My sister met her husband while studying abroad in Ireland. They fell in love, eloped, and then he followed her back to America. They now reside in the same small town our family has lived in for three generations. So. Exciting.
I’ve never understood their decision to return to America. It seems backward to me. I figure if you're going to marry a hot Irishman, you should … you know, live in the Highlands or something. Wait, the Highlands are in Scotland, not Ireland. Whatever.
Damn, my wandering thoughts. The doctor is speaking, for Christ’s sake.
“Mr. and Mrs. —”
“Gilmore,” Mom interjects. “We are Alex’s in-laws. We’re his only family here.”
“Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Gilmore. I'm so sorry. We did everything we could, but Alex wasn’t able to pull through. We lost him in surgery.”
What?! Alex is gone? Dead? No longer breathing?
Mom’s knees buckle and she sobs into Dad’s chest, gripping onto him for dear life.
I blink. And blink. And blink some more.
My brother-in-law is gone. My sister just became a single parent.
My sister just lost the love of her life and became a single parent. They've only been married three years. They were just starting their life together. And now. Now he's gone.
I try to inhale. My vision is blurry. I can hear my heartbeat in my head. I close my eyes, trying to get a grip on myself.
Alex is dead. My sister has to raise her baby girl without her dad. My thoughts are officially looping.
Belle deserves everything happy and wonderful in life. She is the kindest person. She loves with every piece of herself. And now she has to live without her lover and raise her daughter without a father.
I feel a piece of my heart break. Physical pain throbs in my chest and my heartbeat continues to grow louder in my ears. This is not happening.Am I having a panic attack?
I sit back down on the bench, head in my hands.Breathe in. Breathe out.When I finally glance up, I’m once again staring at the pelican. That fucking pelican. Stupid fucking double-chinned bird. My brother is dead and my sister is alone and WHO THE HELL PUT THIS BIRD ON THE WALL?!
My inability to process the current situation has me focusing any and all emotions on a picture of a bird.God help me.
I wish my anger had a proper target. If the drunken idiot who smashed into the front of my sister’s car was still alive, I'd probably kill him. He got lucky and died on impact — thereby avoiding my wrath. Stupid asshole deserved to suffer a longer, more fitting death.
I sit there, stewing in anger — a step up from numbness —staring at the pelican for what seems like another few hours. For all I know I've only been sitting here for a few minutes.
The doors swing open once again, and another surgeon donning scrubs asks for “Donnelly? Isabelle Donnelly's family?”
Dad lifts his hand, “That’s us.”
“She's out of surgery and stable. But we're not out of the woods yet. We've put her into a medically-induced coma for the time being to help her body heal. She has a lot of swelling in her brain, and her brain scan didn’t show much, if any, activity. She had internal bleeding, four broken ribs — basically the entire left side of her body was crushed. We’d like to monitor her for the next twenty-four hours to see if her swelling reduces and the brain scans show signs of recovery.”
“So, we wait? Can we see her?” Mom asks, looking hopefully at the doctor.
“Once we get Isabelle settled into her room in the intensive care unit, you’ll be able to sit with her.”
I walkinto Belle’s hospital room. Seeing my sister hooked up to machines, a breathing tube coming out of her mouth — I have no words.
Mom walks over to her bed and presses a soft kiss to Belle’s head. “I love you, baby girl,” she whispers. Dad stands on Belle’s other side, caressing the back of her hand with his thumb.
I’m frozen at the threshold, frozen in place, and not sure where to go from here. Eventually, I move into the room and sit in a chair, glancing back and forth between my parents and my unconscious sister.
Is she going to wake up? Is the swelling in her brain going to subside? How long until she wakes from the coma?
Now that I’m finally starting to regain feeling in my limbs and clarity in my thoughts, the doctor is gone and I’m left sitting here without answers to my million and one questions.
“Julia,” my dad breaks the silence after what seems like an hour. “We should check on Sunny and your sister, and then get some rest before the doctor does his rounds tomorrow morning. We won’t know anything more until then.”
