Roshan had left Nimita with her sister still fuming. He’d said his piece, but it wasn’t his place to remain at her side. Not anymore. Nimita deserved so much more than he could give her.
So he went and found Malini’s room. She’d been through X-ray and had been sent for a CT scan, too. Her wrist fracture was complicated and would need surgery. Now she was waiting for an ortho consult, and he knew her doctors were monitoring her carefully considering her medical history, too.
He grabbed her chart from the end of the bed and sat in the sole chair in the room, pulling it closer to the bed. The surgery was scheduled for tomorrow. His parents had asked why he hadn’t pulled strings to get her taken care of today.
She was on some pretty good drugs. He looked at her, asleep on the bed. She looked so thin and pale. She might be twenty-six years old, but she would always be his little sister.
Would he always look at her and think of cancer? He certainly did that right now. But didn’t want to. He wanted there to be a time when he did not look at her and wonder what her platelet count was, if the disease was inside her, waiting to ravage her cells. Waiting to cause her pain, to put her through a treatment that was just as painful, if not more, than the actual disease. Waiting to keep her from the life that she still wanted to live.
No, he thought to himself. There might never be a time when he didn’t look at her and think about cancer. He loved her so much, sometimes it actually hurt.
He had kept himself out of his parents’ way, so they didn’t have to worry about him. Good grades. Sports. College. Med school. All of it he did on his own, never even knowing if they’d noticed. What they did notice was what he did for his sister.
* * *
“I looked at all the routes Malini could take to school if she wanted to walk or bike, and I picked the safest ones. The ones least likely to lead to injury but that are still public enough that EMTs could reach quickly if something happened.”
Roshan showed his work to his parents as well as the final result.
His parents beamed at him. “Shabash! This is very good. You are a very good brother.”
“This is the kind of thing that puts us to ease. Knowing you are taking care of Malini.”
“We are very proud of you. You’re the best brother Malini could have.”
* * *
He was bombarded with images of Malini falling down, breaking a bone, him being told it was his fault for not being diligent enough. Even now, expecting him to use his position as a physician to get Malini in front of other legitimately sick people.
That wasn’t fair.
And Malini was grown and clawing for independence. But look what had happened. He stared at her, so small and vulnerable in the bed. He’d seen her like this before, and she had always fought back. She was tougher than she seemed. He smiled to himself. She may look tiny and vulnerable in that big bed, but there wasn’t much about his sister that was tiny and vulnerable.
She was a fighter.
* * *
“Bhaiya. Bhaiya. Roshan!”
Roshan startled awake. He had been dreaming of Malini falling down, breaking a bone, sitting in the hospital with an IV in her, of himself being told it was his fault for not being diligent enough.
“Go home, Bhaiya. I’m fine here. Mom and Dad and I can Uber to my place once I’m discharged.” She sounded healthy, full of her stubbornness.
“I’m not leaving you, I’m staying right here. I never should have let you go surfing.”
“Know what I was thinking?” she said. “That you were finally thinking that I could do things.”
“Yeah. Well, I was wrong. You and I both know you’re at higher risk for bone fractures after all the chemo. I don’t know how long this is going to take to heal. I messed up.” He shook his head at her. “I’m sorry.”
“Shut up,” she said.
“What?”
“You heard me. Shut. Up. It wasmydecision to go surfing. Just stop with the constant taking care of me.” Malini had some pain drugs in her, but the fire in her eyes was real. “It’s exhausting for me, I can’t even imagine how hard it is for you. Do you know hard it is to be responsible for your happiness as well as my own? Every time I want to do something, I have to think about how freaked out you’ll get. I try to stop caring. I love you, and I don’t want you to hurt, but I can’t do it anymore.”
Roshan was speechless.
“Do you hear me, Bhaiya? Your constant care is hurting me.”
