On a scale of one to ten, Taylor Hoffman’s confidence bounced between 7.5 and 9. He knew his little sister was going to die, had known it for some time, hadn’t said those words to anyone ever, and didn’t intend to. A solid student, he lived off-campus with two other guys and worked two afternoons and two nights a week, tending bar at a college hangout. His mother phoned, told him Vanessa had filed a request for one-on-one conversations with the entire family, and Mother told the eldest it would be best to do the one-on-one sooner rather than later.

“She’s down again,” her mother said. “She’s down and I think the fight is getting to her. She’s wearing out.”

Taylor listened, nodding. He puffed, said he’d be home right away and told his mother he loved her. He contacted the professors who taught the classes he’d be skipping, told his roommates the story, called off work and drove straight home. He found his mother in the kitchen, alone.

“Taylor,” she said. She was seated, started to rise, gave up and sat. She was slouching. He’d rarely seen that.

“Think I ought to go now?” he asked. “I could.”

His mother raised an arm and placed it flat on the kitchen table. She looked away. She didn’t say anything, and he could almost make out how far away she was looking. He took a chair at the table, let his hands dangle, and waited. She stayed quiet.

“Where’s Dad?” he asked.

His mother glanced at him, looked away, and said “He’s run to the store for something.”

Lauren Hoffman wasn’t broken, knew she could not possibly be broken, and wondered why. She’d been visiting churches, usually in the afternoons, sometimes in the early evenings, by herself. Some were locked and she laughed at that. What an idea! A locked-up church! It felt good to have that laugh. When the church wasn’t locked, she sat. Sometimes in the back, sometimes in the middle. She didn’t pray – nothing formal was done – and she didn’t ask for anything. The no praying, the no asking, she wondered about that. Was this time just for herself? Maybe. Probably.

In those empty churches she felt cared for.

“I’ll go in the morning,” Taylor said. His mother reached across, wiggled her fingers and he put out a hand and she grabbed it. “That would be better,” she said, and she let go of his hand and tapped the table a few times. “She’s better in the mornings.”

So he went the next morning, and when he walked in it was the whiteness of her skin that jolted his confidence. White as notebook paper. Even her eyes were white. Her lips were too pale. There was a thud of emotion in his chest, in his head; it made his ears ring. It was shock, mixed with disappointment. It felt like he’d inhaled shock and disappointment and could not exhale.

She was awake, and she gave him a smile when he walked in, her on her side, she was always on her side, arms bent up, hands folded on a pillow, head laying on those hands, body stretched out. He pulled a chair close, sat, and looked at her.

When he was a little boy – this memory flashed into his mind – when he was little, five or six, he remembered sitting in a tent, a sheet spread over a card table, an indoor tent his mother would make them in their living room, with his baby sister, staring at each other and not saying a word. How long had they just sat there, staring at each other in a pretend tent.

Sitting with his baby sister, her in a hospital bed, he remembered that.

“Do you remember Missy?” she asked.

Missy had been their dog. Struck by a car years and years ago.

“I do,” he said. “I remember somebody running into the house, you or Ethan. Hollering. And I remember running up the street, mom running, too, and there was some kids there, all of them staring, looking down at Missy.” He took a breath, and it felt shallow. “I remember you crying and Ethan and mom crying and you were the one … you were down on your knees kinda holding onto Missy. Scared me. I remember that. I remember thinking Missy would just jump up or something. Something like that. She’d just get up and it would be okay.”

Vanessa didn’t respond.

“How old were we?”

She clicked her tongue. “I think I was around six or seven.” She stopped, suppressed a yawn. “That was on Union Street,” she said. “The first house, remember? We moved a year or two later. To Emerson.” The family home was still at 1318 Emerson.

Taylor nodded. He was picturing the house on Emerson. Kids on the sidewalks and in the street. Families eating in backyards on card tables. He saw himself in the middle of the street – Emerson Avenue – facing south toward Hadley, oaks and hickories and elms throwing shade from both sides of the street. Turning, he faced north toward Franklin, everything still shaded. There were railroad tracks cutting across Emerson when they were little. Those tracks were abandoned now.

“The house on Union. Remember? I miss that house,” Vanessa said and for Taylor, hearing that was like hearing your dog has been hit by a car.

What to say next? Taylor sighed and she moved her chin around, as if to say what?

“I’d do anything to live there again,” she said, and she inhaled those words and couldn’t exhale. It took a moment, she’d inhaled deep, closed her eyes and realized, with a start, how peaceful she felt with her eyes closed. She kept them closed and didn’t say anything and eventually she opened her eyes to find her brother staring at her. When he saw her open eyes, a smile tinkered with the ends of his mouth.

“You mad at me?” she asked.

Taylor drew his head back and frowned. “Vanessa … why would you think that?”

She shrugged and a smile tinkered with the corners of her mouth and failed.

“I have too much time to think,” she said.

“Vanessa … come on …”

“No, Taylor,” she said, “give me a minute, okay?” She screwed up her white eyes and her white cheeks, her white nose and white lips, and she noticed – had she not been paying attention? – she noticed she had to work a little to take a deeper breath. Did she have to concentrate to take a deep breath?

About the Author:

Victor Kreuiter’s stories have appeared in EQMM, Halfway Down The Stairs, Bewildering Stories, Tough, Frontier Tales, Del Sol SFF Review, Literally Stories, and other online and print publications.