Sterile. Empty. Bleach slick white tile. So strong it curls and burns your nose hairs.
April-Jacqueline sat squat on a lacquered pew, donated that past spring from the church to the hospital. It was long. And it was empty.
Expect for one little ol’ Apple, trying to fill up the space as best she could.
Big Mac was still off down the hall, apologizing to nearly half the hospital staff after Granny damn near yelled their ears off. The deep rumble of his voice echoed throughout the hall, only broken by the prepubescent crack he still hadn’t grown out of.
Normally AJ would have been the one to apologize, or at least support her brother from behind. She knew how he preferred to speak with actions rather than words.
But like the change in the weather there was an ache inside her, a tightly wound knot that didn’t fit into ridged notches of her momma’s kitchen table.
Granny was in the room that cradled her mother’s life. Just one hallway over, just some plaster and lights and other meaningless stuff dividing them. She imagined tearing down those pristine walls with her bare fists. This wasn’t the first time.
April could see the room perfectly in her mind; the buttercups just outside her window that grow wild out here, fragrant and tap, tap, tapping against the glass. Bounds of cattle, framed inside the frame, graze lazily over the crested hill like sluggish mounds of melting snow.
She could see the books of French with unsent letters bookmarked at the end on her side table. And the graphite fingers oh so gently turning the pages with a dry cough shakiness.
She could remember Granny had pulled the thick quilts they normally use for winter out from the attic and piled them high on the sunken hospital bed. Then sit in the corner and complain about her back making quiet chime-like giggles flow into the room.
AJ’s hair was done up in pigtails, still drip-drying in the feeling of her momma’s fingers. Steepled into a comb pulled back in a cough wracked lullaby. Sweat-slick baby hairs splayed free and stuck to her face, clutching like wispy nightmares.
She sucked on her lip like a toddler trying an ice cube for the first time. Trying to wet her chapped lips against her sweat mottled face. Mismatched prayers leaking from her jumping knee and clasped hands.
A passing nurse had asked if she needed a comb and she gave them a glare so harsh she’s surprised her momma didn’t rush up from bed to make her apologize.
“Poor girl,” she heard the nurse murmur, with the same sad affection as a dog about to be put down
In her daddy’s shirt, tucked down to her knees into her hand-me-down patch-work jeans, she watched the ghosts of the clinic, because they couldn't afford no fancy hospital this far out. Just a corner sliced building, its age leaking down the sides.
It hung off her in the only way his heavy church fannel’s could, the kind that lulled her to sleep in the backseat of his sputtering truck, the kind of weight that kept her warm in the belly of the pews before winter fully dried into spring.
The shirt was stale with his memory. Present, but only if you looked for it. She found it tucked under boxes of bruised memories and wore it as a badge of honor.
The faded ash stains of bonfires spitting in his face, old pie dough caught under fingernail thin hemlines, with a hatch pattern that matched his shadow-puppet soft calloused hands.
June-hot sweat bead down her neck and pooled against the collar. Still she refused to take it off.
She was scared to wash it, afraid the water would take his memory. Every night his face faded just a little bit more, his bedtime stories, she had long since grown out of, losing a word or two.
Granny had stopped trying to get her to change it after three days.
A joint-knotted hand gently grabbed her shoulder, almost making April jump out of her skin before seeing the crow feet laugh lines of her Granny.
Her wrinkled dog-eared skin from many years of love and hard work was soft, but still tinged with the warmth of spice and vinegar. In her arms was a pink blanket she had been knitting just for this very reason.
“This is your little sister AJ,” Granny’s dishrag wrung hand’s shook, whether from the weight or the pressure AJ didn’t know. “Her name is Abagail. You have to protect her now, okay?”
April-Jacqueline didn’t respond, the curly tuffs of her daddy’s hair not fitting a pudgy rosy baby face.
A little sterling silver bracelet on her chunky baby wrist glittered in the hospital light, the beautiful loopy letters that had once dated and labeled every jar of jam and every late night wax letter read; Abagail Applegate.
AJ took the bundle in her arms, to relieve her Granny from the weight. Quilt soft hands gently guided her to support the baby’s head in the crook of her elbow.
Little Abagail gurgled and wriggled in Aj’s too weak arms, her little hands peeling out from her pale pink blanket and reaching up to grab at her big sister’s face. The closest day by day face she would get to the father she would never meet.
Despite her being so small, so new, so unaware, her touch was familiar, in the way a casket carries you home like a father; fleeting and yearning to be stuck in that moment forever.
Swallowing the jagged teeth of nails stuck in her throat, April-Jacqueline put on her mother’s hands, her father’s hands, her brother's hands and then her Granny's hands. Took them off and put them back on again.
The thin apple-skin of her lips with big bite’s of blue bruises ached with every push against her teeth. But she was strong. She had to be.
“Hey, there sugarcube.”
