She hated hospitals. She had always hated hospitals. False cheer, misplaced enthusiasm, everyone smiling and saying things that weren’t true. And the needles. If there was one thing she despised more than anything else in the world, it was needles. You couldn’t walk six feet in the door without them wanting you to fill one container or another with blood. Abigail stared at the beeping device next to her bed. Today was her birthday. A sigh wove its way through her ill lungs, escaping through pale, cracked lips. Next to needles, birthdays were her most hated thing. Birthdays meant closer to death. Yet another year closer to when she would expire. Her parents and sister and brother all crowded around her, a pathetic cake in their hands, singing a painfully happy version of “happy birthday.” Abigail rarely ate any of the cake. The thick, pasty icing stuck to the roof of her mouth and the weak chocolate made her feel nauseous. Not that it mattered. She rarely had the strength to feign interest in eating normal food, let alone cake. Even if she did, it would end up in the bed pan anyway. Abigail ran a hand over her naked scalp. Remembering her mother would soon return, she pulled the knit cap over her head again to ‘protect from the chill.’ As if it mattered. If she got sick, she’d die quicker. Whoopdie do. There was a clip connected to her finger. This she had learned monitored her breathing. The clip, shaped like a clothes pin, was connected to, surprisingly, a machine. Another was connected to her via a tiny electrode glued to her chest. This monitored her heart. There were two more connected to the sides of her skull. She’d yet to learn what those did. Probably read her mind, she thought with a grim smile.

The room she was in was fairly depressing, though little could be done to not depress Abigail. The walls were an extremely boring beige, one that reminded her of the time she puked up her oatmeal on her sister. There was a matching couch with a hospital issued pillow and matching sheet neatly folded on it. Flowers were everywhere. By now she hated them too, was tired of the sympathy of others. She knew the names of most of the kinds of flowers by now. The ones from her father’s work were carnations. The ones from the left-hand neighbors were lilies. Her mother had frowned at those when the orderly set them on the table next to her. Abigail assumed it was because lilies are a “funeral flower,” and didn’t find it proper to be sending a flower that said death to a person dying in the hospital. Abigail liked them though. She thought they were elegant.

The misty morning light crept in through the window, though through the efficient, vertical blinds she could see the sky was cloudy. The sweet miniature clock (an early birthday present from her aunt) next to her bed said it was 7 o’clock. Next to the whirring and beeping of the machines that kept her body on a dignified time table, the footsteps and murmuring of nurses and doctors outside her door and her own belabored breathing, the ticking of the clock was barely audible.

With a sigh, Abigail watched the door.

She had been diagnosed with leukemia three years ago. It was an awful way to die really. Excruciatingly slow as medication after medication was pumped into your system, stretching you thinner and thinner. She had lost her hair a year and a half ago. It had been black, she remembered. Straight as rain it had run long, trailing past her shoulder blades. Her eyebrows had gone too, and her eyelashes. But, then again, chemo does that. She had always wondered who’s bright idea it had been to pump poison into a body to kill one thing teeny tiny little thing, having erstwhile killed everything that crossed its path. It was injecting evil to kill evil. It never made any sense. She’d had to stop her life, pretend to be strong while she endured month after month of MRI’s and CAT scans and X-rays. It had been unbearable. Now, as she crept toward the end of it all--though her family still retained at least the semblance of hope, she was just glad to have it done with. They told her she had two weeks left. Abigail watched the sun beams stretch and yawn as they inched toward her bed. Two weeks left of life. She wondered how her family would take that. Personally Abigail didn’t have a problem with it. After an eternity of pain, one wishes to be rid of it.

She had timed her parents to the minute by now. They’d take turns falling asleep on the hospital sofa, watching Abigail sleep. Then at roughly 6:32 in the morning, they’d get up, begrudgingly chat with the doctor on Abigail’s status, and then stumble to the waiting room in search of the free and terrible coffee. It was her mother’s turn this morning. Abigail judged she’d be late this morning, gathering relatives together in the morning ritual of their little “birthday party”. After three years of hospital birthday parties, she’d grown used to the saccharine cheer that was plastered on her family’s face and had grown weary of the façade. She’d blow out the candles, supplementing their cries of a birthday wish. The cake would be distributed--silently--and each would eat their share with looks of delicate observation. Abigail always left hers untouched.

The door squeaked open. Abigail stared mutely as her elder sister poked her head in. “Awake?”

Abigail felt her face crack into a thin smile, her dry lips twanging with pain. “Of course.”

“Happy Birthday, Abby.” Rachel opened the door and walked in the room. Abigail was struck with how beautiful her sister was. Her full head of hair, the color of burnished bronze that stretched past her shoulders, swung lazily about her as she streamed in the room. Her face was a cheery red from the cold autumn morning outside. Youth and vigor swam around her like a cloud, and even Abigail recognized the health that radiated like heat from her sister. Sleep rimmed the eyes colored with mist, however, trailing misery at its heels. “How are you feeling?”

Abigail let the smile fade, though it was harder to make it go away then she would admit. “Stellar.”

“Mom’s at the grocer’s, Dad’s downstairs with Mark. Gram and Grandpa are here.”

Abigail lazily adjusted her cap, itching her scalp beneath the wool. The tired feeling was beginning to set in again, but knew if she fell asleep her parents would feel bad. “Wow. Mom and Dad went all out for this one. The old folks came all the way from Florida to eat cake in a hospital.”

Rachel sent her sister a pleading look. “Try and enjoy this ok? They wanted to be here. They love you. Its not every day their youngest grandchild has a birthday, now is it.”

“They came because I’m dying, Rachel. Not because it’s my birthday.”

Her hand outstretched to turn the clock toward her, Rachel froze. “Don’t say that.”

“Why? It’s the truth.”

“I don’t care. You may have come to terms with your mortality, Abby, but I sure haven’t. And neither have the rest of us.”

“Kind of scary when the only one not scared of dying is the dying person, huh?”

“We all admire you for that, Abby.” Rachel leaned forward, looking in her sister’s eyes, “is there nothing you’re not afraid of?”

“Dogs. Big ones. With rabies.”

Rachel laughed and got to her feet as the door opened again. Their mother strode in, a baker’s box in her arms. Like Rachel, exhaustion was evident in the lines of her face, though she masked them beneath a cheery smile and bright expression. Behind her came an entourage of people, each wearing a complacent smile that said “we don’t want to be here, but we’re here because we love you.”

Abigail sighed as the cake was placed on the tray in front of her. As the hazy feeling of sleep crept slowly toward her in the back of her mind, she registered the faces of her loved ones. By now, she barely had enough energy to turn her head to take in all the people surrounding her. Mark, Gram, Gramp, Dad, Mom, and Rachel. Her family.

The lighter clicked as her father lit it. She had always assumed he’d quit smoking, but the lighter he had was the one he’d always used to light his cigarettes. He probably used the cigarettes to stay calm now. Because of her. His face held no smile as he went from candle to candle. His eyes were very sad. It hurt to look at him. She allowed her eyes to follow the flame as it lit the candles on her cake. Her last birthday cake.

1…2…3…

Abigail’s eyes felt heavy, though she refused to let them close. The light from the candles made her eyelids glow when she closed them. Each blink felt like an eternity, but she wouldn’t let them stay closed. She refused. She did let her head fall back on the pillow, though as she studied her brother through slit eyes. Mark’s face was smiling, but his eyes were on her. She tried to smile and hoped her lips conveyed the action.

4…5…6…7

Gram was crying, silently. Abigail wondered how anyone could just let the tears fall down their cheeks without heaving or breathing heavy or anything. It was fascinating to watch really. Gramp looked like he was trying not to cry, though his blue eyes were swimming and misty. The wrinkles in his aged face looked like weathered cracks in a slab of granite.

8…9…10…

Rachel was always the strong one. Her face was paler than it had been when she walked in, and her eyes were less bright but her face was stoic and strong. She looked like a hero. And Abigail felt proud to be her sister. And tired. She felt tired and wanted this business done. The flames grew wider and blurry as weary tears filled her eyes.

11…12.

Her dad put the lighter away. It was a practiced flick of the wrist that always made her smile. It didn’t this time. It was too tiring to even think of smiling.

Her mother wiped her eyes and said in a breathy voice, “ok everyone. 1…2…3”

Everyone sang with muted joy in their voice, though there was little real cheer. “Happy birthday to you…happy birthday to you….happy birthday dear Abigail…happy birthday to you…make a wish!”

Abigail wanted to sleep, to close her eyes and go away. But she made herself lift her head a fraction, made her lungs suck in a breath. Her brain was fuzzy and distant. She had her wish. She pushed out the breath. The candles wavered and flickered out. Abigail blinked and smiled lazily before letting her head fall back on the pillow again.

The machine….the one attached to her heart….began to release a steady, unnatural bleep.

Dimly, in her smoke filled mind, in the enclosing darkness that was calming and warm she knew one thing. One thing above all others in this encroaching end.

She’d gotten her wish.