Callie's Sister

Chapter 24

Coming into the house that afternoon, I didn't know what to expect. I mean, I knew Callie would be there, but I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. Should I go to her room and say hello? She didn't even know I was talking or in the room. Did she care? I went into the kitchen and dropped my backpack on the table, walking over to the fridge and opening it. This had been my coming home from school ritual since elementary school. Some afternoons my mom had even baked cookies. Stereotypical, maybe, but Callie and I had loved it.

We'd sit on stools at the kitchen counter and tell Mom all about our days. Callie always looked at everything from the positive angle – her face reaching the sun, like my father always said. And I was the dumper. Any perceived injustice or slight got reported. Anything from a grade I didn't think I deserved to something annoying one of my friends said to the cafeteria lady giving me a smaller portion than everyone else and I was ranting for a half hour. My mother once threatened to go to a construction site and steal a "No Dumping Allowed" sign to stop me from doing it. I couldn't help it. I needed to purge all my negative energy. So I dumped it on other people.

Since the accident, I had been coming home to an empty house. No cookies. No Mom to dump to. I missed having that release. All the anger was building and building inside of me and I had nowhere to get it out of me. Even the small things ticked me off these days. Like how did my mother not notice I had lost enough weight that none of my clothes fit? And why couldn't she even find time to make sure I had food to eat when I got home? If she didn't want to see me or speak to me, that was one thing. But the least she could do is put a little fruit in the fridge.

I opened and closed the empty fridge and figured I should poke my head into Callie's room. It was expected, right?

The lights were on and the same nurse from yesterday was taking care of Callie's feeding tube. Knowing my mother, as soon as she'd figured this whole thing out, she'd be hands-on in charge of every little detail of Callie's care. Mom took on her role the way she did everything in her life – charging in with organization and determination. You don't get to be PTA President by sitting idly by. And my mother was a four term PTA President. She was a legend.

As the nurse did her thing, my mother was sitting in a corner with Callie's laptop.

"Hi, Mom," I said. "What are you doing?"

"Making a spreadsheet to plan Callie's care," Mom said, not looking up. "Feeding, cleaning, turning her. That way we can check the item off and know that it's been completed. We have to be careful or she could get an infection." Classic Mom stuff. There wasn't much she couldn't make a spreadsheet for.

"This is Ruby," my mother said, indicating the nurse.

"Hi, Ruby," I said. "Um, thanks for taking care of my sister." Ruby gave me a warm smile and a nod.

"Did you say hello to your sister?" she asked.

"How was your day, Mom?" I asked, trying to get her to make eye contact with me.

"Fine," she said, not looking up.

"School was good," I pushed. "Thanks for asking."

I watched my mother, willing her to look at me. I left the room. She wouldn't even notice I was gone.

I put on my running shoes, my sweats, grabbed my iPod and the afternoon was mine again.