Callie's Sister

Chapter 19

She still was beautiful. The bruises from the accident had faded and her hair was growing back. She had a tube in her belly connected to a bag with beige liquid hanging from an IV pole. No more Razzles or Kit Kats for Callie.

"Don't you want to say something to your sister?" my mother asked.

Yeah, like "Why did you have to nearly kill yourself?" and "Why did Mom think it was a good idea to bring you home?" But I didn't say that. From all the screaming that I heard behind their bedroom door, my mother thought this was what we needed to do and my dad thought she was getting in over her head. Social workers came to the house to advise her and she gave them a tour like she was a demented realtor, extolling the virtues of nurturing a PVS case in our beautiful home.

So no, I didn't want to say anything to my sister.

I had to give my mother credit, though. Callie looked peaceful. My father told me that every day at the rehab place, Mom made sure she was wearing a nice, clean outfit or a pair of cute pajamas. Then she'd sit Callie up and brush her growing hair. One hundred strokes in the morning and one hundred strokes in the evening. As if having perfect hair would make up for having no brain function. It'd be interesting to see if she could keep that up now that Callie was home and my mother had to do more of the stuff the hospital and rehab staff used to do. Dad said we'd have nurses helping us 24 hours, but he was pretty honest that it would be a ton of work for my mom. Yep, no point in dealing with your other daughter when you have a life to save. I looked over at the woman who I was guessing was the nurse and she gave me a small smile. I wondered what she thought about all this talking to the patient stuff.

Cam nudged me and I stepped closer to Callie's bedside.

"Hi, Callie," I started. "Welcome home." Now what?

"Tell her about your day," my mom encouraged. I looked at Cam.

"You say hi," I told him.

"Hey, Callie," Cam said. "How've you been?"

"That's a stupid question," I shot. Cam glared at me with a "well, what the heck do you want me to say?" look.

"We saw two movies today," I told my unresponsive sister. "You would have hated both of them." I walked closer to her bed and sat half a cheek in the one of the cushy blue chairs my mom had put for bedside visitors. "But I'll tell you about them anyway." I proceeded to tell her about each movie. I realized I had blown the whole yearbook meeting cover story, but no one seemed to notice. My mother nodded approvingly and Cam laughed as I tried to imitate some of the action of the car chase scenes. Maybe I could do this. Maybe this wasn't too bad.

Until Callie coughed.