Page 74 of That Birthday in Barbados
I think of how things have been between my sister and me for the past three years. Of the anger I was certain had rusted a hole inside the center of my once bottomless love for her.
But somehow, since the moment I ended the call with my mom, I have only been able to think of Nicole as we were before three years ago. Before Connor. I remember us as little girls, the way Nicole wanted to do anything I did. I picture her following me through our house, her love-worn doll Emmy tucked under her arm. It didn’t matter what I was doing or where I was going. Nicole just wanted to be a part of it.
Was I a nice older sister? Or did I take advantage of her devotion to me?
I wonder now, as I have wondered many times in the past three years, why Nicole chose Connor. Was it about taking something from me? Or was it my sister never having enough faith in her own ability to make her way, to trust her choices? She had always tried to follow mine. In some convoluted way, was picking Connor just more of that?
Should I have seen that before now? Before Nicole decided life wasn’t worth living anymore?
A sob rises up in my throat and I lean forward in my seat, wrapping my arms around my waist and pressing my lips together.
Please, God. Please give us a chance to fix this. Please don’t let her die. Please. Please give me another chance.
Chapter Thirty-nine
“Believe that life is worth living and your belief
will help create the fact.”
? William James
Nicole
IT’S DARK.
She stumbles, hands out in front her, trying to find something solid to latch onto. But the darkness is like she imagines space must be. Billions of miles of universe with planets so far apart that there is no hope of falling into one. Still, she tries, grappling, reaching out, staring so hard for any speck of light that it feels as if her eyes might pop from her head.
There’s a voice. A woman. And another. A man. Younger.
She tries to focus on their conversation, but at first it sounds like a foreign language she’s never heard before. Sentences uttered so fast she cannot make out the individual words. One breaks through. ICU.
ICU. Who’s in the ICU?
Fear lashes at her. Is it one of her parents? Catherine?
As if the conversation has been slowed down for her own comprehension, she understands more of what the voices are saying. Front desk nurse. Predicting an ICU patient dead by morning. This one. Organ donor.
Confusion drowns her brain. Maybe she blacks out. When she becomes aware again, she is wondering who they were talking about.
A hand touches her arm.Nicole. Nicole.It’s her mother’s voice. Saturated with tears.Nicole, please wake up. It’s Mama. I’m here.
Pain consumes her. She wants to go to her mother. She tries to run, but her legs are stuck in something. It feels like quicksand, and it is pulling her down, down, back into the blackness. But just before her head goes completely under, she realizes who the voices were talking about. The patient expected to be dead by morning. The organ donor.
They were talking about her.
Chapter Forty
“I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than the things I haven’t done.”
?Lucille Ball
Catherine
I GRAB AN Uber at the airport. The quickest one is the most basic, but I don’t care. With me and my suitcase stuffed in his backseat, I urge the college student to get his economy car to the hospital in West Palm Beach as quickly as possible. He takes I-95 and pushes the small vehicle toward eighty. The car shakes, but we’re taking the hospital exit within a few minutes, and I appreciate his focus on getting me there.
When he pulls up at the entrance, I thank him and slide out of the backseat, pulling my suitcase behind me. Inside, I ask the volunteer at the front desk which room my sister is in and then ask if I can leave my luggage with her. She starts to tell me she’s not supposed to do that, but maybe it’s the distraught look on my face that makes her change her mind. I pull the case behind the desk, make sure it is out of her way and then bolt for the elevator.
Nicole is in the ICU on the twelfth floor. I wait for each numbered level to slide by, each one ticking by in synch with the pulse in my throat. The doors finally open, and I step onto the waxed white floor, looking left and then right for the ICU signs. It’s to the right. I walk quickly down the hall, following the arrows to a pair of red doors markedINTENSIVE CARE UNIT. No more than one visitor allowed at a time. Ring buzzer for admittance.
