Fall 2008

(Age 15)

Sophomore year English is located in the portables on the far side of campus. Too far removed from the rest of the school to be under the awnings that serve as umbrellas during the rainy fall season.

Someone’s sneakers squish and squeak as they make their way to their seat. My hair drip, drip, drips mini puddles on my desk.

Malyssa turns around in her seat, “Have you done this project yet?” She asks.

I laugh and raise my eyebrows, our signal crafted over many classes together.

“Nope,” I say. “Do you plan on it?”

“Public speaking. Plus memorizing. Plus poetry. That’s gonna be a heck no from me,” I say.

The bell rings signaling the beginning of class. Malyssa turns back around, her short ponytail swings back and forth against her neck.

“Today we’re going to be picking up where we left off. Raise your hand if you haven’t done the poetry out loud assignment yet.”

I creep my right hand into my left and slowly crack the knuckles on each of my fingers. My heart races in my chest as my anxiety cranks up a couple of notches.

“We probably won’t get through all of you today, but I do plan on getting through most of you.”

Malyssa turns around. “Uh oh,” she mouths.

I bit my lip as I try to contain the laughter bubbling in my chest.

“We’re both screwed,” I whisper.

“Who would like to go first?” Our teacher asks, twirling a strand of her hair around her finger.

Don’t look up. Don’t look up.

“Kelsey, you have an early dismissal,” Our teacher says.

My heart races.

“You didn’t tell me you were having an early dismissal,” Malyssa says, “now you’re going to leave me in here all by myself.”

“I wasn’t supposed to.”

Please let everything be okay.

I stand up, grab my backpack, wipe my hands on my jeans, and push through the portable door that separates my classroom from the outside world.

The wind plasters my hair to my face as I walk up the ramp.

My stomach lurchs farther into my throat with every step.

I don’t think I can do this. What if he’s not okay.

I stop. The walk to the office seems too far. The concrete walls of the building feel damp through my denim jacket. I lean until the leaning becomes sitting. Until the ground makes my jeans wet. Till the fear of my mother yelling at me outweighs the fear that he might be dead.

Please let him be okay.

I stand. Brush the back of my jeans and speed walk towards the office. My chest heaves as it begs for air that doesn’t seem to exist. I set my hands upon the door labeled office, and push.

“What took you so long?” My mom snaps.

“I was on the other side of the school, that isn’t exactly a short walk.” I say pulling my shirt down even farther in hopes that she won’t notice the damp, dirt clinging to my jeans.

“Let’s go. We have things we need to do,” she says as she leads us out of the school’s office and through the front doors.

“Like what?” I ask.

She doesn’t say anything. Her curly hair bounces with every step.

“Where’s our car?”

“Tim and Amy drove,” she enunciates like I should have known. Like it wasn’t weird that they were with her despite having not talked in five years.

Does this mean he’s dead? She would have said something right?

Mom opens the door and slides in, I follow, slamming the door behind me and setting my backpack on the ground between my feet.

The smell of day old french fries lingers in the car. There’s food crumbs in my seat, but I pretend not to notice as I grab my headphones from my side pocket.

“We’re gonna go check out his storage unit and see what all needs to be moved,” Uncle Tim says. Unlike the last time I’d seen him white now peppered what little facial hair he managed to grow.

“Sounds good,” my mother says.

I slide my earbuds in, first the right then left and turn the volume up till the only thing I can hear is p!nk singing about being a rockstar.

They would say something if he was gone, right?

I open my mouth to ask, but close it instantly. Too afraid to say his name and death in the same sentence. Too afraid to ask, to put the idea into the universe. Too afraid that the answer might be yes.

We pull into the parking lot of some storage unit I’d never seen before. Trees surround the area, making it almost impossible to locate if it hadn’t been for the neon sign advertising it’s position.

“Are you going to stay in the car?” Tim asks.

“Yeah,” I say not looking up from my phone. I pull up my previous conversation with Malyssa and type:

I don’t know where

we are. I don’t know

what’s going on.

Have they told you

anything?

No.

Well, if you come to school

tomorrow it’s our turn

at the poetry assignment.

Great. I can’t wait.

I flip my phone shut and lean my head against the window.

Glass cool, damp, against my cheek.

The sound of the car door slamming shut wakes me up.

“Hi, yes this is her daughter in law,” I hear Amy say into her phone.

My heart jumps into my throat. They’re talking about grandma.

Uncle Tim and my mom both stare at Amy, waiting.

“Thank you for the call, we’ll be there as soon as we can,” she says.

Rain starts to drip, drip, drip again. The trees sway with the wind. Puddles ripple on the pavement.

“Well?” Tim ask.

“That was the nurse, he passed away,” she says.

Tears streak down my mother’s face as she turns to look out the window. I sat completely silent. Tim starts the car.

I can feel Amy turning to look at us, she clasps my mom’s hand, I clasp my right hand in my left.

Please don’t touch me.

Raindrops run down my window. Their movement no longer the fun race their streaks created when I was younger, but more a reminder that at some point everything ceases to exist.

They just called,

He’s d--

I backtrack, unable to type the word. Unable to say it.

He passed away.

I am so sorry. If

you need anything let me

know. I’m here for you. <3

We pull into the parking lot of the hospital. Raindrops pelt me the second I opened the door.

My hair drip, drip, drips.

“His room is this way,” My Uncle says. He pushes open the door. My grandma is laying on top of his body, sobbing. She looks up, as we walked in and slowly steps away. Her face unforgiving red.

The clock ticks, ticks, ticks on the wall. My blue boots scrape the tile floor as I swing my feet back and forth. Back and forth. Monitors beep, beep, beep out in the hall, but they do not beep in our room.

Mom, Grandma, Aunt Amy and Uncle Tim all sit in a row of hospital chairs around his room.

He lays in the hospital bed. Like he would wake up soon. Like we were all waiting. Like his skin wasn’t slowly turning yellow, yellow, yellow with every pass of the minute hand.

His diagnosis came into our life when I was ten. Sugar coated with denial and his first hospitalization.

I visited him then too. Curled up in the visitor’s chair. Knees pulled up to my chest, book in front of my face, but that time he was alive, moving. That time the monitors beeped. That time he was not yellow like sunshine. That time I was too scared of his paleness to look at him. That time I wasn’t sure if he would make it out, but he did.

His doctor told him to “treat this time like a warning, change your life or you will not live long,” he said.

I imagine Papa chuckled and signed the papers, joking about Hepatitis C like a misdiagnosis.

I don’t remember the leaving. Don’t remember the walking out of the hospital. Don’t remember the drive home. I just remember sitting in the living room. Wood crackling in the fireplace.

“Aren’t you sad,” My mother asks.

I can feel the tears bubbling behind my eyes. Can feel the weight building in my chest.

“Yeah,” I shrug like it doesn’t matter.

Her husband sits on the other side of the couch, his cloudy blue eyes study me. I push my blonde hair into my face to avoid making eye contact.

“How come you didn’t cry then,” she asks.

How come your husband didn’t come to the hospital is the better question, I want to say, but instead I stand up, run past the hall of pictures, and into my room. The walls still the same pink, green, and blue I’d decided to paint them when I was twelve. My keyboard piano sat on the floor. It’s keys still marked with sharpied letters from when I first started teaching myself how to play.

I plop down on the floor and pull open the notation book, not caring what song I play. I press the keys as hard as I can. Letting the edges indent onto my finger tips. Pressing hard with each wrong key. Pressing harder with each right key. My fingers slide on the little puddles gathering on the keys. I look at the sheet music, unsure if I was even playing a song anymore, but continued pressing anyway. Casper jumps from the warm pile of blankets on my bed and nudges my arm.

“Not now bud,” I say as I held down an A flat.

He rubs his head up against my hand not taking no for an answer.

I scoop him up, his tiny frame vibrating, purr. Snuggling him against my chest, I crawl into bed and pull my quilted bedspread over us.

I can’t believe he’s gone, that I didn’t get to say goodbye.

My bedroom door creaks open.

“Kels,” my mom says.

I hold my breath and smush my face against Casper’s fur.

Please let her think I’m sleeping.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.

I inhale and exhale slowly, trying to keep the rhythm of my breathing as steady as possible.

Please think I’m sleeping. Please think I’m sleeping.

The door creaks, clicks back into place.

Still Fall 2008

(Age 15)

Mom, Grandma and I walk into the funeral home. Gravel crunches under our feet, a tiny house is at the end of the driveway.

This looks like a home you could find in our neighborhood.

There’s no coffin on display like I’d seen on TV, there’s only urns; colorful ones, big ones, small ones, plain ones, ones with intricate designs, ones that look like boxes.

Grandma flips over some of them to see the price. Her face scrunches, as she set another one down. “I don’t know how you guys are going to afford this when it’s my time to go.”

“We won’t, honestly, we’ll probably end up donating you to science,” I blurt.

Oh shit, I think that was one of those things mom says is okay to talk about in the house, but never outside of it.

My mom glares at me and laughs.

Grandma whips her head around.

“I’m only kidding,” I say.

“What about this one,” Mom asks, holding up an urn with an eagle on it.

“He would have liked that,” Grandma said.

“I thought he wanted to be buried, that’s what you two have been saying the past couple of days, why aren’t we doing that?”

My mother sighs, “because we can’t afford that.”

So, he doesn’t even get what he wants when he’s dead.

A guy in a suit walks in, introduces himself as the funeral director. I sit down in the chair near the door, and hug my knees to my chest.

This isn’t right.

“Where do you plan on having him buried?” The guy asks.

He was leaned back in his chair, like everything about this meeting was casual to him, like someone important hadn’t just died.

“Oh, we won’t be,” Grandma says.

Anger sweeps through my bloodstream.

“He’ll be staying with me,” she says.

No. No. No. No.

My mom’s face scrunches, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, why don’t we get him a nice plot so everyone can visit him.”

Her voice is firm, “he’s staying with me.”

By Kelsey Taylor

From: United States

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