From Ant to Eagle(57)

Dr. Parker raised his hand to interrupt. “If you wish to look into alternative therapies I won’t stop you. But I can tell you this, with Sammy’s cancer as it is, they will not offer a cure. They are expensive and poorly researched. Many are nothing more than a scam. If you wish to look into them, I’d be happy to help, but honestly, I think it is in Sammy’s best interest to start focusing on comfort measures.”

“We appreciate your opinion but—”

Mom stopped when Dad put his hand on hers. “Liz,” he said, his voice shaking in the back of his throat, “don’t you hear what he’s telling us? We’re just going to make things worse for Sammy. We need to focus on—”

Mom tore her hand away abruptly. “You!” she said, but the rest of the sentence didn’t come out. She stood up and started to leave. She turned back at the door, her eyes full of tears. Mom hardly ever cried in front of me, sometimes I’d see her wipe her eyes when we’d first walk into the room, but she wasn’t like Dad, she didn’t cry often. “You already gave up months ago,” she said, pointing at Dad, then stormed out of the room.

Not long after, Dr. Parker and Dad left too.

It was one of the few times I was happy Sammy wasn’t awake.

The next time I saw Mom and Dad was later that evening and when I asked what they had decided I knew from the quietness of the room what the decision had been.

Palliative.

It would become my least favourite word in the English language.

So I sat by for the next few weeks as my brother turned into a tiny trace of a human boy. His skin became yellow and his breathing raspy. He sounded like he constantly had something stuck at the back of his throat and the nurses would have to pinch his fingers to wake him up. I remember him being so small—so, so, so small.

Mom became more involved; Dad became less. I started thinking of them less as my parents in the plural form and more as separate entities. They probably spoke ten words to each other over those last few months. If it wasn’t for Aleta I might never have made it. Everywhere around me life was falling apart and she remained the only constant.

At school I wasn’t expected to contribute. No one cared if my homework wasn’t done. No one would have even cared if I didn’t show up. So I just sat there and did what I always did—worried about Sammy. I worried constantly. At night I’d be afraid to close my eyes and if I did I’d wake up shortly after in a cold fit. Sometimes I’d be screaming and Dad would come in to make me feel better. Only there was nothing he could say to make me feel better.

Then it happened. I feel terrible even writing it down. It was a mistake—an honest to God mistake. I can’t say why I did it. Maybe I was tired? Maybe I was too worried? I’m not sure and I don’t think I’ll ever know. It’s just something I’ll always have to live with.

When I woke up that morning with a headache I didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t even that bad. It was the kind of thing you notice at first but forget about pretty quickly. Same with the stuffiness in my nose; I didn’t even need to blow it or anything. Just the occasional sniffle here and there.

So when I went to the hospital that day and they asked me if I was feeling okay, I just nodded and washed my hands like I always did.

My mistake didn’t even occur to me until four days later when I was sitting in school listening to Ms. Draper discuss something about geography.

It was a cold March day and a gust of snow and chilled air entered the portable as the door at the back opened. Twenty heads turned around, eager for an excuse to forget their geography textbooks, and there stood my Dad with the principal.

No words needed to be said. His expression said enough.

An overwhelming panic overtook me as we walked toward the car. I felt lightheaded. I felt my stomach clench like someone was jumping up and down on it. I felt my heart beating out of my chest and my knees turn to rubber. I fell into the backseat of the car.

We drove at a dangerous speed to the hospital and left the car in the no-parking area at the front. When we entered Sammy’s room he had a new tube running from his nose to a small canister on the wall. The label above it read ‘oxygen’ in green lettering.

It wasn’t so much that Sammy looked different as it was that he sounded different. I could hear him breathing all the way from the door. It was like his lungs were trying desperately to suck every drop of oxygen from the wall.

Dad and I stood frozen in the doorframe. It was me who moved first. I walked up to Sammy and watched. He was exactly how I imagined someone might look after nearly drowning—white, wet, struggling to breathe with lungs that sounded full of water.

I heard Dr. Parker’s voice from behind me like God narrating.

“He has pneumonia—an infection of his lungs. Only his body has no way to fight it and his lungs are too weak.”

In not so many words he was telling us that it was the end.

I wondered if Dr. Parker knew I had given Sammy the pneumonia. He was a doctor—of course he knew. I didn’t turn around. I imagined his voice in my head, “It’s your fault. It was you who came to the hospital with a cold. It was you who gave Sammy pneumonia.”

And it was true.

I was the one who gave Sammy pneumonia.

I stared at Sammy.

If this was the end, I thought, why was he so calm? Why wasn’t he scared or fighting or screaming like I’d imagined so many times before? Why was he always so much stronger than I was?