Page 59 of The Wrong Sister

I think Mina is slowly coming out of the dark. The nightmares have lessened and she seems to be spending less time, during the day, brooding. It was hard seeing her that down. Thatchanged. The swelling in her face has gone down and the fingerprint bruises on her throat are turning green, edges softening. For a while there her spirit felt broken. I see little glimpses of my Mina coming back.

My Mina?

I’m not sure if she’d appreciate that possessive moniker or not.

I’m also not sure when I started considering her mine.

On top of sleeping more soundly, Mina is talking to me more. She’s engaging, even initiating conversations, and spending increasing amounts of time with me outside of sleeping in her bedroom. I predict Mina getting back to work stronger and more driven than ever. I’ve got to make sure she doesn’t rush into it. She still needs to rest and recover.

I drive her back to The Queens Medical Center for her appointment. If everything goes according to plan, she’ll be getting a cast today. I park myself in a corner chair in the waiting room and work. My friend Lance is able and willing to make the t-shirts for the fundraiser. He can’t do it for free, but he is going to give them to me at cost and, as I hoped, my firm agreed to sponsor them. Their record for charitable work in the community is one of the big reasons I wanted to work there. It makes me proud to be a part of the team. Rafferty is working on the design. I’ll need to check in with him so I can get Lance the final for the order by the end of the week. I should do that now while I’m thinking about it, no reason to add another item to the list—although maybe I will anyway just to have the pleasure of scratching it off.

Me: Do you think you can have the final t-shirt design by the end of the week?

Raff: No prob

Me: Has Ka‘eo reached out to you yet?

Raff: Yeah, crazy hearing from him! You’ll never believe this, but I know his wife, although I didn’t know they were married.

Me: How did that happen? I’ve only seen her on video chats

Raff: Training—she hired me to work with her and some of her friends once a week. They’re a funny group. Funny and NOSY

Me: Small world

Me: When you have the design how you want it, email it to me and I’ll send a copy to K. He was talking about sharing it on Instagram. Maybe pre-selling t-shirts to his followers.

Raff: I can do that

Me: It’s been a while since I annoyed you about this so…You could post it to your artist IG too. If you had one.

Raff: Ok, Griff. Something tells me you’re never going to let this go. How about I talk to K about it? Get his help setting it up

Me: YES! Awesome. I’ll be your first follower

Raff: First supporter, as always

Raff: thanks bro

Checking things off my list left and right! It feels good to be productive. I’ve taken care of the things I offered to do for Mina, now it’s back to regular work for me. The waiting goes by quickly. I’m busy. I’m not even sure how long Mina takes. I’ve been squeezing work in during whatever small spaces I can find during the day: while Mina is napping, in the middle of the night, very early in the morning, whenever she doesn’t need me. Those times are unpredictable in length though. I accomplished a lot more than I was anticipating because I was able to sit and work for one uninterrupted stretch. Today has been a pretty good day thus far!

Mina comes out, cast in place, her face absent of its previous tension. Everything looked better than they were hoping and she’s uplifted by the positive progress. We’re both in good moods. Being away from the apartment, getting good results, feeling accomplished, it’s all left us lighter than we’ve been since before that Sunday. I park in my spot and we decide to take an impromptu walk. I switch sides to hold Mina’s left hand and we stroll through Kaka‘ako in the warm spring sunshine. The day is clear and everything feels brighter and fresher out here. We end up at our favorite sweet shop for celebratory waffle cones: chocolate whiskey for Mina and rum raisin for me. I feel like I’m able to take a full, deep breath for the first time in more than a week, releasing some of the tension that’s been weighing me down.

“It’s incredible how much better everything seems just by being outside, in the sunshine,” Mina comments, her face upturned to take in the warmth.

“I was thinking the same thing. I hadn’t been feeling that things were dire, but damned if I don’t feel lighter all of a sudden.”

“Me too.” She smiles at me, the first genuine, full smile in a couple of weeks and it fills me with more warmth than the afternoon sun.

“The ice cream isn’t hurting either.” I bump my shoulder into hers, taking a bite out of my still slightly warm, freshly made waffle cone.

“We have been sorely lacking in ice cream. I blame my boyfriend. Surely on top of taking care of my every need and working remotely and feeding us and cleaning my apartment and doing our laundry, he could have found a spare moment to buy ice cream…” Fuck, it’s good to hear her joking again.

“I failed you. Ice cream should have been at the top of my list. Can you forgive the oversight?”

She leans over and kisses me, lips cold and sweet from the ice cream. They heat up quickly, our ice cream temporarily forgotten.

“I’ve missed this. And you.” She kisses me again, then rests her forehead against mine. “It’s nice to feel more human.”

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