

But you asked if everyone deserves happiness. I certainly think so. And I don’t think having a short string should make that impossible. If I’ve learned anything from all the stories I’ve read—of love and friendship, adventure and bravery—it’s that living long is not the same as living well. Last night, I looked at my own box for the first time in months. I didn’t open it, but I reread the inscription. The measure of your life lies within. Sure, it’s pointing to the string inside, but maybe that’s not the only measure we have. Maybe there are thousands of other ways we could measure our lives—the true quality of our lives—that lie within us, not within some box. And, by your own measure, you can still be happy. You can live well.

“Some did, but I think most did not. My sister, she is very traditional Catholic. She did not look, because she says she will go whenever God calls her back. And I did not look because . . . I am happy with my life.” The woman shrugged. “I hear of these Americans, they say the strings have made them think again about their lives. How do you say, their . . .” “Priorities?” Maura offered. “Sì, sì. Their priorities. But, in Italy, I think we already knew. We already put the art first, the food first, the passion first,” she explained, a sweep of her arm encompassing the entire shop. “And we already put the family first. We did not need the strings to tell us what is most important.”

But the uncomfortable irony wasn’t lost on Jack that he had been given a long string, a long life, and yet he didn’t know how to spend it, while Javi was the one with purpose.

For all the damage they had wrought, the true gift of the strings—of every soldier knowing when he would die, and choosing his path accordingly—was that no soldier would ever have to die alone.

“It’s easy to look at our time together and think that we were so unlucky. But isn’t it better to spend ten years really loving someone, rather than forty years growing bored or weary or bitter?

Midge would have ever been born, if Amie had looked at her string. It was difficult enough for Amie to plan on raising a family without Ben. What if she had known that she, too, wouldn’t be there? Perhaps Amie’s decision to never look, to never know, had given both sisters the gift of these two precious souls.