to have the sunshine coming in?” a nurse asked suddenly, quiteupbeat. I hadn’t seen her come in.
The rhythmic hushing in and out of Philippa’s breathing tubes – the only welcome sound to me – was disrupted by the nurse’s nasal soprano voice.
“Really brightens the place up,” she added absentmindedly as she pulled the beige drapes open to either side of the beige window frame filling most of the beige wall.
“Ssshhhh!” I hissed angrily, thoroughly vexed and offended that she would dare use such a chipper tone, let alone use her voice at all, in this place that must be a sanctuary for healing. I crossed my arms in a huff and pulled my feet up onto the chair where I sat.
She frowned and look down as she pushed a stray hair behind her ear. Her unathletic frame moved timidly back toward the door.
“I’ll just be by later to change out her linens then,” she said again, her voice blaringly loud and ugly as it reached my ears. “But first, I better give this a little looksie. Oh! And I can’t forget to give that a check-a-roo!”
“Ssshhhh!” I hissed once more. I glared after her as she waddled around the room, changing out this and checking that, looking over charts and screens. Her presence lingered and tainted my holy communion of quiet.
I don’t know why I needed unbroken silence in my grief. Any sound left a grotesque bruise on silence’s comfort. It felt as though sound disrupted the hallowed emotion of sadness, and loudness is somehow equated with joy and living. Living … Life – maybe that was what bothered me so about it. Every sound emanating from speech, music, steps, TV, even the clicking of pens on clipboards meant that there was life exclaiming life. It was so obscene, so horrid. Here, where Philippa’s life had a question mark next to it.
The shuffling of the nurse’s sensible shoes made me hate her; how dare she be alive. Every stride of hers sounded a vitriolic thud: the heavy clunk of shoe’s sole to linoleum mocked my quiet sorrow with bragging loudness. Each footstep I took as a personal affront, for each paraded life in front of my sister even as she endeavored to cling to her own. I despised that nurse.
There was only one sound that was acceptable to me right now, and that was the systematic chirping of the vital signs monitor. Its hum and beeps reached my ears like a sacred choir; to speak during its song was to blaspheme its holy purpose: announcing Philippa’s persistence at Life. And so I sat in my church upon the dark green vinyl recliner in reverence.
Should I pray? I didn’t know how; I didn’t know whom to address. Should I meditate? I didn’t know; I didn’t know where to send my mind.
I finally got up to close the door to the small sterile room of white and pale green. It shut heavily and loudly, the plastic file holder on the outside of it clattered in protest. I needed further distance from the rest of the hospital’s circus.
When I turned around, Dragon stood in front of the window. He sat on his haunches and his wings fluttered nervously a bit when my eyes met his. He wore an eye patch now. My sister, small in the bed flanked by machines and monitors and sacks of liquid, was even smaller near Dragon’s mass. I hated the lump that immediately formed in my throat upon seeing him. I pulled the end of my hoodie sleeve over my fist and held it to my eye to dam up any tears trying to suddenly escape. It was a new hoodie. I hadn’t sufficiently stretched it out or made thumb holes in it yet.
“Did my mom come with you?” I said, unable to speak authentically.
“She is home with your uncle. And Baert. They’re – ” Dragon’s soothing voice halted, and he looked around uncomfortably.
“They’re what?” I asked flatly.
“Well, Evechild, they are … oh, goodness. Why, they are planning a party for you. I hated the thought of your arriving home in less than celebratory spirits with the expectations of revelry thrust upon you. So I, well, I came to warn you, I suppose.”
I felt my blood turn white-hot. My sister was laying there, alone, with tubes and pads and cuffs and bandages all over her, and my family wants to … they want to … they want to …. I couldn’t even finish the sentence in my mind. The idea erupted into nonsense, into disgust. My shoulders heaved. My cheeks were red.
“I understand, Evechild,” Dragon said softly, feelingly, discerning my heart.
“Then how could I go?! Philippa is … she’s just …” I gestured angrily toward my sister, who lay in peaceful repose amidst her holy choir of vital monitors and blood pressure machines.
Dragon strode carefully across the small room, his talons barely touching the surface of the floor as if to respect my need for silence. He held his talon out to me. I put my hand in his. It was warm and rough, but its roughness was so comforting and familiar.
“You’ll go, my dear girl, because you are the reason we all live. They do not know how to repay you; your mother, your uncle, they have no words nor gestures. So they choose to celebrate you. You saved us, you saved them,” he said, his thought interrupted by my ferocious shaking head.
“But Philippa!” I started tearfully.
“Is alive,” Dragon finished. “She is alive, Eve. She is alive. Philippa lives because of you. We all do. Evechild, each of us lives because of you. Think about that!”
“But Philippa!” was all I could respond with once more.
I fell into Dragon’s strong scaled chest and sobbed. Exhausted, scared, guilty even. Every emotion materialized into tiny salty drops on my face, each stream indelibly carving into my soul’s landscape. As he hugged me, his mighty wings fell forward to create the warmest, coziest embrace I’d ever experienced.
I just kept crying. And all the while, Dragon kept repeating, to comfort, console, convince: “She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s alive.”