Face The Music

Forget Me Not

Standing in the doorframe of Aunt Lynn's room with a feeling of apprehension clogging my throat, I turned around to Josh's checkered tie staring at me with glaring symmetry. "Oh, Josh," I whispered as I collapsed into his chest. He caught me. "I don't know what to do. She's been awake for about a week now, and she can breathe and eat on her own. But I don't know what to do. She can barely talk. She doesn't even recognize Uncle Henry."

He looked down at me, patting my back awkwardly as he thought of what to say. "She's alive, and that's all that matters right now. She'll get better, okay? She's alive, so don't worry about it. You'll have more time to worry about it later, believe me," he gently turned me around and nudged me into the room. 

Aunt Lynn was sat upright in bed, leaning on two thick pillows with an expression of confusion on her face and her hands slowly twining themselves through the short fringe of string sewn along her comforter. When she saw me cross the floorboard line into her room, she stiffened and looked at me. The simple pain of moving was clear in every shift of her joints. It was as if she had aged twenty years in three weeks. "Who," she paused for a moment, "are you?"

"It's the first full sentence she's said since she woke up," I breathed out of the corner of my mouth to Josh. "The first damn sentence. Is she – is she getting better already? Could it –"

She interrupted me, her voice more confident now that she seemed to be getting the right words. "Who. Are you?"

"Right," I snapped back to face her. "I'm Kiera. I'm your niece. I've been living with you for the past four years, and you've just had a stroke. You lost a lot of your memory." As I explained this to her for the tenth time, I edged closer so I could sit on the bed and make the atmosphere more comfortable. It didn't seem like anything I was saying was sinking in, but maybe I didn't expect it to do so. I just missed the old Aunt Lynn. "You have a husband, too, named Henry, who you love very much. He's actually –"

Interrupting me again with a look of alarm in her eyes, she blurted, "No closer. My...room. No closer."

I paused for a moment, and she stared at me, wide-eyed and panicked. 

"My room."

"Okay," I nodded slowly. "Your room. I'll...go. I'll bring food for you later. Bye." I backed out of the room, still facing her. Lying in her own bed – the one she used to share with Henry but now couldn't because whenever she saw him, she had a panic attack, so he slept downstairs on the couch – she looked like a cornered animal in a cage, ready to bite for her own defense. Only, she couldn't bite. She couldn't even stand. 

I didn't cry. I couldn't cry in front of her. Josh stood awestruck in apparent horror right outside the door, and my back collided with his chest like it was a wall. I could almost hear the years of dust piling up in that old wall fly up with a poof. He held me around the waist, pulling me backwards, my heels dragging on the ground, until we reached the couch placed in the little nook at the top of the stairs. We were still staring at that doorframe, where Aunt Lynn lay beyond. Above the frame hung a sign, one of those stupid ones with cliché motivational quotes that I always hated. Remember your past, live in your present, and plan for your future. If I could've painted my own sign, I would've said Face the fucking music, you piece of shit. It's about time.

I spoke. "The doctors said she has aphasia. I mean, she has a lot of things. But that was aphasia. They said she can get better with therapy."

I felt Josh nod behind me, his chest rising and falling with each little breath as it pressed against my back. I hoped I wasn't crushing him. Was this weird? Oh god. I was sitting on his lap, really. I was sitting on his lap. This...forget it. It was comfortable, either way.

"Yeah, she had a stroke. She can get better. It'll be okay. What...what else happened to her?"

"Well," I shifted. "She's uh, she's paralyzed from the waist down. Can't walk anymore. She doesn't remember me or Uncle Henry. She can barely talk or even understand speech. Can't read or write, but that isn't a big deal, I suppose. She always did love books. Novels and old medieval times history books. What a dreamer, that old lady." I choked out a laugh. "You would've liked her. I'm talking like she's dead, and I guess she really is. Who is Aunt Lynn anymore? But you would've liked her."

"You know, one time, I stopped by your house to find you, but you'd gone out to buy milk. She let me in and gave me cookies and orange juice because you didn't have anymore milk and treated me like a really, really intelligent child. She kept patting my head, telling me that you were a good girl, and I had to be good to you." He sing-songed the last three words under his breath. "Your Aunt Lynn was a special lady." His voice was quiet, almost mournful. 

What had Aunt Lynn meant, good to me? I'd never know from her now, would I? "Yeah, she definitely was." We were silent for some time, breathing or struggling to breathe. The choking in my throat was fighting its way out. "Oh my god, Josh. What am I going to do? I can't lose her. I can't lose another one. Please. I can't. She needs to come back. Josh, she needs to come back." And then the tears were tracing lines down my cheeks, carving little rivers into my skin, and there was nothing I could do to stop them. 

"Josh. Please." I turned around, shoving my face into his black shirt and grabbing its fabric in my hands for something, anything to cling on to because otherwise I'd drown. "I need her back. I need her back." He hugged me closer and didn't say a word.