Sister Mother

Chapter 5

Addie

"Yes!" I shouted, punching the air after reading an email.

"What happened?" Beatrice asked from across the kitchen table.

She was wearing a long-sleeved vanilla colored shirt and tight pants. Her gray eyes were wider than mine and it was always hard for me to tell what she was thinking.

"We got the grant," I said proudly as I turned my laptop around. "NORD gave us the grant. Gabe and I can get our weekly infusions again once the supplies arrive."

"That's a lot of money," Beatrice whispered as she pulled the laptop closer.

"Yes, but we can only use it for the infusions. Trust me, I tried asking them if we could use it for the house, groceries and well, everything else." Don't let Bea know how much you're struggling.

"What about your surgery?" Beatrice asked. "Will they cover that?"

"No, I applied late this year." I closed the laptop. "There's only so much money NORD has to give out. Even if we could afford the surgery, I'd have to be non-weight-bearing for six weeks."

"Why would that matter? You've done that before."

Yeah, when I wasn't working three jobs and could complete all of my schoolwork online. "It matters. But this is a victory. I'll call Gabe as soon as he's out of class." I loaded our plates in the dishwasher. I made turkey sandwiches, which is about the one thing that I could make. The kitchen and I were rivals, and Beatrice was a picky eater. But I could slap some turkey, cheese and mayo onto two slices of bread.

It had been almost a month since Leo visited. I hadn't mentioned him to anyone, simply because I liked having something all to myself. I reread his cheesy list of compliments almost every night and traced my fingers over his number which I had saved into my phone shortly after he left the house.

I missed him. Not enough to call him because things were far from better, even with the NORD grant.

I got the job at the bookstore. The shop was called Turning the Page. It was run by an old man named Jesse Lennon. During my interview, Beatrice's school called. She had been in the nurse's office crying again and asked if she could go home early. I had to cut my interview short, but Jesse simply said "come back on Monday. I'll email you your contract." My salary was fifteen percent more than what Jesse stated in the interview. Almost more importantly, Jesse was willing to make a few accessible changes to his bookstore.

"What time are you leaving for work?" Beatrice asked.

"In about an hour."

"Which job?"

"Bookstore. You can come with me if you want. You can hang out and read."

"I'd rather stay home and watch TV."

I nodded. Most of the time I was working and she was at school. Even when we got to hang out, the dynamics between us had changed. I was now more her caregiver than her sister.

The doorbell rang and I looked up from the dishwasher.

"Are you expecting anyone?" I asked.

Beatrice shook her head. I closed the dishwasher and walked to the front door. I failed to ignore the pain in my hips which had gotten worse in the last few weeks. Gabe and Beatrice hadn't learned that my legs were begging for my hip shells to be reconstructed. One of the benefits of living with a chronic pain condition, is that it becomes easy to hide it once you get used to it.

I looked out the window. My eyes widened as I saw what had to be the biggest bouquet of red roses sitting on the doorstep.

About two dozen long stemmed red roses were at my feet. Resting on the yellow tissue paper that the flowers were wrapped in, was a pink envelope, and a heart-shaped plastic box with my name on it. I picked up the bouquet, which contained so many flowers that they weighed me down and caused my knees to buckle. I picked up the box and envelope.