Page 46 of My Fault
“Relax, I’ll be here at seven,” I said to calm her down, picking Maddie up and taking her to my car.
“You know what, Nick?” she said, running her fingers through my hair. Since she’d been old enough to do it, her favorite pastime had been messing up my hair.
“What?” I asked. Despite our joking earlier, my sister was smaller than normal for her age. She suffered from type 1 diabetes. Her pancreas didn’t produce any insulin. For two years, she’d had to take shots three times a day, and we’d had to be very careful about what she ate. It was a common disease, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous. Madison had to keep a blood sugar monitor on her at all times, and if her glucose levels got out of whack, we had to give her shots or food.
“Mom said I can eat a hamburger today,” she replied with a radiant smile.
I frowned at her. My sister didn’t lie, but I didn’t want to take the risk of letting her eat something that would make her feel bad. And I definitely wasn’t going to call her mom to find out if she was telling the truth. Contacts like that had to go through Anne, and she hadn’t said anything to me.
“Maddie, Anne didn’t tell me anything about that,” I said as I put her in the driver’s side. She opened her eyes wide and stared at me.
“But Mama said I could,” she insisted. “She said it’s my birthday and I can go to McDonald’s.”
I sighed. I didn’t want to force my sister to miss out on something all little kids like. I hated that she couldn’t just enjoy a normal life. I’d had to give her injections in the stomach, and I hated the bruises that the continual injections left on her pale skin.
“Fine, I’ll call Anne and see what she says,” I told her, opening the trunk of the car and taking out the car seat.
“Nick, will you play with me today?” she asked. It was evident to me that the caretakers who were raising my sister didn’t like to play the games she liked. My mother was never home; she was always off traveling with her dickhead husband, and my sister spent too much time with people who didn’t love her as she deserved.
“Speaking of playing, I’ve got a present for you, Princess,” I said as I adjusted the seat. I stretched out to grab the round package wrapped in shiny paper with a big bow that the sales attendant at the store had wrapped for me.
“Yay!” she shouted, jumping up and down.
With a smile, I handed the gift to her. Its contents couldn’t have been more obvious.
She scratched off the paper like an animal, revealing the fuchsia-colored soccer ball.
“Ooh, pretty,” she said. “I love it, Nick! It’s pink, but it’s a really pretty pink, it’s not that little baby pink Mom likes so much. Plus Mom never lets me play soccer, but I can play with you, right?” she shouted, almost bursting my ear drums.
What could I say? My sister loved soccer, way more than any of those cheesy dolls her parents wouldn’t stop buying her.
I looked at her blue dress, her patent-leather shoes, and her lace leggings.
“Who dressed you?” I asked, picking her up again. She was light as a feather; she probably weighed less than the ball I’d just given her. She was like my mother in that way, and just looking at Madison always gave me an ache in my chest. She was a consolation in a way for losing my mother when I was so young. The only ways she resembled me were her bright blue eyes and her dark lashes. She even had my mother’s dimples!
Maddie gave me a sour look—a look she’d clearly learned from me.
“Miss Lillian wouldn’t let me put on my soccer uniform. I told her you and me played together, and she chewed me out and said I shouldn’t be doing exercise because I’ll get sick, but it’s not true, I can play with you as long as I’ve had my shot. You know that. We can play, right, Nick, can’t we?”
“Easy, kiddo, of course we can play, and you can tell Lillian that when I’m here, we’ll play whatever we want, got it? I’ll get you some clothes so we can do it without messing up your dress.” I kissed her on the cheek and strapped her into the seat. She wouldn’t stay still; she kept toying with the ball, and it was several seconds before I finally had her snug and could return to the driver’s seat.
I called Anne along the way and asked about the hamburger, and she said yes, McDonald’s was fine. Once that problem was resolved, I talked to Madison while I drove to my favorite McDonald’s in Las Vegas. Before I got her out, I grabbed her backpack with the injection she had to take every day at the same hour before lunch.
“Ready?” I asked her, and lifted her dress, pinching a bit of skin under her belly button and bringing the needle close to her translucent skin.
Her eyes always watered, but she never complained. My sister was brave, and I hated her having that disease. If I could have, I would have had it in her place without a second’s hesitation, but life was like that: unfair.
“Yeah,” she whispered.
Ten minutes later, we were eating, surrounded by lots of laughter and people with screaming children.
“Is it good?” I asked, watching her get ketchup all over her face.
She nodded. It was nice to see her eating.
“You know what, Nick? Soon I’ll be going to school,” she said, stuffing her mouth with fries. “Mom said it’ll be lots of fun and I’ll meet tons of new kids. Mom says when you started school you used to get in fights with girls like me because they wanted to be your girlfriend and you didn’t want to because you said they were dumb.”
I tried to conceal my anger at knowing my mother was talking about me as if she’d been there for me, a good mother and not one who had left me when I’d needed her most.
