The chair creaked faintly under her weight, and Kierna shifted around to find a comfortable position. With a heavy sigh, she rested her elbows on the wooden table. The muffled radio noise that came from her husband’s room was the only reminder that she was not alone―physically, at least.
Next to her on the table sat her mobile phone, which remained stubbornly silent. She couldn’t help but wish that if she stared at the phone long enough, it would earn her a call or a message to let her forget her isolation, even if only for a moment.
She squinted at the clock on the wall and stood up. Outside, she heard the sound of a car engine progressively becoming louder, signaling that the taxi was here―half an hour late, but here nevertheless. Kierna was not concerned with letting her husband know that she would be visiting her sister; he would have forgotten regardless. It took her a moment to gather her strength before she stepped outside, locked the front door, and climbed into the taxi, mumbling out a location to the driver.
Pressing her head back against the cushion, she allowed herself to feel content for a moment that her wish would be fulfilled.
It was a short ride to her sister Nora’s house, where Nora had lain bedridden for the past few weeks.
Kierna felt her throat become dry as she walked up to the front door and stepped into the dimly lit room. Her feet carried her down the familiar hallways with a steady confidence she did not notice within herself, but when as she hesitated in front of the bedroom door, Kierna’s heart pushed her to turn the knob.
Nora lay in the center of the bed, covered with a thin comforter.
Letting out a breath that she had not realized she was holding in, Kierna forced her eyes to meet Nora’s. In placing herself on the corner of the bed where her sister lay, it was her instinctive reaction to take Nora’s frail hand within her own. Her elder sister spoke first.
“You came.”
It was almost as if to prove that she had been confident her sister would arrive to meet her.
“I told you that she would come,” Nora sighed as she turned her head to look above her, a faint smile on her lips. It remained unclear who it was that she was speaking to, but it was apparent that her sister had been having a conversation with another while waiting to meet Kierna. Nora’s facial structure had become more prominent, her bones visible just beneath her skin. Nonetheless, for a woman who was quite nearly awaiting her death, there was a conviction in her voice and a curiosity in her eyes that would have told the world differently.
Instead of questioning her, Kierna held her sister’s hand with a tighter grasp, her thumb gently grazing over Nora’s knuckles. The hands that once belonged to two giggling schoolgirls who skipped across the playground with one another had become the same two hands that now held onto one another, desperate to cling to what may be the last moments of Nora’s life.
“I was waiting for you. I needed to see you.” Nora spoke with an understanding in her voice that made it evident she had accepted that she was dying. There was a strength in her that overwhelmed Kierna, who had felt since she was a little girl that she would never be able to understand or mirror her elder sister’s resilience. However, at that moment, regardless of the feeling of weakness that formed a pit within her stomach, Kierna pressed a faint kiss against her sister’s pale forehead. It felt foreign to have to comprehend that Nora was lying on her deathbed, and that she had so desperately waited to meet Kierna in her dying moments.
It felt as if a selfish part of her was barricaded within her own mind, a part of her that wanted to plead with her sister: “Please don’t leave me. Please don’t go.”
Instead, she felt the corners of her lips turn into a faint smile. There was a strength in that simple action that Kierna had not realized she possessed, and she used that strength to protect her sister. Kierna held her hand, maintaining an unbroken eye contact with her elder sister as she reminded her, “I love you.” Nora inhaled, about to respond.
The exhale never came.
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