by El Jayne
I miss all of fourth grade because I’m learning to walk again. I live in a little room in a big building that isn’t a hospital, but there’s doctors and nurses everywhere and they bring me all my meals and lots of stuff to keep me busy when my rehab is done for the day. I’ve gotten really good at drawing while I’ve been here, plus my spelling is better than it ever was at school. I ask Aunt Erin if she can homeschool me when I’m better instead of making me learn backwards but she says she doesn’t have time.
I’m trying to draw pictures of Aunt Erin’s house, but I don’t know what it looks like because I’ve never been there. She told me I wouldn’t be going back to my house again and she already got all my stuff from there, so my new room will feel more familiar. I learned that word three weeks ago. It means something you know really well, and I know that because it’s spelled like family.
I rip up my drawing because this one isn’t right either. I keep drawing my old room by accident, the one I shared with Nicky. I don’t know how to draw a place I’ve never been before. I don’t know how big my new room will be, or where my dresser is going to stand, or if the door is tall or short. All I know is there’s only going to be one bed and I won’t have to be on the top bunk anymore because I’m an only child now.
Last time Aunt Erin came to see me I asked her for some pictures of my new room so I could draw it, but I think she forgot. I don’t ask her again. I can tell she’s really stressed out and sad and I don’t want to make her feel bad for forgetting. She says she’s going to hire a doctor to come see me sometimes to help me with my grief. That’s a hard word to spell because it sounds like it should be greef, but Nurse Cathy told me there’s a secret i in there and about the rule that says i before e, except after c. She wrote it out for me and I copied it down five times and then practiced using it in a sentence.
Grief is when you’re sad because someone died.
I am going to see a doctor about my grief.
No one told me how lonely grief is.
I think the nurses are nice but I can tell they feel bad for me. They let me have extra dessert whenever I want and they always give me these smiles with sad eyes when they bring it to me. They tell me I can have whatever I want, I just have to ask.
I want my brother back.
But I know they can’t bring him to me because he doesn’t exist anymore. That’s why they give me extra ice cream; they think it will fill up the empty spot in my heart. They’re wrong. All the ice cream in the world won’t make up for him not being here anymore. It just makes everything feel numb. That’s one of the first words I learned when I got here, because that’s what my leg was; it means when you can’t feel anything at all, not even all the broken bones. There’s a secret b on the end that you don’t say. On the back of one of my failed drawings, I practice using it in a sentence.
Now that Nicky is gone, I just feel numb.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
El Jayne is a writer based in St. Louis, MO, where they have recently completed their MFA. When not writing, they enjoy watching basketball, knitting, and daytime naps with their two cats, Willow and Cordelia.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Serge Lecomte was born in Belgium. He came to the States where he spent his teens Brooklyn. After graduation he joined the Medical Corps in the Air Force. He earned a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in Russian Literature. He worked as a Green Beret language instructor at Fort Bragg, NC from 1975-78. In 1988 he received a B.A. from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in Spanish Literature. He worked as a language teacher at the University of Alaska (1978-1997). He worked as a house builder, pipe-fitter, orderly in a hospital, gardener, landscaper, driller for an assaying company, bartender.