“He’s asking for you,” she said.
“You said he doesn’t recognize anyone.”
“He doesn’t,” she said. “But the nurse just asked me if he knows
someone named Tara. He said your name over and over this morning,
when he was asleep and when he was awake. I told them Tara is his
sister, and now they’re saying it would be good if you came. He might
recognize you, and that would be something. Yours is the only name
he’s said since he got to the hospital.”
I was silent.
“I’ll pay for the gas,” Mother said. She thought I wouldn’t come
because of the thirty dollars it would cost in fuel. I was embarrassed
that she thought that, but then, if it wasn’t the money, I had no reason
at all.
“I’m leaving now,” I said.
I remember strangely little of the hospital, or of how my brother
looked. I vaguely recall that his head was wrapped in gauze, and that
when I asked why, Mother said the doctors had performed a surgery,
cutting into his skull to relieve some pressure, or stop a bleed, or repair
something—actually, I can’t remember what she said. Shawn was
tossing and turning like a child with a fever. I sat with him for an hour.
A few times his eyes opened, but if he was conscious, he didn’t
recognize me.
When I came the next day, he was awake. I walked into the room
and he blinked and looked at Mother, as if to check that she was seeing
me, too.
“You came,” he said. “I didn’t think you would.” He took my hand
and then fell asleep.
I stared at his face, at the bandages wrapped around his forehead
and over his ears, and was bled of my bitterness. Then I understood
why I hadn’t come sooner. I’d been afraid of how I would feel, afraid
that if he died, I might be glad.
I’m sure the doctors wanted to keep him in the hospital, but we
didn’t have insurance, and the bill was already so large that Shawn
would be making payments a decade later. The moment he was stable
enough to travel, we took him home.