Sisters [book one]

Chapter Seven

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Chapter Seven

Mom drives us to the hospital, where the usual routine proceeds. She gets two coffees and two bacon sandwiches from the cafeteria while I sit at Michele's bedside. "Hey Mich," I say as I get out my homework. "How are you?" I flick through the pages of To Kill a Mockingbird, a book I have to read for school.

It's only been a week since Michele went into a coma but it's felt like forever. I've had to come to grips with the idea that Michele might not ever wake up.

She's no longer in Critical Care. She's been transported to another part of the hospital where the stable patients go. During the past week I've been at Michele's bedside, I've been thinking a lot about that night; the night that Michele got hit by that car.

I keep wondering how it happened. Even drunk, Michele isn't suicidal. It doesn't matter if she had had a fight with Jennifer in the nightclub. It doesn't even matter what the fight was about. She should've called a cab, not started wandering around.

She could've been murdered. She could've been kidnapped. Anything could've happened but no, she crossed a road, drunk, yet it was the driver's fault they crashed into her while skipping a red light.

I close the book and stare at my sister, wondering how something like this happened to someone who's done nothing wrong.

Her hand makes the slightest of twitches.

I sit up straight, thinking it's my brain playing games. I stand up anyway and kneel at her bedside. I stroke my hand up her arm and her hand moves. Not a twitch this time. It moved.

I don't scream for a nurse and instead I move closer towards her face. Her arm moves again and her face twitches ever so slightly. My hope skyrockets.

Michele's eyelids flutter open and for the first time in two weeks, I see the colour of her eyes.

"Michele?" I say.

I'd imagined Michelle already sitting up, grinning and hugging me. In reality, she's looking around the hospital in a daze.

"Where am I?"

"In the hospital," I say. "You were in an accident."

Michele's eyes land on me properly and she sits up, her face an expression of study. "Who are you?"

I step backwards at her words.

A nurse walks in and frantically calls for a doctor and hurries to her bed side. "How are you feeling, Michele?" she says.

"I'm feeling okay," Michele says.

"I'm your sister," I say. This wasn't what was supposed to happen.

Michele doesn't remember who I am. At all the staring I've done in the past week, this is the first time I want to look away.

I escape the room. Mom's walking down the corridor, a coffee cup in each hand and the bacon sandwiches tucked under her arm. "I'm sorry, the line was extra long today--Haley, are you okay?"

I point to Michele's room.

"She's woken up?" Mom says, and I nod. But what she doesn't know is that Michele doesn't remember who we are.

* *

In the days that follow Michele's miraculous awakening from the coma, there's more confusion than clarity. Mom and Dad are convinced I should stick to my normal routine but all I want to do is stay in the hospital with my sister.

I'm sitting in the waiting area where the sofas are comfier and the hot drinks machine is only a few feet away. Michele's room lies in sight, down the hall. I've almost finished To Kill a Mockingbird when Michele taps me on the shoulder.

"Hey," she says, tucking a clump of her blonde hair behind her ear.

"Hey." I sit up straight.

"Can I sit down?"

I push my leather bookmark into the spine of the book and say, "Sure." I set the book down, wondering what's coaxed Michele out of her room to come and talk. She lowers herself beside me and fiddles with the hem of her hospital gown.

"I have a few questions," she says.

"Shoot."

"Huh?" Michele's eyes grow wide. "Shoot what?"

"It's an expression." I shake my hand dismissively. "Not important. Just talk."

Michele takes a deep breath. "Okay...so I know I'm twenty-two. And I know that I still live with my parents, our parents."

"Yeah..." I say.

"So, like, what do I do all day?"

"Well," I say, "You...you recently got back from a trip to Australia."

Michele's eyes widen. "Australia? Wow...how long was I gone for?"

"Five months."

"Jeez...so, did I like, graduate from college?"

I wince. "You dropped out of college."

"What? Why..."

"You said it wasn't for you," I say. "That's when you started to save up to go to Australia with your friends."

Michele's eyebrows join together in a frown. "So what were my plans next?" she says.

I shrug. "You were going to get a job. Like, a proper job and knuckle down. You wanted to go into advertising."

Michele fidgets. "Oh, that's..."

"Stupid, I know," I finish.

"Yeah," Michele agrees. "I wonder why I didn't like college..."

"It wasn't for you, I guess. You had friends at home and you weren't so great at making new ones. You were doing a course that you found really hard and your roommate had a pet lizard that freaked you out.

"Do I have any hobbies?"

"You like make-up," I say.

Michele frowns. "Do I have a boyfriend?"

"No."

"How did I get into the accident?"

"You were out clubbing," I say, "And got into an argument with one of your friends and you left the club. You crossed a road and someone skipped the red light."

"Oh."

"Do you not remember anything?" I say.

"It's all fuzzy," Michele answers, and a silence follows.

I wonder what it's like to wake up one day with nothing, no recollection of anything, just fuzziness.

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