Читать книгу Ties That Bind - Marie Bostwick - Страница 20

How long did my sister lie dying at the bottom of that snowy ravine, shivering as the snowflakes, softly treacherous, fell on the car, covering the evidence of her peril in a shroud of white while, only miles away, everyone walked on eggshells as Dad chewed his ice and called her inconsiderate and irresponsible and I hid out in the kitchen, thinking the same thing? How long? Minutes? Hours?

Olivia knows, but she can’t tell me. Her tiny body is small and still under the white hospital sheet. Her thin chest rises and falls with the mechanical regularity of a metronome, the pace of her breathing dictated by the ventilator.

She barely knows me. I’m not even sure she knows my voice, and I don’t want to distress her, cause her to wonder, even in a twilight moment of semiconsciousness, why a stranger is in her room, so I say nothing. Careful not to disturb the needles, I hold her hand, hoping she’ll think I am Mari and rest easier, believing her mother is at her bedside. If she wakes, though the doctors continue to tell me there is little chance that she will, someone will have to tell her what happened. Me, I suppose. I can count on my fingers the number of times I’ve been in the same room with my niece. Even so, I’m responsible for her now.

I don’t know how much time elapsed between the moment Mari’s car skidded off the road and help arrived, but it was time enough for my sister to realize the seriousness of the situation, to confront the reality of death, and in a lurching and painful scrawl, to scratch out a note leaving her child to me, a note that went unnoticed until the battered body of Mari’s car was dragged up the embankment and the tow truck driver notified the police of his discovery.

When they told me about the note and what it said, I didn’t know what to think, or say, or do. I heard the words, but couldn’t respond to them, as if I, too, were trapped in some twilight sleep, unable to move, or believe, or understand why this was happening.

Is this my fault?

I wanted a child desperately. But not like this. Not in exchange for my sister’s life. Not a child I am afraid to love, a child who will be mine only for an hour, a day, or two, who will slip away without recognizing my voice or seeing my face, and whose death will burn a brand of guilt into my heart forever.

I didn’t mean it to turn out like this.

I want to wake up. I want to wind back the clock to yesterday and beyond, to find the moment where everything went so wrong, before the arguments and accusations, the jealousy and judgments, the thoughtless words, the icy patches, the skidding tires, the fall, the silence, the sirens, and the silence again, the terrible, terrible silence that will never be broken now.

I want to wake up. I want everyone to wake up.