6
Niya
“Jazzy,” I screamed.
My loud screech brought her rushing into Big’s room.
“Something’s happening to Big,” I huffed. As though I hadn’t shaken Big’s body enough, Jazzy joined me in the effort. We screamed “Big” in unison, chanting, “Big? Big? Wake up.”
Suddenly, Jazzy stopped. “Call 9-1-1,” she ordered, her chest heaving.
I dashed into my room and dialed the number.
“Nine-one-one. Where is your emergency?” the voice asked while my heart thundered.
My lips trembled as I rattled off our address and informed the operator that my grandmother was not moving.
“Is she breathing?”
I shook my head, though she couldn’t see. I wiped a sweaty hand on the front of my jeans. “Um...I don’t know.”
“Go get a hand mirror and put it under her nose to see if it fogs up,” the woman instructed me.
With pure adrenaline pumping through my veins, I couldn’t think.Where’s a mirror?
Jazzy burst into our bedroom. “Are they coming?”
“I need a mirror,” I cried out.
“A mirror for what?” she yelled back at me, tears filling her eyes.
“To check for breathing.” I handed the phone to Jazzy, then skittered back to Big’s room. I opened the top drawer of her dresser with such force that it slid out of place. The contents spilled on the carpeted floor. I fell to my knees and searched for Big’s old compact in a pile of knick-knacks.
“Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?” My hands shook and sweat ran down my face and arms. Tears began to blur my vision. “Big, where is it?” I bellowed, knowing she couldn’t answer.
After what felt like hours instead of seconds, I located an age-old container of what Big called “ruige” and snapped it open to reveal a mirror. I lifted my hands in triumph. “Finally.”Thank you, God.
But as soon as I realized what I was about to do—determine if my grandmother was still alive—my entire body froze.
Jazzy sprinted to my side. “Give me that.” She grabbed the makeup from my hand, jumped onto the bed, and held it under Big’s nose with one hand while holding onto my phone with the other.
I couldn’t watch. But I had to. My feet backed me into a corner as I watched my sister spring into action.
“Yes, she’s breathing,” I heard Jazzy say to the operator.
Breathe. Take deep breaths,I told myself as my body shivered.
I registered Jazzy’s words. “Okay. I can feel her pulse. Barely,” she said.
This can’t be happening.
The walls seemed to close in around me as the room turned darker. I heard sirens in the distance that grew stronger, closer until the sounds were so loud, I closed my eyes and held my head. Then there was pounding...Wait.Was that the door?
“Don’t just stand there, Niya. Go let them in,” Jazzy commanded, hovering over Big.
I eased off the wall and raced to open the door.
The next few minutes were a blur. The paramedics ripping down the hallway. Asking Jazzy questions. Jazzy asking me questions I couldn’t answer. “I was just...just talking to her. Then I stepped out of the room for a second. I came back in, and she wasn’t talking anymore.”
Jazzy gave them her medications. They strapped Big to a gurney and whizzed her past me.
“Who’s riding with us?” they asked.
“I am,” Jazzy answered without question. “Call the fam,” she shot at me before jumping inside.
And just like that, my grandmother and my twin sister were gone to the hospital, leaving me alone in Big’s house to wonder what in the world had just happened. I wiped my forehead. Would I ever see Big again? And why couldn’t I think under pressure like Jazzy?
But I couldn’t sit around waiting for answers. I had to get to the hospital and the only person I knew with a car who would still be up was Sean.
