Wait, Be Sure by Makenzie Copeland
Sara had walked a hundred people to the edge. She held their hands. Adjusted their pillows. She even smoothed their sheets so nothing caught on fragile skin.
But now it was her father’s pillow she fluffed, her father’s hand she held. And she didn’t know how to do it. She didn’t know how to be the family. Or how to bear this pain.
He looked smaller than she remembered. The man who once carried her on his shoulders, now lay in a narrow bed, thin and still. She tried to match this fragile figure with the father who once seemed unbreakable. But the pieces didn’t fit. If he was fading, what did that make her? Suddenly the world felt heavier, as if it knew she were about to carry it alone.
“You look tired, Sara,” he rasped, his voice like sandpaper on wood.
“I’m fine.” She lied. “How’s today?”
“I’m feeling better, those meds—”
“Mom found them,” she cut in. “I know you didn’t take them.”
He gave her the look that used to catch every secret she’d tried to hide. The time she had thrown a party while her parents were out of town.
“I’m not one of your patients.”
Silence settled, familiar as the hush before a monitor flatlined. His breaths became shallow, and uneven — like the last autumn leaves, clinging to a winter branch. She knew this rhythm. She had watched it a hundred times. But never with her own blood moving under the skin she touched. It was stranger than she expected, like pressing her chest into a mirror and feeling it breathe back. Sometimes, when his breathing shifted, she’d almost call the nurse. But she stopped. Wait to be sure.
“Remember when you taught me to drive?” she said.
“You were a maniac.” he chuckled.
“You said it was like the cops were chasing me.”
His mouth twitched. “Told you to wait before changing lanes. You’ve gotta wait to be sure.”
She smiled. He’d said it about everything. When they’d go fishing, “Don’t yank the line yet! Wait to be sure he’s hooked.” Crossing the street, “Don’t just look once, wait and make sure nobody is coming.” He even would have her measure twice before cutting wood. She used to roll her eyes. Now she held on to it like a rope.
For the next few days, she stayed beside him. They told stories, from years ago. Shared many laughs about the memories they had together. And when it got quiet, it was hard. She still stayed. Thinking of how she would go on without him. She sat, waiting for the small squeezes of his fingers. The quiet “I’m still here.”
When he stopped breathing, it was like the air forgot how to move. She waited though. Because that’s what he’d taught her. Wait, be sure. And when she was, she laid her head on his chest, listening to the silence that had taken his place.
Makenzie Copeland. Homeschooled, highschool student who loves to write and read.
Image courtesy of Makenzie Copeland
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This is a beautiful piece. You captured something so touching and full of emotion. Keep it up!