A/N: this is the first time I've put up any of my original work for people to see. So please be kind, but consturtive too!

My Jessenia

“Pool boy’s here.” Jessenia said. I did as she expected and rolled my eyes. I had promised Mamma I would take care of her, do as she asked.
“Great.” my voice dripped with the same poison I was sure would kill me, if I were forced to take it much longer.
“Mornin’ ladies.” Matthias greeted as merrily as ever. “How are you, Jessenia?” my eyes must have lingered over his perfectly tanned body too long, because my sister sighed and heaved her thin, frail body to its feet. Jessenia nearly fell face forward into the pool but quick as a whip Matthias had her.
“I’m not a child don’t treat me as one.” she snapped at him.
I stood and let my hand brush his lovingly as I took my sister. I led her past the neatly arranged furniture, up the deck and into the sliding door that dropped us in the kitchen. Tammy, the house cleaner, was standing there waiting. She smiled sweetly, but did not dare to test the waters with words yet.
“Where will you be?” I asked.
“I’m going to take a bubble bath, then curl up with Frodo.” I wasn’t sure if Frodo was the Lord of the Rings books or her cat but didn’t ask. “If Daddy calls, please, tell me.” Since she said please, I knew she wasn’t feeling well, not that she ever did anymore.
I told her she’d be the first to know if our father decided to take the time out of his ‘busy’ schedule to call and check on her. After that, I returned to Matthias and the pool. He was standing near the deep end skimming the water with a net. I could see from the test strips crumpled on the table he’d already checked the water. He looked up at me and gave a worried smile.
“What the doctor say yesterday?” It touched me that even though she treated him so badly he still cared.
“The same as always, more chemo, more meds, 6 months to live. Dad broke down in tears so I had to drive home. Then he couldn’t be bothered to stay around, he took off with Maggie,” my voice sounded bitter and I knew it. I was tired of hearing six months to live. Six months had stretched in to a year. We’d been through a year of optimism before that then some test showed the cancer had spread. It was in her lungs, on her skin, doctors feared it would attack her stomach. We were all tired of six months. We just wanted a solution without all the pain.
“Mom said to call. You know if you need to talk to someone. I think she misses being around here.” His mother had been our house cleaner until my mom had died. Then Dad fired her, it had taken Jose weeks to talk him into hiring Matthias to do the yard work and clean the pool. My Matthias. He’d graduated from high school a year early, last spring, and had a paid way to any college of his choice, but he stayed here with me. He didn’t want me to be alone.
After a while, I stopped watching and helped with the lawn mowing, watering, planting, weeding, and pool cleaning. We even dropped into pleasant conversation about anything that came to mind. About everything that came to mind. Nearing dusk, I handed him a check, Dad had made out that morning. He leaned in for a kiss and was gone.
My heart was still a flutter when I went to help Tammy with dinner and Jessenia. We didn’t talk much. Her life was too perfect for me to bear. I couldn’t wait to see her leave that evening. When she did, I brought Jessenia her dinner and meds. Then we sat together for a while.
“You shouldn’t get so involved with the work.” she scolded me.
“I needed something to do, though.”
“My barf bucket needs cleaning.” She thought I blamed her. Nothing I said would change her mind; she just thought I thought she had gotten sick on purpose. Therefore, to save the argument I took her bucket to the bathroom and cleaned it out. When I returned she was sound asleep so I went to shower then bed.
“Josie! Josie!” I bolted up in bed. Was it real or dream? “Josie I need you!” my sister’s cries were carried in on the cleansing morning breeze from an open window.
I peeled back the covers, soaked with sweat for tortured dreams where I relived our mother’s death and Jessenia’s diagnosis. My feet found their slippers with out my command. I ached from head to toe but refused to get sick. I stumbled in to her room.
“Is that you?” she asked. I nodded taking in her thin frame. My sister had been beautiful before she got sick. Now her once natural all year tan was gone and her skin was a sickly yellow. Her rosy red lips were chewed raw from fits of pain, her neatly kept hair was gone and her baldhead shined even with the little light at this early hour. “Josie?” she called again her voice even more panicked.
“I’m right here. Can’t you see me?” She was poised looking right at me on the edge of her bed.
“No, I can’t see.” was all she said before she tipped forward on to the floor in a seizure. It wasn’t like the one Johnson had done in the school play where he threw himself all over the floor. Jessenia laid in one spot her muscles jerking at odd angry angles. I dropped to my knees next to her pushing way her walker and wheel chair. For some reason I rolled her on her side and was glad, I had when saliva poured out, running down her cheek and pooling on the floor. Fear flooded my veins as I watched helpless. It ended bluntly a minute or two later and she was still as death. One hand found the phone and dialed help while the other found her pulse. 911, an ambulance was on the way. I tried Dad’s cell and got the voice mail. I left a message marked it urgent then wrote a note for Matthias and Tammy when they came. By the time the medics burst through the door, I was dressed. I followed them out into the ambulance with my sister's always packed duffle bag.

“Are you with Metzelar?” a doctor in his mid-thirties asked me. I nodded. “Do you have any adults with you?”
“I’ve called our dad, but can’t reach him. I could try my brother and his wife.” he grimaced.
After a few seconds thought, he told me to follow him. The doctor led me in to his office, the plaque on the door naming him Gregory H. Bauer MD. He had a nice office, but the smile he kept giving me had me worried. I knew that sympathetic look. He dialed the extension then instructed me to dial Jose’s number. My fingers nervously punched out the digits. After a few moments, the doctor began speaking.
“Yes, hello. This is Dr. Bauer am I speaking with Mr. Metzelar?… I’m a doctor at Creekview hospital and your sisters are here. I don’t mean to alarm you….. Yes, we’ve tried contacting him but he is out of reach… Hour and a half?….. Yes, it’s spread…. We don’t know yet…. Of course I’ll keep and eye on them Thank you.” he then hung up the phone and took me to see my sister.
Three hours later Dad still hadn’t shown up. Jose and his wife, Trinity, and Matthias had though; Tammy had even called and said she’d wait until our father came home. However, our own father hadn’t even bothered to answer his messages. The four of us sat in the waiting room, our hearts beating wildly waiting for the nurse to tell us we could see Jessenia. Jose was flicking through TV channels; Trinity was knitting a sweater for her baby.
“How bad is it?” the familiar voice of my dad asked behind us.
“Her brain was attacked by the cells, which they hadn’t seen. A tumor started, and that caused the headaches, this morning’s blindness and seizure.” Jose said with out looking away from the screen.
“Oh God.” Dad groaned. I knew that tone, it was the same tone he’d had when the doctors told him about Mamma’s accident.
“He’s already waiting for her.” I muttered under my breath.
“The doc has everything set up for surgery. Pre-op is at 4:30 in the morning. We just need your okay.” Jose continued.
“Can I see the doctors?” Dad asked.
After Dad and Bauer chatted, we were brought in to see ‘sleeping beauty’. She looked so small for 19. My heart sagged to see her laying there. Matthias never once left my side.
“Daddy, no machines. Just let me die.” we all stared at her. Her eyes hadn’t opened yet. “Don’t keep me alive the way you did Mamma.” Dad started to protest and my heart stopped beating. “Please, no more pain.” she slipped back into a deep sleep before we could answer.
Dad left to get the papers drawn up. I waited. After a mostly ignored dinner, Jose forced me to go home. Nevertheless, I couldn’t stay in that big empty house so Matthias took me home with him.

By 3:45, I was holding Jessenia’s hand. She chatted merrily about fashions, movie stars, and cute orderlies. I tried my best to keep up my end, even got one of the guy’s numbers.
“I’m so sorry,” she said suddenly after a fit of giggles.
“For what?” I asked faking ignorance.
“I shouldn’t have been so hard on you. Being sick is no excuse.” I started to tell her cancer is more than the flu but she kept going. “I was awful to you after Mamma died. Don’t be like that when I leave. Life is too short.” she squeezed my hand and leaned back in her pillow. “Thank you, Josephine.”
That was as close as she ever got to saying ‘I love you, Josephine’, ever. When Gregory Bauer MD came out in to the waiting room after surgery, he didn’t have to say a word. I already knew what he was going to say. I already knew my sister, my Jessenia, was gone. A week later, we laid her to rest next to Mamma, and to this day on the anniversary of her death, I go to see her.
“Mommy! Can we go?”
Matthias brushed a binky off on his pant leg and stuck it in our son’s three-month-old mouth. My fingers traced today’s date, August 1, on my sister’s tombstone. A tear rolled down my cheek and I took a deep breath before looking at my daughter. I thought to tell her all about her aunt right then but instead I stood up and took her hand.
“Yes, my little Jessenia, it’s your birthday. We should be celebrating life.”