Never Look Back: A New Dawn

It's Time - 11

        I must’ve drifted off just before dawn because when my heavy eyelids opened I was startled by the bright sunrays seeping through the sheer white curtains and the crystal blue sky. I was groggy and forgetful at first, but once I felt an empty space next to me, I leaped from the bed and scanned the room frantically. Curled into a fetal ball in the corner of the room was a head of long light brown locks that wept into their lap while stifling coughs.

        “Hannah?” She picked her head up and faced me with puffy eyes. “Darlin’, what’s wrong?” Her arm unsteadily rose and pointed to the bed while she stifled more coughs. I gazed at the mattress, and along the plain, beige sheets was a circular ring of a darker shade around the area where she slept. A similar darker shaded area was on her fleece pants that stuck to her legs. “Oh, darlin’, why didn’t you wake me up?”

        I hurried to the dresser and pulled out a clean change of clothes while taking off the soiled bed sheets and dumping them into the hamper.

        “I was embarrassed,” she hushed with a dry voice.

        “You don’t ever gotta be embarrassed by that. You feeling okay today?” She shook her head in disagreement.

        “I think I’m sick-” She stopped to cough. “I feel nauseous, Daddy.” She placed her hand over her stomach to subside the turns it went through, but judging by her cringing face, it didn’t do much. I handed her the clothes and stroked her hair in hopes of providing some sort of comfort.

        “Why don’t you go get cleaned up and I’ll make you something that’s easy on your stomach? Maybe then we can watch a movie and head outside and hang out in the treehouse for a bit, huh?” I waited outside the bedroom door while she dressed herself. From the other end of the thin wall, I could hear the faint yelps she gave off in her struggle. She came out with a false, wide smile plastered onto her face that now started to glow with perspiration.

        She walked past me with her head up high, but as we climbed down the stairs her hands gripped onto the railing for support as though it was all she had to cling onto, as if her life depended on it. The rest of the way I took her by the hand. Her face began to turn pale and sickly, almost greenish, and lost all color of her previous tan complexion. I knew she was ready to gag at any second, but she tried her hardest to hold it in.

        I made her a simple breakfast. Some toast, lightly buttered, with slices of farmer’s market red apples on the side. I protested against it, but she insisted on taking it with a glass of orange juice. I cut it with water, making the acidic, sugary contents less potent to her sensitive digestive system. We sat, and we talked, and we laughed, and I used every bone in my body to refrain from letting the water behind my eyes come to life.

        Breakfast was cut short once she had another one of her coughing fits. I patted her on the back as I did when she was only an infant. Now she was holding her arm over her mouth that gaped with the constant regurgitating spray of saliva and mucus. I tried sitting down and watching some cartoons with her, but even in my arms she shook and wheezed.

        “Honey, you gotta tell me what’s going on,” I said after having to sit through her suffering. Not much time passed, but it was enough to make me shift uncomfortably in my seat.

        “Nothing-” she coughed. “I’m just sick.”

        I wiped the beading sweat off of her forehead with the back of my hand and clicked the TV off. “Hannah, you gotta talk to me,” I said.

        She sighed while slouching forward, her elbows at her knees and head resting on her palms. “I was fine yesterday, but ever since that man hurt me with the needle, I haven’t felt so well… What’s gonna happen to me, Daddy?”