New Year's Day

Part II

          Aunt Sally is going fifteen miles past the speed limit on the way to the hospital, but I still want her to go faster. I need to see Beth. After what seems an eternity, we pull into the hospital parking lot. We both rush to Beth's room. Mom and Dad are outside the door. I try to push past them into the room, but Dad holds out his arm. 

          "Maria, before you go in there," he sighs and rubs his forehead. "This is hard," he mutters to himself. He takes a deep breath and tells me. My ears roar. That can't be what he said. It just can't be. 

          "Beth...what?" I say. 

          "Beth has amnesia. She doesn't remember anything." The world really is a cruel place. 

          The next few weeks are hard. Every time I come into Beth's room, I say, "Hello, Beth. It's your little sister, Maria, who loves you very much." She smiles weakly back. 

          The doctors say she's too weak. They say it took all her strength just to wake up, that she has no more left. They say she might not make it. But I can't let that happen. She's my sister, and I'm not letting her go. If I can just get her to remember something. 

          I bring her pictures from when we were kids. "Do you remember this, Beth?" I hold up a picture of us licking candy canes by the Christmas tree. 

          Her eyebrow furrows. She shakes her head weakly. I show her picture after picture, but she has no memory of any of them. This is too hard. Beth isn't acting like Beth. I sit by her bedside and listen to the steady beat of the heart monitor. 

          I must have fallen asleep because when I open my eyes, the sun is setting through the small hospital window. Beth is asleep too. On her lap is a newspaper that Dad must have been reading.The borders of the paper are covered in doodles. Just flowers or bumble bees. But she remembers! She remembers something! I want to wake her up and see if she remembers anything else, but I remember what the doctor said about her being so weak and fragile. 

          The next time I come, I bring a blank sketchbook from home. She still has no memories of her life, but she can draw. When she falls asleep, I look through her sketchbook. She's drawn a sketch of a pine tree. One that looks like the pine tree that stands just outside her bedroom window at home. The next page has a smiling puppy that looks identical to our own. Does she remember this stuff? Is it just in the back of her head? If she can draw these things, why can't she remember them? 

          "Maria?" Mom walks into the room. "I just talked to the doctor." She bites her lip. Her eyes show grief. She takes my hand before beginning to speak again. "The doctors say this may be Beth's last day. Her body is failing; it can't last much longer." 

          This can't be happening. My body is frozen in shock as I stare at Beth in the hospital bed.My mom lets silent tears roll on her face as she leaves me alone in the room. My frozen state breaks as a sob escapes my mouth. I bury my face in my hands. 

          A quiet squeak makes me raise my head. Beth is awake. Her hands slowly move to her sketchbook and she opens it to a page I've never seen before. It's a picture of me. 

          The picture is at the beach from our vacation last summer. Hair is blowing across my face as I smile. I remember that day. A butterfly had landed on my nose and Beth had just enough time to snap a photo before it flew away. I feel the sand on my feet. I hear the waves crash against the shore. I feel light feet of the butterfly on my nose. I see the flash of the camera. 

          "You remember this?" I ask her. 

          She opens her mouth but no words come out. The beep of the monitor slows down. Her breathes come out shallow. I begin to panic. Should I go get a doctor? Should I go get Mom and Dad? But Beth holds my hand with more strength than I knew she had. She pulls out a dull pencil. With a shaky hand, she writes I Love You. The monitor goes flat.