What She Left Us (7 page)

“Don’t
do that. She’s fine the way she is. She’s very delicate,” her mother said.
Jenna didn’t know what the big deal was. She played with her dolls all of the
time and they were fine. After all, she was five, she knew how to touch a baby.

She
was doing fine, she thought. The baby was very quiet. Her father was smiling,
but her mother was twisting her hands together and her face looked knotted with
worry.

“I
want to take a picture of my two beautiful little girls,” her dad said and he
stepped out of the room in search of his camera.

Jenna
held her sister, and then all of a sudden, the baby began to vomit. Jenna
remembers it was not regular throw-up, but pink, like strawberry milkshake, and
it got all over her new dress. Her mother grabbed the baby and yelled for her
father, but all Jenna could think of was why her new baby sister was throwing
up strawberry milkshake when she didn’t even get dessert yet. There was
pinkish-red throw-up everywhere. Life already wasn't fair.

She
remembered being afraid to go near Courtney for weeks fearing she would make her
throw up again.

The
next time she went near the baby, she did so out of desperation. Her mother was
in the shower, it was early in the morning, and her father already left for
work. Jenna was watching
Tom & Jerry
when she heard the baby crying.
She remembered what her mother told her, not to go near the baby without an
adult nearby, meaning don’t go near Courtney unless her mom or dad were there
to help. But she knew her dad was at work and her mom was in the shower. The
baby was in her crib crying.

Jenna
silently prayed the crying would stop or that her mom would get out of the
shower, but by the time a commercial for Bounce dryer sheets came on, the
crying escalated to screams of terror it seemed. Jenna tentatively got up from
the floor and walked into Courtney’s room.

She
peeked over the side of the crib to see her baby sister. Her face was red and
splotchy from the screaming, and her legs were flailing all over the place. She
could see the binky just out of reach. Jenna stuck her hand into the crib, grabbed
the pacifier and plugged her sister up. The noise stopped. Jenna stood amazed
as her baby sister opened her eyes and locked them to hers.

Her
mother came out of the bathroom. “Jenna! What did you do to the baby!”

“I
stopped the crying.”

“Don’t
you dare go near the baby without an adult EVER!”

“But
Mommy! She was crying, I didn’t want her to throw up again. I gave her the
binky and she stopped cr… ”

“Jenna!
You are not to touch the baby, ever, without my supervision! Understand!”

Just
as quickly as the cries stopped, Courtney’s screams started up again, more
furious than before. Jenna’s mother, still damp from her shower, wrapped in a
robe, her hair pulled up in a towel, rushed to the crib. She picked up the screaming
baby and held her to her chest.

Jenna
was worried that she had done something wrong, that because she had gone over
to Courtney, done something she was clearly told not to do, that she had caused
her sister to be hurt, and that was why she was crying so hard. She was scared
that she had made her hurt, or something worse, that maybe she had put her in
serious danger. Especially after what her mother said next.

“Jenna,
get me the phone. We have to call an ambulance.”

Courtney
hadn’t expected her fall break to go like this. Consoling her sister over her
breakup with Darren, and then consoling her further over the fact that maybe, just
maybe they might have some crazy disease that didn’t even really sound that
serious. It sounded like if they had this hemowhatever it was called, it would
be easily treatable. She didn’t understand why Jenna was getting so worked up
over it. Jenna seemed so over the edge.

Suddenly,
the tables were turning. Now Courtney appeared to be the big sister taking
charge of everything – she was embarking on a mature relationship with Mitch,
she was trying to talk her sister off the ledge about this disease, she was
taking charge of forty-eight kids in college. When was she going to have a
chance to grieve for her mom, get a break, catch her breath?

“You
want some coffee?” Courtney asked as Jenna made her way into the kitchen. Courtney
had already been up for an hour. Their appointment at the hospital for their
blood tests was at eleven.

“Can
we have coffee before the blood draw?” Jenna asked.

“Yes,”
Courtney replied. “I read over the info the doctor gave you. It said we can
have water and coffee the morning of, just no food after midnight the night
before the test.”

“Okay.”

“Okay
you’ll have a cup?” Courtney asked.

“Yes,
please.”

“Are
you okay?” Courtney asked.

“Not
really. How can you be so calm?”

“I
told you, I’m not that freaked out about it. Remember, worst case, best case,
right? Seriously, what’s the worst case scenario?”

“I
don’t know? We die?”

“No.
We don’t die. Mom died. We are not going to die. Come on. Quit being so
dramatic. We’re not dying. Look, I get that you’re all messed up right now. I
get that you’re sad that you and Darren aren’t together. I don’t get why you
broke up with him. At all. But you’ve got to pull yourself together. We’re not
dying over this.”

Courtney
looked into her sister’s eyes and said the next words slower.

“Okay?
We’re not dying. You’re being completely ridiculous.”

“God
Court, don’t you miss her? I miss her so much.”

“I
miss her every day,” Courtney choked on the words. “Remember when we used to
lay in bed with her and annoy her for the heck of it? She would pretend to be
mad at us, but then we’d all crack up? It’s like those times I miss the most.
Or when we’d have nothing to do and we’d watch endless hours of TLC wedding
shows or rent mindless movies like
Night at the Roxbury
or
Romi and
Michele’s High School Reunion?
That’s kind of what I miss most.”

“I
miss her cooking,” Jenna said. “I miss going to her house, walking in and
smelling what the house used to smell like when she’d make a big pot of her
chili and her cheddar cornbread biscuits. I miss when Darren and I would show
up and you and Mom would be there, cooking all day, and she’d greet us and say,
‘There are my other kids!’ She’d always make such a big deal about Darren
coming over.”

“I
miss when we had a family, when we felt like a family,” Courtney’s words hung
between them.

Jenna
nodded, took a sip of her coffee. “That was forever ago.”

“That’s
really sad,” Courtney said. “That we didn’t ever get to be a part of a family.
Not a real family. It would have been nice to actually grow up in a real
family, you know. Not just us and Mom.”

“It
made us grow up so fast, don’t you think? I don’t feel like I ever got to be a
kid. I mean, I’m not really just twenty-four, am I? I feel more like
thirty-four. Did I even get to have any fun in my life?”

“Jenna!
You’re not dead! You’re not dying! Stop talking like this. We’re going to get
these blood tests, and they’re going to come out negative, and we’ll be fine. You’ll
see. Then we’ll clean out Mom’s house over winter break when I’m home, and you
can get back to your master's degree next semester like you've planned.”

“I
wish everything would be that easy. It doesn’t seem that easy.”

“It
will be that easy. One foot in front of the other, sister. That’s all we have
to do. We can do it together, okay? I’ll always be here for you. Like you’ve
been here for me. Always.”

“I
love you Court-Court.”

“I
love you too. Now finish your coffee and get your stinky butt in the shower so
we can go get this blood test over with and figure out what we’re gonna do
next.”

Jenna
stayed with a neighbor while the ambulance came to take her mother and her baby
sister away that morning. She watched as the back doors of the ambulance closed
behind her screaming flailing little baby sister, and her mother, who was now
crying as well.

Jenna
cried and cried and begged to go with. Not that she thought it would be fun to
ride in the back of an ambulance with the flashing lights and go through red
lights in town. She really didn’t want to stay with old lady Mrs. Crand from
next door and she didn’t want to be away from her mom and her baby sister who
she was afraid might not come back if they took her away. She was starting to
like her even though she only got to hold her twice so far since she got home
from the hospital.

And
now they were taking her back to the hospital in the ambulance. All because
Jenna went into her room when she wasn’t supposed to and put her pacifier into
her mouth.

Jenna
had caused this. She knew it. She was told not to go near the baby without her
mom and dad and she disobeyed them. Now her baby sister got bad sick and she
didn’t know what was going to happen. She was stuck next door with Mrs. Crand
and her stupid crawly five cats who sat all over the kitchen counter while Mrs.
Crand asked her a bunch of stupid questions. At least she gave her some cookies
while she did so. Except Jenna discovered they were raisin oatmeal cookies.

“So
Jenna, what happened to your little sister?” Mrs. Crand asked.

Jenna
wasn’t really done crying but she didn’t want to be rude to Mrs. Crand so in
between tears she said that her sister had been crying a lot so her mom called
the ambulance to take her. She didn’t want to admit that the reason was because
Jenna put the pacifier in her mouth and that made her bad sick.

“Were
you excited to be getting a new baby in the house?”

Jenna
didn’t answer, only kept picking the raisins out of her cookie and wishing her
mom would come back and get her.

When
Jenna finally looked up, Mrs. Crand smiled at her with crooked teeth. “I bet it
was such a nice surprise to get a baby!”

Jenna’s
eyes flooded with more tears at the thought of her baby sister in a hospital.
She wanted to go home, but she knew there was nothing she could do. She was
stuck there with ugly Mrs. Crand. She watched an orange cat jump onto the
kitchen counter and start licking its butt. Jenna finally got some of the
raisins out of enough of the cookie to take a small bite.

Another
cat hopped up onto the table where Jenna sat. This one was smaller, a kitten.
Jenna didn’t mind kittens. Maybe if they stayed small like a kitten that would
be okay. But the big cats scared her. They looked stinky mean. Some of them
even snarled at her. This one though, the one that hopped up by her, was nice. It
was soft and orange and brown. She pet it and it purred at her.

“Is
your mom feeling okay after having the baby? She looks great!” Mrs. Crand would
not shut up, Jenna thought. She wished she was old enough to tell the lady to please
be quiet. Jenna’s head hurt from all Mrs. Crand’s talking and all of the crying
too. Then she felt kinda bad because she knew she was an old lady with no
husband or family. Only a bunch of ugly cats except for the one who was purring
on Jenna’s lap. This one was cute and cuddly and Jenna kinda wished she could
take it home. But then that reminded her of home, and that reminded her that
she wanted to be at home with her mom and dad, and her new baby sister, and
that made her cry more.

She
didn’t want to cry in front of this old lady, even though she knew Mrs. Crand
was trying really hard to be nice, by giving her these yucky raisin oatmeal cookies.
And she was only trying to make stupid talk because she was lonely. But Jenna
was sad, and scared and wanted to go home.

“Can
I go watch TV please?” she asked.

When
Mrs. Crand nodded her okay, Jenna picked up the orange and brown tabby and went
into the TV room.

Jenna
parked the car in the garage at the hospital, the same hospital where the ambulance
had taken her dead mother’s body that night. She never understood why they had
insisted on taking her mother’s body to the hospital. After all, she was
already dead, but she hadn’t thought to ask.

The
night they found her mother on the floor, Darren practically had to carry Jenna
into his car. She was numb. They drove behind the ambulance, which had its
lights on but no siren. She always heard that silent ambulances with lights on meant
they were carrying dead people, and now she knew that was, in fact, true.

She
remembered Darren’s hand on her leg and him telling her how much he loved her,
and that everything was going to be okay. He was trying so hard to console her.
She wasn’t crying hysterically yet. She was trying to get from point A to point
B: From her mother’s house to the hospital. Her mind had been reeling. Why
hadn't Darren done anything? He was in the medical field. Why had Darren been
late to pick her up that night? If they had gotten to her mother's minutes
earlier, maybe her mother wouldn't be dead? Maybe all three of them would be in
the car that very minute, heading to the Italian bistro, talking about the warm
bread and the spicy red bottle of wine they'd all be enjoying soon.