My mother bore the news. My sister, Tara, was quiet. Maman read off the results of the blood tests, then the notes from the liver biopsy. Tara sank into a silent seat. Maman folded hospital papers, describing a disease with too many fancy titles to signify what it truly meant. Tara opened her sketchbook and ignored us.
I was silent.
I watched the wrist curl and the muscles convulse in her right hand. I stared hard when she had to drop the leaking pen, fighting her aching joints. I let her massage her skeletal hand in fear. I dropped the familiar cocktail of medications into a napkin and handed it over too fast. Multicolored capsules cascaded into her lap. I scrambled to pick them up, jumping halfway out of my crawling skin when Tara stroked my arm to settle me. She looked at me softly - as though I was the one who hurt.
My darling, I wish I had spoken. I wish I had said everything I was burning to say.
I would have liked to be less of the person that I was, and more of the person that you needed me to be. I wish I had told you: the sickness didn’t matter. I want to have said, then, how much I love you. I wish you could know now how much I still need you. I wish you understood everything you are to me.
I want to change that moment. Because I want you to know: I would never change you.