Nothing More- Creative writing

String beans, pot roast, and corn. That’s what she wanted. She could’ve asked for anything, and that’s what she had chosen. I guess to understand this story I have to start from the beginning.

My little sister, Evangeline was born November sixth two thousand. She was seven pounds and twelve ounces; all in all she was a pretty healthy little girl. Growing up was nothing more than what would typically happen to a little girl. She caught all the usual childhood illnesses, the flu, the occasional stomach bug, a small case of the chickenpox, but nothing really out of the ordinary. Evangeline could be described as a happy, bright, blue-eyed girl, who made everyone smile. We all loved her, her friends, her teachers; even my best friend’s cousin’s boyfriend loved her.  

There is that saying, that nothing bad could ever happen to me, I’m just a little kid. That is precisely what me and my parents thought when Evie was born. But when Evangeline was seven years old, the unimaginable happened. I was in my history class, when I was called to the front office.

My teacher wouldn’t tell me why I was being called, she told me “take your stuff with you; I doubt that you’ll be coming back.”

So I did. I walked to the office; there I saw my parent’s waiting for me. “What’s going on?” I asked them

Daddy just said “We’ll tell you when we get into the car, now let’s go.”

So we got into the car and drove from the school. There was an eerie silence in the car, but it they didn’t say anything to me until we were about five minutes away from the hospital.  Mom said to me “Evangeline, collapsed in school today” my whole body went cold

“Why? What happened? Is she okay?”  Neither one of them would answer me, but I wanted to know why?   I was begun to get very aggravated, but from the back seat, I saw mom biting her lip, which she only did so that she wouldn’t cry. So I just kept my mouth shut.

“Were going to the hospital” daddy said, “but is she okay?” I asked again, even more concerned “She’s fine, were just going to find out what happened.”

We got to the hospital parking lot; daddy dropped me and mom off at the door. We went in to the front desk.

“I’m looking for my daughter” “name” the lady asked “Evangeline Adams” “one moment please” her hands flew across the computer keys. “Ah yes she’s in room A15. Down the hall, fifth door on the left” “thank you, let’s go, Sammy” mom told me. We walked quickly to the room. The door was open so we just went right on in.

Evangeline saw us “Mommy, Sammy, what are you doing here?” mom replied “to see you of course” she laughed. “Is daddy coming?” “Yes, he’s parking the car” “oh goodie.” A few seconds later daddy came in “daddy!” she shouted

“Hi baby, how are you feeling?” “Hungry” mom laughed “well there’s a surprise.”

Just then a man in a white lab coat came in “Mister and Misses Adams?” mom and daddy nodded “I’m doctor MaCcalventine”  I giggled, what kind of name is that? Doctor MaCcalventine, HA! Anyway he asked mom and daddy the usually questions, and both of them gave him the usual answers. This is so boring; I would rather be back at the school, then to be here.  I walked up to my little sister, who was brushing her baby dolls hair, and I sat on the bed. Doctor MaCalvientyne or whatever his name is, was still talking to my parents. He was whispering so I couldn’t make out what they were saying. “Evie” I asked her “are you as bored as I am?” She nodded her head, the Doc stop talking to our parents and came over to Evie.

“Do you remember what happened, sweetie?”  Evangeline said to him “my name’s not sweetie, its Evangeline” I laughed, but I stopped when mom gave me “the look.”

“Of course it is, but can you tell me how you fell?”  Doctor what’s-his-face asked

She told him “all I can remember is Mrs. Stacy, that’s my teacher; she asked me how many fish were in the picture. There were sixteen, I think, but when I tried to answer her my brain froze and that’s when I fell.”  As she was telling him this, he wrote. I swear he wrote down ever word she said. He finished writing, and he asked me

“How old are you?” “Fourteen, how old are you?” I was being really sarcastic, and mom gave me that look again. “Sorry” I told him.

He spoke “I think you’re old enough to hear this. Mister and Misses Adams, I am very sorry to tell you, but we have done some test on your daughter, and as we feared your daughter has absence epilepsy.”

I learned about epilepsy in fifth grade. So I knew what he was talking about.

“Epilepsy, Evangeline has epilepsy?” “Yes, but there’s nothing that you should be too concerned about, her epilepsy is actually very common, and should go away when she hits puberty.” We were all relieved “You should consider taking her out of public school though.” Mom nodded “okay, we’ll do that.”

We left the hospital that same day. When we got home, Evangeline jumped out of the car, and she ran to Honey and Pop, our grandparents. She told then what had happened to her. I could tell by their faces that they were shocked; they pulled her in, and gave her a big bear hug. They looked at each other, then at my parents, then to me, and then they looked down again at Evie. They had absolute terror sneaking across their faces. Seeing them scared made my stomach turn. I was scared too, but Evie was skipping towards me, so I quickly slapped on a fake smile. She was smiling like everything was fine. I guess she really didn’t understand what she had. She grabbed my hand and we walked inside.

After finding out what was wrong with Evie, everything changed. Mom quit her job to home school Evie; daddy had to get another job to keep everything going. And me, I learned just about everything there is about epilepsy. So now every time Evie had an episode I knew what to do. I would wait till it passed, then I would ask her what was today’s date, or when was she born, or who she was, questions like that.  After a while we all got use to her episodes, it was nothing more than a routine now.

But everything changed that next year, her seizures became more intense, and they began to last longer than usual. On a good day, she would seize maybe once, but on others she would have six or seven episodes.   Mom and daddy were getting very worried about Evie, so they took her back to the hospital, but doctor MaCcalventine a.k.a. doctor MaC, told them that there was nothing to worry about, and he told them to take Evie home, so they did.  The next two years were full of hospital visits, multiple up-all-nighters, and the ever continuing battle with Evangeline’s condition. But every time she was taken to see Doctor MaC, he assured them that it would go away once she hit puberty, so you could have just imagined how excited they were when Evie’s tenth birthday came.  We threw her a big party. We had the cake, the presents, the decorations; we had it all, and then some. Everyone was there, her friend’s were there, some of her old teachers came,  and even my best friend’s cousin’s newest boyfriend was there. After the party, things went back to what we called normal. Until one day Evie seized, but this seizure was unlike all of her other episodes. Mom was in the kitchen, and I was in my bedroom when it happened. Neither one of us knew she was having a seizure. All we heard was a loud thud. I ran from my room to see what it was. I flew down the stairs, where I saw my baby sister crumpled at the foot of the stairs.

“Mom!” I screamed, mom ran in and she saw Evie.  “Oh God, Sammy hurry call 911” so I did.

Moments after we arrived at the emergency room, Doctor MaC told mom “due to the fall, her brain has been severely damaged.” I asked him “but doc, she’s going to be okay right?” he shrugged his shoulder “I don’t know” he said.  Daddy came in; mom had called him in the ambulance.

Daddy shouted “what happened?”  “Evie fell down the stairs” I cried. Doctor MaC pulled them aside and talked very softly, but I could still make out a few words. Brain, fall, damage, seizure, coma, death, which was all I heard. I felt numb, my entire body went cold. A nurse came in; she told us that Evie was awake and that we should say our last goodbyes. So they took us to her room. Before going in mom tried her best to dry up her eyes, I was the first one to go in. I saw my baby sister; she was hooked up to every machine known to man.

 I sat next to her and I asked her “are you scared?” she looked up at me, her eyes swollen almost completely shut, and she smiled at me. She said “I’m not scared, are you?” “Very.” she grabbed my hand “don’t be scared sissy, I’ll be okay, you’ll see” I tried so hard not to cry, so I bit down on my lip, just like mom does.

Then mom and daddy came in. “How are you feeling” daddy asked “hungry”  “well what you want then?” mom asked her. She thought for a moment then she replied “I want string beans, pot roast and corn” “but Evie, I thought you didn’t like string beans?’ I said. “I know, but you…” she couldn’t finish, we all saw what was happening, and the very familiar symptoms that have plagued her for the past four years.  I didn’t want to believe it, doctor MaC was right.  She would have an episode, fall into a coma, and then her body would shut down, and she would die.  We all sat there in her room for about an hour or two.  Then we all heard a sound we thought we would never hear, the sound of the heart and brain monitors flat lining.

“She’s gone” I whispered, “My baby sister is gone.” I started to cry. My parents said their goodbyes to her and left me alone in the room with her body. I picked up Evie’s small hand and rubbed it against my face. She was so brave, that it made me brave as well.  I laid her hand back down on the bed, I stared towards the door, but before I left I turned to the bed and said “see you around, little sister.” And I left. That night I lay in my bed staring up at the ceiling.

“Well Evangeline, we had what you wanted, we ate the string beans that you hated so much, we ate the pot roast, which you could never get enough of, and we ate the corn, your favorite. It was really good, Evie. You picked out the right meal. I love you baby sister, and I’ll be seeing you. Sleep well.”  I closed my eyes and dreamed of my brave little sister, Evangeline, and the last thing she could ever want, was nothing more than string beans, pot roast, and a ridiculous amount of corn.