Focal Point

I haven't seen Ellie in four years, and to be honest, I wish it had been longer. She is the kind of person that people can't help but love. Two-and-a-half years younger than me, my sister started pulling the attention from me the second she was born. I let it go when we were younger because she couldn't help it as a baby. It wasn't her fault she took her first steps on my fourth birthday and everyone missed me blowing out the candles. Nor was it her fault she spoke her first-word "bay-ay" at my ballet dance recital causing my parents to forget to film me and instead spend the next fifteen minutes filming her hoping to catch her saying another word. And they did manage to point the camera back to the stage—for my final bow.

After the initial baby stage—learning to walk, talk, and do things on her own—she became my constant companion. When she was four, Ellie would follow me around like a lost puppy. I could make her do anything I wanted, and I did. We played house; I was in charge. We played hair salon; I did her hair and makeup while she sat quietly. When we were older, we defeated monsters together in our backyard. Eventually, we started playing soccer together with our dad as our coach; he was never prouder.

We only became more of a unit when our mom got sick.

She pulled us out of school early which was odd enough, but when we got in the car our dad was in the passenger seat—he never left work early. I didn't know what was going on, but I could tell something was about to change. Ellie, on the other hand, was bouncing around in her booster seat, talking a mile a minute about her newest best friend. At six, she didn't notice anything was off.

"Daddy, why are you here?" Ellie finally asked, pausing her in her "what I did today" monologue.

"I spent the day with your mommy. We went and saw some special people."

"What kind of special people?" I pipe in from my newly established "booster seat-free" seat.

"People who know a lot of stuff about special things."

"Like our teachers?" Ellie asked.

"Yeah, honey, like your teachers," dad responded.

"Why were you seeing special people?" Ellie's curiosity could not be quenched.

"Because Mommy is feeling a little special right now,"

"Like a superhero?" Ellie's voice became hopeful.

"Something like that."

"I'll explain what this specialness when we get back to the house." My mom adjusted the rearview mirror so she could see us and smiled with so much love and adoration.

"My mom is a superhero," Ellie repeated the rest of the way home.

Dad reached his hand across the console, took mom's free one in his, and gave her a gentle kiss on the top of it.

Mom reached her hands out, one to each of us, across the table. Taking my hand in hers, she gave me a good squeeze.

"It will be okay. It is only at stage one and the doctors think the outlook is positive."

"What is only at stage one?" Ellie asked oblivious to the seriousness of the tones our parents were using.

"Cancer, honey. It's non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, but the survival rate is eighty-two percent."

The meaning of these words went over our heads. We knew that they were telling us something bad and serious, but mom's hopeful tone made us think everything was going to be okay.

That day mom promised us that nothing would change for us, and for the most part nothing did. We kept going to school, kept going to soccer, and kept doing all the things we used to. But there was also a different tone in the house. Everything became more serious, there was less joking around the house. Dad started taking soccer more seriously too. At twelve it was obvious how good Ellie was and he started pushing her more. I can remember him telling Ellie every practice, "You're a natural," which was always followed by a, "but you need to practice more." Then he would turn to me and say, "Good job, Iris." Back then we didn't realize what he was doing—grooming her. Back then, Ellie and I had an inside joke. I'd say, "I might be the Iris," and she'd finish the sentence with, "But I'm the pupil." All we knew is we loved the sport and his extra focus on Ellie meant more time outside on the field playing the sport we loved.