This is one of my short stories, Sister, Unconditional. I've been working on this short story since late last year, and it was the piece that won me a statewide gold key from Scholastic Art and Writing. I've done some editing on it recently, so here's the final result.
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There were no pianos in the hospital on third street, but those fortunate enough to have delicate ears heard plinker-plank of an electric keyboard on the fourth floor. The keyboard was scratched, the highest E flat key was chipped by a tumble off the stand, and every note was carved into the keys by a blue pen. The keyboard was nothing remarkable, but the boy who played it was. The doctors told him it was an exhibit of good fortune that the paralysis spared his hands, that at his stage it wasn’t expected he could even lift his upper body, or to retain a healthy weight.
Once in a while, he slipped on a note he had no trouble with before. He tried not to think about that, but… But it wasn't difficult to imagine that his hands weren’t spared, they were put last.
His fingers were thin and crooked, and when it was quiet, he imagined he could hear them creak.
His hands trembled. He balled them together to steady them and blew air into the hollows of his palms. A little warmth would revitalize them, he hoped. The IV stung the place it pierced his skin, but the shaking stilled. The doctor warned him that the IV tube would be ripped away if he played too quickly. Maybe that was what made his hands so weak today, the pain of the needle. It had been torn out exactly how the doctor warned before, but the nurses wouldn’t have to worry about it that day.
That was enough for a day. The keyboard hung over his bed. If he hadn’t been so lethargic, he’d reach up and turn it off. He leaned back and closed his eyes instead.
He wasn’t able to rest for long. Somebody knocked at the door. It was late afternoon on a Wednesday, so the visitor had to be—
“Your sister.” The nurse peeked in through the glass panel in the door. The walls were thin, the staff could speak to their patients without opening the doors. “She’s here to visit.”
“Step-sister. She’s my stepsister,” he muttered, then winced. His tracheostomy was only a while ago, and he wasn’t used to his voice—a permanent wheeze because of the hole in his throat where the tube that fed him was threaded through. “Come in.”
His visitor grinned and he returned a meek smile. “How are you feeling?” she asked when the nurse left.
“The same,” he replied. She placed sheet music on the keyboard’s flimsy stand.
“What’s that?”
“I brought you the pieces you wanted, the Gymnopediés. You were right. They’re beautiful. Will you play one of them for me?” In his vague memory, he recalled telling her about them.
He wrinkled his nose, and the ventilator tubes nearly came undone. She wasn’t wrong, the Gymnopediés were beautiful, but he didn’t want to play for her. He didn’t want to the last time she brought him a piece, and he certainly didn’t want to now. He shook his head and watched her swallow her disappointment, so he added, “Maybe later, Kat.” That seemed to nullify her. A thin yellow package was secured under her arm. Kat didn’t have a habit of bringing him anything during her visits. “What’s that?”
She was relieved for a change of subject. “Oh, this? It’s a letter your dad sent you. Mom told me to bring it to you.” It rattled when she gave it a shake. “I think there’s something else in there too, a present, maybe. Here, take a look.”
Letters from his dad were rare, gifts were unheard of. He tore it open. Five disks fell out. Gideon’s 5th Birthday, 4th of July, Christmas 2011, and Yellowstone. They were the home movies his dad filmed with his cheap camera. When he left his mother, he must’ve taken them with him. The fifth was unnamed.
“Do you want me to read the letter for you?” Kat offered.
“No!” he hissed. “No,” his tone was softer the second time, when he realized he was being coarse, “I can read it myself.”
Dear Gideon,
Hey, buddy! How are you doing? Laura and I would love to have you over next summer. We can show you around Montana if you’d like. Your new sister’s excited to see you. She’s turning two this year. Laura’s bummed that you missed the wedding, but she says that if you want them, she’ll mail you the photos.
I found some DVD’s of you as a kid. Take a look at them if you have extra time, and don’t worry, I’ve burned myself my own copies, so they’re yours to keep.
We look forward to seeing you.
Love,
Dad
Gideon crumpled the paper into a tight ball. How could his father have not heard the condition he was in? Did his mother neglect to tell him? A trip from his hospital bed in Memphis to Montana would kill him. He couldn’t breathe without a ventilator, he couldn’t eat solid foods, he couldn’t even play his keyboard without pain. Couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t, he could count the things he could do on one hand. And it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair!
His dad must’ve been content with his new family, to invite him to visit like that. More content than he was with Gideon and his mother, anyway. He a healthy little girl and a functioning marriage.
He flung the lumped-up letter at the wall. It sprang back innocently and rolled under his bed and out of sight.
“What did he say?” Kat asked quietly. He refused to look at her, and she knew he wasn’t going to answer. She placed her palm on his shoulder and squeezed gently. Gideon knew she was trying to ignore the way his bony figure cut into her. “Whatever it is, keep your chin up. Gideon means ‘fighter.’ Mom named you that for a reason.”
“She’s not your mom!” he shrieked. “She’s not your mom, and you’re not my sister. Get out, get out!”
He realized he was crying when he couldn’t breathe. Mucus dripped down his ventilator tubes. He tore it out and frayed for air, but his lungs were rice-paper frail. They took in too much air, but the sinews in his ribs were too weak to expel the air building between them. He was breathing too much, and not enough. Kat screamed for a nurse.
The nurse shepherded Kat out of the room. Before she was gone, he rasped: “I’m not your brother. I’ll never be your brother.” A dark, round outline framed his watery vision, like his eyes were submarine windows, and he was a sailor, wasting away his air. He slumped into the thin mattress.
By the time the sun rose, Gideon had been awake for hours. His chest hurt, like his diaphragm was shredded to pieces. The ventilator pumped oxygen into his lungs for him, mechanically supplementing for the shortcomings of his body.
When the nurses sedated him during Kat’s visit, they withdrew the keyboard from his room. Gideon doubted he could play even if he did have it. Yesterday’s outburst consumed his energy and left him lethargic. The doctor examined his trachea while he was unconscious. Her conclusion wasn’t pleasant.
On his nightstand was the yellow envelope Kat brought him. He grappled for it and dug out the DVDs. He turned the unmarked one over in his hands and fed it into the projector above his bed when he couldn’t determine what it was. The staff installed the projector after he told them he couldn’t stand up and reach the TV.
The disk began to spin in the machine. For a moment, there was only static, and he was afraid that the content of the disk was as blank as the surface of it. An unfamiliar face appeared on the projection on the wall.
“It’s difficult to mix a family. Divorce and custody issues are challenging to work through,” the woman said, as if nobody knew that. “Adding new family members and parent figures contributes to the chaos. Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating a harmonious mixed family.”
Gideon imagined it was one of those outdated VHS tapes a therapist would play in a support group, copied onto a DVD. The audio was grainy, the colors were exaggerated, and blurry static interrupted every other clip. He couldn’t imagine what his dad could learn from it. Gideon turned it off and reached for his phone to speak to his father.
His dad picked up on the second-to-last dial tone. He was out of breath. It was early in the morning, barely past sunrise. Gideon realized that his father had dragged himself out of bed and tumbled downstairs to answer the cordless phone.“Hey, Kiddo! What’s on your mind?”
“There’s a DVD in the package you sent, I don’t think it’s for me,” he explained. “It’s something about mixing families,” bitterly, he added: “something about divorce.”
His father sighed. “Oh, I was wondering where that silly thing went.” He paused for a moment, looking for the words that wouldn’t agitate his son. “Look, I know that the divorce was hard on you and your mom. I have no idea how to… how to manage a new marriage and stay connected with you, now that you’re so far away.”
Gideon could tell. His father had all but vanished, leaving rare phone calls to interrupt the radio silence. It was very clear where his priorities laid. “Why did you leave us?”
It wasn’t an easy question for his dad to answer. “Your mom and I wanted different things, Gideon. We’re happier now, aren’t we?”
He was right, his parents were happier. So were both sides of his step-family.
Everybody was delighted with the arrangement of their new lives, except Gideon. He was the only one left behind. “I’m not. I want my family back.”
“Your family wants you back too,” he insisted. “Kat called me last night. She told me you were upset and you had to be sedated. She was so afraid for you. She may not be your blood, but she’s your sister, and she loves you.”
“She’s not my sister,” he echoed again.
“She visits you every week, she brings you new music to play, and she listens, even though she’s as tone deaf as a duck. She’s willing to forgive you, no matter what you say to her. If she’s not a sister Gideon, nobody is.”
“You talk to Kat?”
“Of course. She’s your sister, I’m your father. We love you. We’re worried about you. She calls me every week to tell me how you’re doing.”
Gideon dug the crumpled-up letter from under his bed. “If you’ve been talking to Kat, why don’t you know how badly I’ve been doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“In your letter, you asked me to visit you in Montana. I had surgery three days ago, Dad. I can’t even leave my room.”
“I sent that letter a month ago, Kiddo. I thought a letter would be more interesting than a phone call,” his dad chuckled, but he didn’t laugh for long. “I know you’re not doing very well, son. I ask your mom how you’re doing every day. You should get some rest. It’s too early for you to be awake.”
Gideon said a brief goodbye and hung up. He buried his face in his hands. If his eyes weren’t so dry, he’d cry. His dad was right. If Kat wasn’t his sister, then nobody could be. He wasn’t a boy anymore, he was too big to hang from the hope that his parents would restore their marriage. Everybody had moved forward in life, except him.
Everybody was happy, except him. And it wasn’t Kat’s fault.
Kat was his sister, unconditional. He hoped it wasn’t too late to be her brother.