up and cozy. Amandine was sitting in my
lap, her head lolling against my shoulder
with sleep.
My mom was in mid-handing me a gift,
when Amandine started to cry her little lungs
out of her tiny body. Amandine was inconsolable, I held her close against my chest,
rubbing her back while whispering sweet
nothing into her ear. My mom was starting
to panic slowly but surely when Amandine
didn’t stop crying. The little girl never was a
real cry baby, sure she cried but it would be
over within minutes when we put her favorite pacifier in her mouth. I think the crying
lasted a little over five minutes, and when I
had thought that it seemed to take forever, I
clearly wasn’t prepared for what followed.
SUDDEN SILENCE
All of a sudden the crying stopped at once.
Silence draped over us in the form of a thick,
uncomfortable blanket. I removed Amandine from my chest carefully, holding her out
in front of me. The sight of her pale skin, her
limp limbs, and the look of her wide, empty
eyes, that were staring right through me into
nothingness still hunt me to this day. My ears
were aching with want, no with need, to
hear a sound pass her lips. Nothing. I can’t
remember who called the ambulance, my
mom or my dad. I do remember how the
sound of the siren in the distance tugged at
my heart, how an almost inhuman sound escaped me when the paramedics pried the
lifeless body of my sister away from me, and
how sobs wrecked my body as I clung to my
mother.
My parents and I raced to the hospital,
trailing behind the ambulance where they
were working on Amandine. When we were
refused access to the room they rolled
Amandine in on a stretcher, my father lost it.
I had never seen him so furious, his face was
red and his normally warm brown eyes were
burning with anger. When he finally hit the
nurse standing in front of the double doors,
the guards had to restrain him and work him
to the ground. Beaten down, my father’s desperation got the better of him and he started to howl while tears were rushing down
his cheeks.
NEWS
Time passed, fatigue took over. Suddenly he
was there, the doctor. The tall, dark skinned
man was sporting the same black pouches
as my mother, though they seemed to suit
him. The doctor talked to my parents, he
was using difficult words and I had to try my
best to keep up with the conversation. In
the end, I still didn’t get what he had told