Sister Mother

Chapter 23

Addie
              Two hours after Brennan and Vance left, Gabe picked me up from Starbucks.  He opened the passenger’s door.  I scooted to the edge of my chair and carefully pushed my body upwards, into the car.  I slammed the door shut, all without putting a single pound on my legs. Gabe drove my wheelchair up the ramp and climbed into the driver’s seat. I opened my mouth to tell him all about Brennan and Vance, but saw his pale and wet face.
“Gabe, what’s wrong?”
“Everything,” he whispered, wiping his face with his hands.  “I know we hate this, but can we go visit Mom and Dad before we pick Bea up from school?”  His face was soaked with tears. 
I reached over so that I could grab his hand. “Calm down before you start driving.  Do you want to talk about it?”
Gabe shook his head.  He took a few heavy and unsteady breaths, clenched the wheel and started the car. 
Neither of us spoke until Gabe pulled up into the parking garage at St. Vincent’s Hospital.  He brought my wheelchair to my side of the car. As I transferred out, he drove his scooter out of the car.
“What happened?” I asked 
He shook his head and turned the keys of his scooter with so much force, that for a second, I thought he broke the keyhole.
“Nothing new.  I’m just tired of this whole thing.  I can’t take it anymore.”  He shook his head, staring at the roof of the garage.  “Did you know that it was Mom’s birthday last week?”
I blinked. “It was?”
“We all forgot.  I was swiping through my calendar and it popped up.  We didn’t do anything for her.  For Dad’s birthday, all four of us threw a small party in the ICU, but we completely forgot about Mom.”
“Dad’s birthday was only a month after the accident.  It’s different.”  I looked away from my brother.  It wasn’t different.  A month after, ten months after, it was all the same. “Do you want to pick up Beatrice and call Uncle Jason?  He could get a cake like he did for Dad.”
“What’s the point?”  Gabe asked as we both started driving towards the elevator.  “How many birthdays are we going to celebrate like this?  Their anniversary is coming up.  They didn’t get to see me graduate high school.  Beatrice is going to start high school this fall if she doesn’t get taken away from us and there’s no point of anything!”  He punched the elevator button, got out of his scooter and kicked the elevator door.  Wincing at the impact, he kicked the door repeatedly.
My brother was the calmest of all of us.  The one who kept his head on his shoulders.  Even with him being away at school for so long, one of the few things that comforted me was knowing that Gabe held himself together. 
He kicked the elevator door, slapped it, turned around to kick and punched his scooter basket.  He grunted, moaned and collapsed onto his knees and sobbed.
I drove my chair up behind him, and put my hand on his shoulder.  Comforting Beatrice was easier than comforting Gabe.  Beatrice depended on me more than Gabe did, so I simply had to be strong for her.  I didn’t know what to do as my brother shut down.
“I-I hate this,” he stuttered.  “I hate waiting.  I feel like we’re waiting and hoping for them to die.  It feels like they’re dead but Mom just had a stupid birthday!”  He leaned forward, pressing his hands against his thighs.
I sat there with one hand on his shoulder and tried to think of something to say to him.
Anything.  Come on, Addie.  Be Sister Mother to Gabe too!
Nothing came from my mouth.  I rubbed my brother’s shoulder until he stopped sobbing.  By that time, the elevator had already come and gone.
He rose from the ground with tears stuck to his face.  He sniffled and wiped his nose.
“Still want to go in?” I asked.
He shook his head, but punched the elevator button and sat down in his scooter.  “Have you gotten anywhere with Uncle Jason?”
“He regrets taking Aunt Ryleigh off life support,” I replied quietly.  “He doesn’t want to do the same to Mom and Dad.”
Gabe scoffed but didn’t say anything.  The elevator dinged and the doors opened.  We drove our respective chairs in and he hit the button to take us to the first floor. 
“I’ve been trying not to hate him since you already do.  That might stop soon.”
“I’ve never hated him, I’ve just strongly disagreed with him.  You’re free to hate him.  Don’t let me stop you.”
We exited the elevator and got our visitor passes from check-in desk at the lobby.  Mackenzie the receptionist was surprised to see us here without the rest of our family.  We slowly made our way to the ICU.  The air felt thicker and colder as we got closer to Mom and Dad’s room.  It was Monday, so nurses Mark, Carol and James were on duty.  They waved to us with bright friendly smiles on their faces.
I held my breath as we entered Mom and Dad’s room.  Two beds.  Four walls. We had brought family pictures in here in the beginning to brighten up the room.  A vase of lilies sat near the window.  Mom and Dad were both flat on their backs, covered up to their necks with a blanket, hooked up to those damn machines that did nothing but beep, buzz and keep them alive in the weakest sense of the word.
I drove in further and grabbed Mom’s chart off the desk in the corner.  I flipped back a few pages to see what she did for her birthday.  She got her feeding tube changed by nurse Alice.  Dr. Froya the neurosurgeon came in and performed another exam on her.  No change.  One of the physical therapists rolled her onto her side and she stayed there for two hours to prevent bedsores and improve her blood circulation.  Happy birthday, Mom!  Last year you had cake, but this year someone rolled you over!
I slid Mom’s charts down and grabbed Dad’s.  Dr. Froya noted no changes.  Nurse Caleb noted that Dad’s bladder output had decreased slightly since last week, so nurse Alfred had paged the urologist to come in for a consult. 
For one of the first times, I found myself feeling sorry for Uncle Jason.  He was in charge of their care, so he received daily updates.  As hard as it was for Gabe, Beatrice and I, we could all stay away from the four walls of the hospital.  The hospital followed Uncle Jason home.
“Hey Gabe, do you—”  I stopped speaking when I glanced over at my brother, and saw him standing in between Mom and Dad’s twin beds. 
He pinched Dad’s wrist and muttered under his breath.  “Wake up. Dad, you’ve got to wake up.”  He walked over to Mom’s bed and pinched her wrist.  “Mom, please wake up.  We need you, please.”  Then he went back to Dad.
They’d been like this for eleven months and I hadn’t seen him this upset since the beginning.  I drove my wheelchair closer to him.  As soon as I reached him, he shouted,
“They called me!  They called me twenty minutes after they left the house that night, but I didn’t hear it ring.  If I had picked up, they might have—"  He stopped talking and leaned forward. His chest slumped onto Dad’s bed as he sobbed harder than he had when we were in the garage.
“Gabe—"
“It’s my fault,”  Gabe whispered.  “I could have told them to come home, but I didn’t answer the phone.”
“What are you talking about?”
Gabe reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.  “Voicemail.”
I took his phone and played the only saved voicemail. It was from May twentieth, the day of the accident.
“Hey, Gabe, it’s us,” said Dad’s voice.  I closed my eyes.  It had been so long since I’d heard him.  “Can you check to see if your mom forgot to close the garage door?”
“I did!” cried Mom.  “Gabe, check the garage door, call us back and tell your father that I always close it!”
“I swear on my life that you didn’t.  You’re always forgetting—"
“I am not!”  Mom shouted.   She laughed that high-pitched laugh of hers.
I pictured her face flushed as she laughed that giddy and carefree laugh.  Her laugh was faded out by the sound of wind pushing past.  Dad always drove with the window down.  Unless there was rain or snow.  He opened the windows as soon as he could.
“We’re about five minutes from the restaurant,” Dad said.  “We’ll be home around eleven.  Don’t wait up for us.”
“But call us back about the garage!  Tell your sisters goodnight for us.  We love you three!”
“Bye, Gabe!”  Dad said.
The voicemail ended, and our parents’ enthusiastic voices were replaced by the automatic voice on Gabe’s phone saying- “End of message. To delete this message, press one.  To save it, press two.”  I pressed two.
Gabe stared at me, his face soaked with tears.  His bottom lip quivered.  “Do you remember if she shut it?”
My throat ran dry as I clenched Gabe’s phone tightly in my hand.  I took a deep and shaky breath and said, “No, but I remember Dad losing Mom’s car keys ‘cause he always got theirs Mom’s mixed up.  I found them in the couch and gave them to her.  If it weren’t for me, they would have missed their reservation.”
Gabe blinked.  “If the door was open, I could have called Dad back and they’d have come home to close it.”
We stared at each other.  I felt like a tiny hole had just opened up inside my chest, and the heavy weight that I’d been carrying was slowly lifting.
“Do you blame yourself?”  I asked.
Gabe shook his head.  “I know it’s not my fault.  It’s no one’s fault but the drunk driver’s.  He’s the one who—"
“I blame me.”  I shrugged.  “I know I shouldn’t, but if I hadn’t found the keys, they wouldn’t have been able to leave.”
Gabe looked from me to Dad’s hand, and then to Mom’s face.  It was so hard to believe that these were the same people whose voices we’d just listened to on Gabe’s phone.  The only color in Mom’s face came from her red hair.  She and Dad were so pale and empty that it hurt to look at their faces.  In the back of my mind, I kept hearing them bicker and laugh, but all I could see them do was exist.
“I think a part of me blames myself too,” said Gabe.  “That’s why I didn’t push too much when you made me go off to school.  It didn’t feel right staying here with you and Bea when I could have told Mom and Dad to come home.”  He walked over to me and crossed his arms over his chest.
“It wasn’t your fault, Gabe.  Dad’s right, Mom always left the garage door open.  Chances are if you called them back and told them she did, Dad would have just laughed at her and they’d have kept going.”
Gabe nodded, clearing his throat.  “Dad was always losing their car keys.  His and Mom’s.  If you hadn’t found the keys and given them to Mom, she or Dad would have found them anyway.  It wouldn’t have made a difference.”
“The garage door wouldn’t have made a difference either.”
Gabe stepped even closer to me and wrapped his arms around me.  We both shook as we embraced each other.  His chin pressed into the crook of my shoulder and I squeezed him as tightly as I could.
“It’s not our fault,”  I whispered.  “It’s not anyone’s fault but the person who got drunk and still got behind the wheel.”
“I can’t believe he was just a teenager.  Beatrice will be his age in November.“
“That doesn’t make a difference,”   I closed my eyes and the details of the court case replayed in my mind.   I tried to block out his face, his name and his story, but they stuck with me even more than those heavy car keys did.  “Owen Hoffman was only fourteen, but he was old enough to know that he shouldn’t have broken into his dad’s liquor cabinet.  He chose to drink.  He chose to show off to his friends, play truth and dare, listen to one of them and steal his dad’s car keys.  He chose to drive drunk.  His age doesn’t excuse his actions.  Mom and Dad are like this because of him.  Not us, him.”
Gabe nodded.  “I can’t believe that he only got a three year sentence.  I know it wouldn’t make a difference if he got life, but—"
“It did make a difference.  We wouldn’t have gotten any money from his family if he’d gotten a longer sentence. We’d have definitely lost the house if it weren’t for that big check.” I sighed.  “It was my decision to take the money.  I don’t regret it because we needed it.”
“I know, but it sucks that the person responsible for all this doesn’t even have to take responsibility for it.  Mom and Dad are never going to wake up, and his rich dad wrote a check.  His juvie sentence is shorter than high school.  It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Nothing does anymore.” I drove closer to the head of Mom’s bed.  I watched her chest forcefully rise and fall. 
I put my hand over hers and tried to force myself to feel like I was holding my mother’s hand.  This hand was shaped like my mother’s hand, but Mom’s hand always held mine back.  I looked at her fingernails and frowned.  Mom always cut her fingernails, but these were far too long.  This hand had held mine countless times, dried my tears, clapped for me, tucked me into bed and braided my hair, but now it had long fingernails.  I hated those long fingernails as much as I hated the ventilator.
Dad desperately needed to shave.  He had sideburns for crying out loud! Dad never had sideburns!  My father was a lawyer who spent more time in bathroom getting ready each morning than my mother, because he always had to look sharp in the courtroom.  He wore suits and shaved every damn day.  But now he had sideburns!
“We have to stop blaming ourselves,”  I said quietly, meeting Gabe’s heavy gray eyes.  “They wouldn’t want us to. From now on, the only person who we can blame for the accident is Owen Hoffman.  I’m not allowed to think about the car keys anymore, and you’re not allowed to think about the garage door.  Deal?”
“And we don’t tell anyone,” Gabe added. “Especially Beatrice.  It may not be our fault, but I don’t want her to know.”
“Deal.”