A Sister's Heart

She must pass many rooms before she reaches her sister's room in the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The rooms are too quiet, in some the hiss of the ventilator the only hint of a sign of life.

Dena walks down the sterile corridor, a brightly wrapped present under one arm, resisting the urge to run back to the safety of her father's car. She sees a small waiting room with a few overstuffed couches, a homey rug on the floor and a vending machine. She steps inside. Just for a minute, she thinks, before she visits her sister for the first time. Three weeks ago Miriam was diagnosed.

Dena sits down on the grainy faux leather green couch and stares at a poster of some swans on a peaceful-looking lake. Another scene, though, rises to her mind, the unpleasant incident that took place just before her sister got sick.

It had been a warm summer day a week before her first day in eighth grade. Dena burst into their tiny summer cottage. Face flushed from the long bike ride she had just taken, she headed to the fridge for a cold drink. She groped around until she found the bottle of soda she had hidden a few days ago. Her health conscious mother severely limited soda and junk in the home, but her father had slipped her a healthy version of ginger ale as a small reward for her constant help in the house. She had decided to save it for another day. Today was that day. She headed to her room with a good book, checked to make sure none of her many brothers and sisters were around and opened her drink.

Deeply involved in her book, she didn’t notice the door open. Her sister Miriam, two years younger, stood at the door. She tried to hide her soda but it was too late.

"Dena, what are you drinking?" Miriam demanded.

"Nothing. It's none of your business."

"That's not true, I saw - you have soda! I'm going to tell Mommy that you have soda."

Before Dena could stop her, Miriam ran out the room calling "Mommy, Dena has soda. It's not fair- I also want some!"

Their mother tried to mediate and convince her to share her soda with Miriam. She refused. "Miriam always wants everything I have," she had cried. "I do all the work and I deserve extra privileges."

Miriam insisted it was not fair, tried to grab the bottle from her sister and ending up spilling most of it on the floor.

Miriam had not even looked sorry.

"I hate you!" Dena had cried furiously. "I wish you never would have been born!"

It was the day after that Miriam began complaining of the arm pains that landed her in the hospital oncology ward.

She had pushed off visiting her sister as long as possible. Night after night, unable to sleep, those terrible words she’d said kept coming back at her: "I wish you never would have been born…"

Dena shakes herself loose from her thoughts and looks anxiously at her watch. Her parents will be upset if she spends most of visiting hour spacing out in the waiting room.

But what will she talk about with Miriam? Maybe she should tell her how lonely it is to walk to school every day without her. Dena shakes her head. That’ll only make her feel bad that she's not in school. Okay, she’ll tell her about all her friends who’ve been asking about her. Or maybe it’ll cheer her up to hear about all the presents that keep coming for her every day. Dena bites her lower lip. No, maybe not, maybe not.

The boxes of gifts piled in the narrow entranceway were the first thing that she saw when she walked into her house after a long day of school. Ever since her sister had been diagnosed, flowers, gifts and cards were being delivered to their home in droves.

She flung her backpack onto the unopened boxes, then glanced over the address labels, in the irrational hope that one was addressed to her. Of course none were, and as usual her parents weren't home.

Today more than ever, she longed for her mother’s hug and gentle reassurance. For the first time in her life she had failed a test. She had fought back her tears as she saw the bright red X’s slashing through her paper with a prominent 60% broadcasting her failure in math. She wanted to tell her teacher that it was not her fault. That she really had wanted to study but her father-a math whiz- had been at the hospital until midnight and hadn't been available to help her. That instead of studying the night before she had spent many hours washing dishes, folding laundry, cooking dinner and helping put her younger brothers and sisters to bed. She wished she could explain that the only way she kept the demons of fear away, as her life fell and crashed around her was to work so frenetically she had no time to think. But one didn’t say such things to a teacher.

"Marks aren't what are important in life," her mother used to reassure her, on the rare times that her marks fell below a 95%. She could just imagine her mother's tinkling laugh. "I used to fail math all through elementary school. It's good for you to experience failure once in a while."

Her mother would have reassured her- except she wasn't home. She didn’t return from the hospital until 11:00 P.M.

Dena was waiting up for.

"Hi Dena," her mother tiredly greeted her. She didn't seem to notice the clean dishes stacked in the dish drainer, or the neat house.

"Hi Ma. I'm so glad your home. I wanted to tell you that I got back my math…" her voice trailed off in mid sentence. Her mother’s eyes were glazed over.

"Mommy? Ma, are you listening to me?"

Her mother got to her feet unsteadily. "It's been a hard day. Miriam did really badly today," she sighed.

She had not heard a word Dena had said.
"I'll talk to you tomorrow sweetie. I must go to sleep now." Her mother stumbled off to bed.

Dena watched her leave. The tears that had been hovering all day now spilled down her cheeks as she wept.

"Don't I matter,” she whispered to herself. "I don't want to hear about Miriam all day. I want to talk about me for once."

Resentment, guilt and jealousy. Struggling with this bitter cocktail of emotions, she has avoided visiting her sister until now.

Not that anything has changed, but her mother, desperate for a break, has asked Dena to assume hospital duties for the day. She reluctantly has agreed.

She stands up with a sigh. She can't put it off any more. Her sister is waiting.

The door to her sister's room is slightly open and she cautiously opens the door. The nurse adjusting the I.V. notices her and motions with her hand. "You can come inside, dearie. I'm almost finished here."

"Thanks," Dena says shyly and comes in. The nurse's large frame partly shields her from seeing her sister, but then she finishes measuring out the dosage of medicine and leaves the room. Dena gasps.

Miriam's curls are gone. Her mother had told her that that the chemo caused loss of hair and she had nodded in understanding as she assimilated the information. But nothing could prepare her for this. Miriam looks like the pictures she once saw of a holocaust inmate, with a shaved head, gaunt face and terrified, tragic eyes. She remembers how she used to love to "boing" the auburn curls that hung in long ringlets to Miriam's shoulder and watch them bounce up as she let go.

She clenches the present clutched in her hand until the wrapping paper crumples and rips.

Her sister's almond shaped brown eyes look strangely bare and unprotected without her long black eyelashes or delicate eyebrows. Her aquiline, narrow nose with the rounded tip is too big for her face with her skin tightly pulled over her protruding cheekbones. Her ears seem like enormous pink conch shells without her bouncing curls partially covering them.

"Hi Miriam," she says, averting her gaze. "I I” her words trip over each other “I brought you a present." She thrusts the present to her sister, almost rooted to her spot. "I hope you like it."

"Thanks." Miriam removes what’s left of the hearts and flowers wrapping paper and opens the small box. A silver necklace glitters against the black velvet.

"Here, let me help you put it on," says Dena, and she clasps the necklace around Miriam's neck.

She holds up the small box to her sister. "Look, the jewelry box comes with a mirror. You can see how the necklace looks."

Miriam turns her eyes away, hands moving unconsciously to her bald head. "I don't look in the mirror anymore. I'm too ugly."

Dena gropes for a topic of conversation, her eyes darting around the room, glancing off the large hospital bed, rails pulled down, and the silver, scratched I.V. pole steadily dripping its poison; anything to avoid looking her sister in the eye.

"I see you have a roommate.” Dena gestures toward the curtain dividing the small room in two. "Do you speak to her at all?"

"No," Miriam says shortly. "She watches T.V all day."

Suddenly her face screws up and her finger jabs frantically at the oblong yellow basin on her night table. "Quick, give! Give it to me."

Dena grabs the basin and places it under her chin. Miriam retches into the tiny tub, her shoulders heaving, tears mingling with the vomit. The basin is too small to contain the vomit splattering on the sheet, the bed rails, everywhere. "Should I go call a nurse?"

" No, stay with me," Miriam begs.

Dena places a tentative hand on Miriam's back. The smell is making her gag. She stays put, though. "It's O.K." she murmurs. She removes the offensive basin and used the rough white hospital washcloth to clean her sister's face and mop up the spills. Her sister leans back, exhausted, clenching her eyes shut.

Dena looks around helplessly. What can she do for her sister? Miriam has always loved back massages and used to cajole Dena to give her one whenever possible. Turning Miriam to her side, she begins kneading her hands into her bony back. Miriam is still moaning with pain and nausea but every so often gives a whimper of pleasure before finally falling into a drug-induced sleep.

Dena carefully removes her hands from Miriam's back without awakening her, and gently pulls a fresh blanket over her, the movement brushing her long red hair over her sister's bald head.

There is still a little time left before her father will arrive to pick her up. She stands in the corridor. She leans against the wall. She squeezes herself tightly and just stands there, frozen like an ice figurine. She cries in soundless gulps. Finally, after what seems like ages, she pushes herself off the wall.

She wants to do something, she doesn’t know what. She walks quickly down the long corridor she had entered so anxiously, almost an hour ago. She sees the snack bar near the entrance to the children's ward.

It takes her several minutes to decide what to buy. Then her eye catches on a can of ginger ale. She inserts the quarters into the vending machine.

She trembles, remembering that day.

A small sad smile forms at her lips. She’s sure her sister has forgiven her, the small fight eclipsed by the beeping machines, doctors and noxious hospital air around her.

Yet, she would do anything to hear Miriam’s indignant voice again, demanding that she share the soda. She wishes she could wrap reclaim the time when she had fought and argued with her sister as fiercely as she loved her.

The clunk of the metal can hitting the bottom of the machine brings her back to the present moment.

Holding the sweating can in her hands, she returns to her sister's bedside. Miriam is still sleeping deeply, a thin arm flung over her forehead. Dena places the bottle of ginger ale on the night table where her sister will be sure to see it when she wakes up, and with a last lingering look quietly slips out of the room to meet her father.

(This story was recently published in the anthology, "Everyone's got a story.")