Tears streamed down my face.This is all my fault.I should have been there for my sister. I should have seen this coming, but I’d been so wrapped up in everything that was going on at Briarwood that I hadn’t paid attention and I’d almost lost her.
“I’m here now,” I said. “And I’m not leaving your side.”
True to my word, I sat by Kelly’s side for hours. We talked about everything – all the things we should have said to each other after Mom and Dad died but didn’t because we were too sad. We cackled with laughter as we remembered Dad’s ugly Christmas sweaters and that time a frog got loose in the church during the middle of his biblical plague sermon. We sobbed together when we remembered Mom giving us each a silver cross necklace on our thirteenth birthday. Kelly lifted her collar down and showed me hers. I opened up my wallet and showed her mine.
Kelly told me how much she’d desperately wanted me to stay in Arizona, but she couldn’t hold me back from my dream. “I always knew you were going to leave and do amazing things, and I was so torn between being sad and happy when you couldn’t go to MIT. I felt like I could deal with this big gaping hole in my heart if you were there with me. But then you got that letter about Briarwood and I had to lose you all over again. I was so afraid that if we started to talk about it, I’d ask you to come back, and you would have come.” She squeezed my hand. “And I was right. I’m so sorry, Maeve.”
“You can’t punish yourself for the way you feel or what you do when you’re grieving,” I said. “A wise person told me that you have to give yourself permission to do whatever it takes to get yourself through the pain. And then you have to forgive yourself for all the shit you end up doing because of it. Which means this.”
I gestured around the hospital room, realising with a start that I could have been talking to myself.
Kelly’s doctor came, jolting me out of my thoughts. He checked Kelly’s vitals and reported she’d made excellent progress. “We’re going to move you to the mental health team for an assessment now, and depending on the result of that, you’ll be free to go.”
Kelly’s body tensed up at the thought. “I’m not crazy,” she said.
“Of course not,” he beamed down at her. He was quite a young doctor, with sandy blond hair and quarterback good looks – the kind of guy on any other day Kelly would be flirting with. “But we’re legally required to give you a full evaluation before we can release you. We need to be sure you’re going to be okay out there, and we can make a recommendation to a specialist if you need further treatment. Much as your smiling face brightens the ward, we don’t want to see you back here if we can help it.”
“Oh, thank you so much,” Kelly said, smiling her patented cool girl smile. “You’re so sweet.”
Gag me with a stethoscope.But I grinned from ear to ear. At least my sister was back on form.
I waited with Kelly for another hour. I kept glancing at the door, expecting to see Uncle Bob barreling through it. I imagined a hundred different scenarios of what I would say or do when he started bossing the doctors around in his booming preacher voice. In some of them, I punched him in the face. In others, I called the police and they swarmed in and arrestedhim mid-sermon. In another, he “accidentally” fell out a window (Not wanting a repeat of the pub incident, I quickly quashed that idea). In my personal favourite vision, I ran him through on my sword. It was probably a good thing British Airways didn’t allow medieval weapons in their carry-on.
The nurse came to take Kelly for her evaluation. Reluctantly, I left her and returned to the nurses’ station. Arthur sat in the same chair, his head tipped back at an awkward angle, his loud snores causing sighs of irritation from the seats around him.
My heart swelled a tiny bit.
I shook Arthur awake. The woman next to him mouthedthank you.
“Maeve…” His eyes flew open and he sat up straight. “How is she? Is she okay? Are you okay?”
He pulled me into his lap, cradling me in his arms the way my Dad had done whenever I was upset about something. In ordinary circumstances, the gesture would have felt infantile and a little weird, but right now I sank into him, savouring his steady strength and warmth.
“She’s going to be okay. They’re moving her to mental health for an assessment. It’s standard procedure when someone self-harms.”
Arthur nodded. “I know. She could be a while. Did she say why…”
His body stiffened. I squeezed his arm, around his elbow where the scars crisscrossed his skin. I wondered, but I didn’t ask. “She did.”
I wondered if Arthur would ask what Kelly said. I wasn’t sure I was ready to voice my Uncle's assault aloud. But Arthur didn’t ask, and it made me love him a little more. Instead, he said, “Do you need anything?”
“Food.” My stomach growled with hunger.
I led Arthur a few blocks away to Happy’s Diner. We always used to come to Happy’s after family trips into Phoenix. I ordered my usual – a cheeseburger, curly fries, and a slice of brownie cake – but everything tasted like cardboard.
My phone buzzed. It was Kelly.
“They want to keep me here another night!” she wailed. “I’m so sick of this place. Where are you?”
“I’m at Happy’s.”
“Wait there. I’m going to sneak out. I’ve already asked for an extra sheet, so if I tie them together I’ll be able to?—”
“No jailbreaking. You stay there and listen to your doctors,” I said. “I’ll be back to see you as soon as visiting hours start up again. And I might even sneak you in a piece of brownie cake.”
“You’re the best sister.”
“I’m really not, but I’m going to try to improve. I love you, Kelly.”
