My grief lies all within,
And these external manners of lament
Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
That swells with silence in the tortured soul.~ William Shakespeare
The blinds and curtains had been pulled back; the window was open.
“Oh God,” I sobbed the plea, the prayer as my trembling fingers clenched the hospital sheets, and I felt my chest constricting. The heart monitor’s beeps began to grow frantic as my shoulders heaved violently, and I stared out of the window toward the grassy hill behind the hospital and the large weeping willow that stood, its branches curling about its trunk as if to comfort itself. The grass was neatly trimmed and swaying, trembling painfully in the cold, cutting breeze; the flowers were doubled over and drooping.
“They’re still mourning for him.” I croaked as I pulled my knees to my chest and coughed roughly. When I looked down at the sheets that were curled about my fragile person, I fancied that I saw blood staining the thin, sterile fabric. The tears that poured down my face became water from that pond, tainted and filthy. “Shut the window…” I begged the priest as I heard the door open behind me and the clacking of heeled shoes. The elderly priest’s eyes widened slightly and he looked over my shaking body toward the nurse that was entering behind me. I knew what was coming: the kiss of the needle, sleep, and dreams, nightmares. Gathering what strength still remained within me, I stretched my legs and pushed myself into a sitting position, pulling away from the nurse just as she reached for my scarred wrist. “Shut the window!” I snapped, my eyes shooting toward the priest as I clutched my arms against my chest. When he rose and patiently moved to close the blinds and the draw the curtains, I turned my attention to the pudgy nurse who stood with a syringe in one hand and the other chubby mass resting against her hip in annoyance. “Go away.” I snarled to her, and she rolled her eyes, grumbling something about not being paid enough as she scuttled out of the room, turning sideways to fit through the door.
The priest settled down again in the chair as I sniffled childishly and brushed my tears away angrily with the heel of my hands. “Did your brother die then?” He questioned softly, one of his pale hands coming to rest against my shoulder.
“No,” I whispered, calming down now that I could not see the tree and the flowers. “No, mother found us and he was taken to the hospital. He survived, but the… well, since then he was never the same. He became a child again.” My voice broke, and I shuddered, not bothering to try to stop the flowing tears. “His body aged, but it didn’t take long for mother and I to realize that he was never truly going to grow up. He stayed by my side at all times…”
The priest was quiet for a moment then pulled his hands into his lap and laced his fingers together. “How did you feel about that?”
“I hated it. I hated him constantly in my shadow… I hated that he was childish. I hated that he had lived.” I swallowed hard and shakily continued. “Two years ago, when we were eighteen, I began to mingle with a small gang. Of course Shepherd went with me; he was my responsibility now for Mother would have nothing to do with him. He had his first cigarette while he was with me and my gang. He became addicted to them… it got so terrible that he went through several packs a day.”
“Oh,” The priest murmured, a strange light had risen to his eyes as the story played out before him. “So that’s what…” He stopped, and I choked out a sobbing reply.
…
His white pajama shirt hung on his thin shoulders, the red stained sleeve stopping just below his elbow. The pants barely reached over his knees, but he refused to get clothes that would actually fit him. He looked so strange on the floor, his legs spread out, toes touching lightly to form a circular space between his legs. The wooden blocks were painted bright colors with letters of the alphabet carved onto them. He was stacking them awkwardly within the circle his legs created, his slightly trembling fingers causing the tower to shudder precariously. His hair was loose and draping down in front of his downcast face so that only the cigarette was protruding from the flaxen curtain. Thin tendrils of smoke rose from the drug, and he moved one hand to pluck it from his slightly parted lips as he rocked lightly back and forth, tilting his head up to look at me.
“Severin.” His voice was hoarse from coughing; his eyes were bloodshot and lined with heavy, dark bags. “Severin, Severin.” He looked down at the blocks, pressing the tip of the index finger of his free hand against the top block. “Can you read this to me?”
I had been standing in the doorway, watching him with my arms crossed over my chest and my back pressed against the doorframe. Narrowing my eyes, I tried to read the tiny squares from my reclining position, but found it impossible. I groaned and walked over to my brother, kneeling down just behind of him and placing my hands against his shoulders as I leaned over to read.
“Wooden.” I said, rocking back on my heels and standing. “But you spelled it wrong. There isn’t an ‘i,’ its ‘e.’ ”
“Wooden,” He repeated, smoke issuing from his lips as he breathed out the word. “The square is wooden.” He tilted back his head, looking at me upside down. “I spelled another word.” He pointed to a smaller set of blocks, laying on their sides rather than stacked. I peered down at the letters and frowned slightly.
“That’s not a word, Shepherd, it’s a name.”
“What name does it say?”
“Abel,” I responded softly.
“Abel is a friend of mine.” My brother responded quietly, nodding his head as he took another drag of the cigarette. Huffing in annoyance, I shook my head and lowered myself to sit by him.
“No,” I corrected him gruffly, taking the cigarette from his lips and thrusting it between my own. “We don’t know any Abel. Abel is from the Bible, remember?” Even though he had become a child, he still was fascinated by the Bible and was always more religious than I ever was. His eyes darkened at my response and he lifted a hand to tap his fingertips against his chin.
“Abel had a brother, too, just like I do. I have you as my brother. Abel’s brother was Cain, and Cain got mad and killed Abel and God was sad.” Shepherd’s eyes began to shimmer with tears, and the tiny streams cut across his cheeks wearily, curving beneath his jaw line and dropping to his chest. “I’m glad I have you, Severin. Severin. Severin wouldn’t hurt me.”
“Of course not,” I said with a nonchalant shrug. I wasn’t really listening to him. If I had been, I’m sure I would have felt some measure of guilt for what I had done to him. I was about to leave again when I noticed the strange, wheezing noises my brother was making when he breathed. He was still softly crying, and his lips were parted and coated with a layer of blood. “Shepherd?”
He coughed again and the cerise fluid dropped onto the smooth floor in great clumps. I repeated his name, but he seemed not to hear me. His hands rose toward his throat, and I was struck by how pale he was. There was a slight bluish hint to the back of his hands and cheeks. I shouted his name and knelt down beside of him as he fell backwards. Gathering him in my arms, I held him against my chest while he coughed and blood spilled down his lips and chin in great rivers.
By the time the ambulance arrived, his pajamas were dyed completely red.
…
“What was wrong with him?”
“What was wrong with him?”
“Throat and lung cancer… from the cigarettes… The cigarettes I gave him.”
“You blame yourself?”
“Of course I do, its my fault.”
The priest was silent and did not deny what I had said. I really hadn’t expected him to. I wasn’t lying. It was my fault that Shepherd was addicted to cigarettes, and it was my fault that he became ill because of them. All of my brother’s suffering was my fault. “So then what?” The priest murmured, sipping at a cup of water he had gotten himself.
“They had to remove his voice box,” I began slowly, trying to keep myself from breaking down again. I found my hands lifting to touch my Adam’s apple thoughtfully. “He had a terrible scar… they couldn’t do anything about his lung cancer. They tried to explain things to me, but I just couldn’t take it all in. I couldn’t concentrate.”
…
I stood again in the doorway, staring with teary eyes at my brother’s form laying beneath the sheets. His eyes were turned toward the window and he looked out at the same tree that lingered outside my window. He watched the willow’s branches as they danced for him, and the flowers turned up their faces toward the sun in prayers for the innocent creature’s life. It was all in vain.
He did not move when I stepped inside and crossed the floor to his bed. I sat down on the side of the small bed and rested there awkwardly for a moment before climbing completely onto the bed beside of him. He still did not look at me, and so I lifted one hand, stroking his bare head. He didn’t look like the same person without his beautiful hair. I kissed his temple and lifted my other hand which held a small gift for him: a stuffed bear that looked exactly like the one I had made him burn so long ago. “I brought you something, Shepherd.” I whispered into his ear. He turned his head, resting it against my shoulder as his hand took the toy and pressed it firmly against his chest.
My eyes immediately found the winding, pale scar that ran across his throat, and my breath caught as a sob rose in my chest. “My God, Shepherd…” I whimpered as I felt him nuzzle my chest. “Shepherd, I’m sorry.” My shaking arms circled about him, and he closed his eyes, clutching the bear against him as if it were made of gold instead of cheap, lavender fabric. I repeated my apology over and over in broken whispers as he laid against me; he fell asleep sometime while I held him and whispered over his bare head, but I continued to speak. “Shepherd, its going to be alright. You know, its pretty outside. The sun is shining, and would you believe, the hospital… it… has a garden. There’s a tree; you can see it from here. Maybe if we ask we can plant some flowers. Shepherd, I’m sorry.” I couldn’t stop crying. My whole body set into violent trembles as I held him, and soon I had fallen asleep, too, with him still in my arms.
I never left his side after that.
My meals were brought by the hospital staff, and when I was able to sleep, I slept on the bed with Shepherd or in a chair.
On one of his good days, I was told I could take him outside. They brought a wheelchair to take him out in, but I wouldn’t hear of it. “Climb on my back,” I said to him softly as my tears splashed onto the sheets. He shifted a little and draped himself over my shoulders, his tiny arms curving wearily about my neck. I shuddered as I stood from the bed and a sob broke through my lips. He was so light, so very light. He leaned his head against mine, his eyes roaming over the paintings lining the hospital’s hallways. He stiffened a little when we stepped outside, and he released a quiet sigh. Instantly I was worried, and I tilted my head to try to look back at him, pausing just outside of the doors. “Shepherd? Are you hurting? What’s wrong?” My words came in a rush, but somehow he understood, and he shook his head, tapping his fingers against my chest to urge me forward.
The sun was warm, and there was a small breeze that toyed with the tall grass beneath my feet. I took
him to the weeping willow and set him beneath it on the soft grass. He had grown so weak that he was quite unable to sit up properly on his own, so I leaned my back against the trunk of the tree and held him in my lap, one arm around his shoulders to support him and the other stroking his cheek. “Do you like it out here, Shepherd? Its almost like home.”
He did not respond.
His clammy, white hands were curled about his bear’s stomach and he had rested his chin atop the animal’s head while his eyes wearily took in the grass and the flowers and the swaying branches of the tree. I looked down at him when I did not receive an answer, and I whispered his name, holding back tears. Shepherd lifted one hand and touched his temple before moving his hand to grab a few locks of my hair and tug it free. The tears came as I jerked, and my lips parted to form a question, but the words died before they were breathed into existence.
Shepherd was pressing the locks of hair, my hair, his hair, against his head. I began to tremble as I watched his eyes grow moist. He grunted a little and clenched his fist about the hair, beating his temple with his knuckles as tears spilled down his cheeks.
Gently taking his hand, I lowered it from his head and I kissed his forehead. “Shepherd, please stop.”
He jerked in my arms. It was easy for me, he seemed to say. I was still beautiful. I still had my hair, my dignity. I was not dying. He released the hair he had stolen, letting it collapse onto the grass, limp and dead, while he turned his face to my chest and buried it there to cry.
He fell asleep against my chest, his crying having worn him out. My hand shook as I stroked his head, resting my cheek against his temple. “Shepherd, I’m so sorry.” I muttered against his cold skin. “If I had one wish… God, I just want my brother back.” My voice broke as I choked out the plea, and it was hours before I rose stiffly from the ground and carried my brother back into his room.
I couldn’t sleep that night, so I got up from my place on the bed beside of Shepherd, and I wandered into the bathroom, flipping on the light with a sigh. My reflection immediately caught my attention, and I wearily stared at the skinny, pale boy that stood across from me. My eyes were red and bloodshot; my eyelids swollen and tender from my tears; heavy bags drooped beneath my eyes; my hair was matted and tangled. If I looked hard enough, the care and pain was swept from my features, and I could see Shepherd there in the mirror, looking at me with those wide, innocent eyes. I bit my lip to hold back a sob, afraid that if I released it, I would wake him. My eyes shifted toward the hairless figure huddled pitifully beneath the sheets of the hospital bed, and when I turned back to the mirror, I was standing there and my brother was gone.
Lowering my eyes, I scanned the surface of the counter before me, my shaking hands fumbling for the faucet’s knob. I pushed it back and gathered the chilled water into my palms, splashing it against my face to clean away the tears. I looked up again at my reflection, and shuddered as I lifted one hand and struck the glass so hard cracks began to race across the surface of the mirror and my knuckles came away bloody. My eyes darted to my hair that fell in front of my face like a curtain, and the flaxen locks I had always been so proud of became the next victim of my pain. I tore out my hair in great clumps, sobbing as blood splattered into the sink and the floor. Eventually, I noticed the electric razor resting on a battery charger at the corner of the counter. I grabbed it and tore it from the stand, flicking the switch on and pressing the blades against my scalp. There was something terribly soothing about the metallic buzzing of the blades, and my gaze was glued to the floor as my hair fell away, gathering about my feet in stained, tangled pools.
The bathroom became terribly quiet again as I silenced the razor and returned it to its place. Slowly, I lifted my head and looked again into the mirror, panting as I watched rivers of cerise fluid spill down my smooth skin. My reflection was foreign to me, and I found myself touching my blood drenched hands against the glass, smearing the thick fluid against the glass. One hand fell to the faucet knob, and I pushed it back again, rinsing the clumps of hair and blood down the drain before washing my hands and bare head. Once I was a little more presentable, I knelt down and scooped up the shaven hair from the floor and dumped it into the trashcan.
Over the next few months, Shepherd and I went to the small garden everyday. That first morning, when he woke up and found my hair gone, his eyes had gotten wide, and for a moment they took on that innocent, curious look that he had had as a child. His hands had caressed my smooth head, and his lips twitched, their corners turned upward into a smile as he leaned his forehead against mine and closed his eyes, a strange wheezing breath indicating that he was attempting to laugh.
He grew stronger after that. It seemed the outdoors was doing him good.
Soon, he was able to sit up on his own when we went to our tree, and he would catch ladybugs on his thin, pale fingers, watching in wonder as their tiny, red bodies scampered across his skin before they spread their wings and flew out of sight. He began to have a legal pad and a blue pen with him at all times so that we could communicate, and I allowed myself to grow hopeful, happy, for the first time in a very long time.
Do you think, he began one day, scrawling clumsy, childlike characters across the page. It hurts?
“What hurts?” I asked him softly, pushing my elbows back and lifting myself up from the grass to a sitting position.
Dying.
I stared at the word as if it were a living thing: some kind of monster that would tear my brother away from me. I shook my head firmly and looked away, laying back down on the grass. “I don’t want to talk about that, Shepherd.”
He was still for a moment then he scribbled something else and laid down beside of me, placing his head against my chest. Can I have a ride, Severin? On your back, like we did when we were younger.
My response was to sit up carefully so that he would not fall and to move into a crouch. His expression brightened, and he scrambled up onto my back, wrapping his arms around my neck. I stood, stumbling backwards a little before I gained my balance and began to run in circles beneath the branches of the willow. For a brief moment, I forgot where I was, and we were children again. There was no pain, no treatments, and no cancer; there was only me and Shepherd and the grass beneath our feet. Our hair would be dancing about our faces, which would be young and untouched by sleepless nights and agony and tears. Shepherd would be laughing and holding out his arms toward the sky as if he were flying. I could almost hear his voice, a tiny whisper against my ear.
“I want this to never end, Severin.”
I would tell him that it didn’t have to end. That we could stay among the sun kissed grass and the upturned flowers forever. I would grow dizzy from the circles, and we would fall together tangled in each other’s arms and laughing. He would be laughing.
“I love you, Severin.”
I didn’t want the beautiful image to fade, but it did with the sound of coughing. The beauty melted away, and blood ran down my shoulder. My chest constricted and my heart felt as if it were being torn to pieces as I turned and lowered my brother to the soft bed of grass beneath us. All I could think to say was his name over and over while I watched him cough blood onto the grass.
He never went outside again.
The illness tore through him like a raging storm.
I sat by his side as he faded. He became so weak that even opening his eyes was a battle. On his better days, I sat on the edge of his bed with fairy tales and children’s books, anything with a happy ending. On the days when the sickness was at its worst, I would lay beside him, holding him in my arms and I would sing to him.
It was raining that night; soft, timid droplets that tumbled fearfully from the sky and struck against the glass of the window pleadingly before slipping away to die against the ground. It was one of the worst nights Shepherd had ever had. He was curled up beneath three huge quilts that I had brought him and was snuggled up under my arm, his head against my shoulder just below my chin. Tears had been flowing nonstop from his half open, vacant eyes so that part of my shirt was drenched and clinging to my skin. Thunder shouted as lightning illuminated our dark chamber, and Shepherd jerked, convulsing at the abrupt sound. I stroked his back and his wet face, my eyes on the rain as it fell down the window. I told him it was alright and that I was there, but I’m not sure he heard me.
His finger twitched against my shirt, and I lowered my eyes to look upon him. We had developed another method of primitive communication. Moving a finger usually meant he needed to go to the bathroom or, if I had paused in my song or story, it meant he wanted me to continue. His lips parting meant he was thirsty; he never wanted food. When his fingertip brushed against the fabric of my damp shirt and I looked down, I found that he had tilted his head back and he was looking up at him. I moved one of my hands to cradle his neck, and his lips parted slightly.
“Are you thirsty?” I whispered, my voice had become quite hoarse from singing. He faintly shook his head and, after a short struggle, managed to lift his hand toward my face. It started to fall, but I caught it and placed his chilled fingers against my cheek. He stroked my face with a slight movement of his thumb, and tears fell down from his eyes as his lips closed and turned upward in a small smile.
The smile terrified me, and I felt his hand slipping down my face beneath my trembling fingers. My other hand froze against his back, and a ragged sob tore through my lips as outside the thunder rumbled and the rain clawed against the glass. “Please,” The word was stuttered and broken. “Shepherd, I love you. I can’t live without you. I simply can’t survive.” His head sank down against my chest, and a soft, barely audible sigh released him. “Shepherd, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I was so cruel to you. I’m sorry that I’ve caused you so much pain. I’ll do whatever you want, Shepherd. We can run forever in the garden, I’ll bring you all the frogs you want and you can hold them. I’ll tell mother what really happened to the vase. Shepherd? Shepherd, please don’t leave me here alone. I’m sorry, Shepherd. I wish I could start over… I wish I could undo it all. Shepherd….”
I held onto him through the rest of the night, and when the doctor found us, he whispered soft words to me while grabbing my arms and pulling me back away from him. But he was so cold, I felt I couldn’t leave him. I needed to be there when he woke up; he would be afraid if I was gone. What if he thought I had abandoned him? I screamed and struggled as they pulled me away, and when they finally managed to push me into the hallway, I collapsed to my knees and wept.
