Five Minutes Longer

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fifteen minutes until my car backs out of the driveway for zero period band practice, and my sister’s door is still closed. I pull a baseball cap over the brown mess I didn’t bother smoothing into a socially acceptable mold of hair gel and guy-style. Grabbing my trumpet and backpack, all I can think about is Mr. Slater giving away my first chair position for being late. He threatened as much last time.

I glance at my watch and lean closer to the wall separating my room from my sister’s. No sounds of zipping backpacks or the off-key humming she likes to do when she’s getting ready. No meds-induced heavy breathing either. Even her service dog is silent.

Sophie sleeps hard. I think how it’s a miracle she wakes up at all after swallowing the mounds of pills she takes every day.

The outdated pictures in the hallway rattle when I close my door harder than I need to. I hardly recognize the cookie-cutter family posing with coordinated smiles and matching Christmas vests like none of them have a care in the world.

I stare at Sophie’s door handle and wonder how many fingerprints smudge its shiny surface. How many times I watched mom’s hand hover over it, worry lines underneath her smile. I roll my eyes and huff because she’s probably hunkered down under a mound of blankets next to a stretched out yellow lab. But as much as I try to shake the weight off my shoulders, I wonder if this will be the day Sophie doesn’t wake up. I steel my knees in case it is.

I think about What If? I’d be an only child. Again. Both my parents could be at the same performance on the same night listening to me playing a solo I’d earned in jazz band. I search the picture with just me and my parents taken before Sophie was even born. Before the world changed color. The kid sitting in between his parents smiling too big has no clue.

If something was wrong, Nana would’ve alerted. She’s trained to get someone and then lay with Sophie until she stops shaking. My heart beats one of those thumps where it feels like two at the same time, so I take a deep breath. I shake my head at myself because if Nana needed help, she’d be whining. Probably hasn’t even been taken out yet.

I reach for the handle but then dig my phone from my pocket instead.

I’m leaving in five. And if you want

a ride to school, you better hurry.

Hopefully she reads it. Hopefully she can.

Schrodinger’s sister.

I smirk at my joke but immediately curse myself for being cavalier. Not supposed to make jokes. Rule number 372 when you live with a chronically ill sibling. At least my physics teacher would be proud.

Familiar morning sounds of Mom rustling lunch bags come from the kitchen, and the smell of coffee beckons me to follow. With one last glance, I curse the shiny handle and tell myself Mom can check on her. She’s better at Sophie Duty anyway. And I’m seventeen, practically still a kid myself with five months of high school to survive so I can make it to college.

One of us has to.

“Good morning, Sunshine,” Mom says. She’s sitting at the kitchen table sipping from a chipped mug. She slides the pamphlet she’d been reading across the table to my dad and looks at me the way she does when Sophie isn’t around. Like she sees me. “You get some sun yesterday? You’re a little pink.”

I touch my cheeks, but they don’t feel warm. I shrug.

“Hey, Theo.” Dad spoons sugar into his morning coffee and eyes the folded paper in front of him.

“Hey.” I pour my own into a paper carryout and slap a plastic lid on top. “Sophie’s not up and I gotta leave. Mr. Slater’ll be pissed, I mean, be mad if I’m late.”

Dad looks up, and a watch your language warning flashes in his eyes. As he opens his mouth to say it, his attention shifts and his face softens. “Hi Sophie. How you feeling?”

Standard greetings around here. Good morning, Sunshine for me and How you feeling for her. Despite the lecture I almost got, the knot in my stomach softens enough to make breakfast palatable as Sophie stumbles into the kitchen. I grab two slices of toast and a boiled egg from the food my mom has laid out on the table and wrap it in a napkin. Nana sniffs at the bacon and practically sits on Sophie’s feet.

“Hi, Daddy,” Sophie says. “My face burns a little, but I’m okay.” She walks over and drapes her arms over my mom’s shoulders. Nana whines. Someone needs to take her out.

“Mom, I can’t wait for her. I have to go.” I glance at Sophie. She sits in her chair next to Dad and begins to count out her morning pills as Mom piles bacon and eggs onto her plate.

“You have ten minutes to eat and then you have to get dressed. Theo has to get to practice, so I’ll take you when you’re ready.”

Sophie looks my way. “I can do better. I’m just real tired this morning.”

I grab my keys from the hook and am about to say see you later when Sophie gets a distant look in her eyes. She squeezes the pill bottle in her hand as her arm curls into her body. Mom is buried in another pamphlet.

“Mom!” I stand at the door, watching the scene in slow motion.

“Hun.” She nods to my dad and is out of her chair in a second. He looks at his watch.

Mom is petting Sophie’s hair, whispering into her ear. Nana bolts for the emergency med bag and drops it in front of Mom. Then she lays across Sophie’s feet, head down and eyes alert.

Sophie’s face is tangled with too many commands. Her left eye blinks over and over while the same side of her mouth is being pulled like a start chain on a lawn mower. The other side of her face looks completely melted as if it could slide down her body and onto the floor.

And then I’m thinking of that stupid On Top of Spaghetti song we used to sing when we were kids at summer camp. The one where the meatball rolls off the table and out the door. The knot in my stomach is back and brought a friend. I blink back the hot wet in my eyes and swallow the mess forming in the back of my throat. I fix my stare at Nana and hate myself for looking away.

Mom stands straighter and picks up the emergency bag. Nana sits up and puts her face on Sophie’s lap. Her arm loosens from its pretzel shape, and the left side of her face smooths into normal.

“Under a minute,” Dad says. “We’re good.”

He means we don’t have to call an ambulance or go to the emergency room, but my jaw clenches at his choice of words. Sophie smiles and only the left side of her face curls up. The right side isn’t as melted anymore, but it’ll be an hour or so before it works right. I check the clock on the wall and see I have exactly twelve minutes to be on the field.

I slip my jacket off the stand by the door and say see you later, but no one responds. As I close the door behind me, I hear the usual slurred I’m sorrys from Sophie and the Don’t Be Sillys from Mom. Nana will get a big treat for bringing the bag, even if Sophie didn’t need it this time.

Outside, cars zoom by on the main road out of our neighborhood. Morning walkers wave their Good Mornings to each other as they wiggle down the sidewalk. Birds sing their songs in the trees above. It’s one of those January mornings where the Northern California sky is bright and the air is brittle. A balmy 39 degrees. I blow into my hands to keep them warm.

The door of my old truck squeaks open and I settle onto the bench seat, my bags and cold toast next to me. I turn the key and gas the engine to start the seven minute drive to school, cranking the defroster so it works faster. No time to plug in my phone for tunes. I can make the field if I park in the faculty lot. It’s a risk, but I can always move it before real school starts. I might be able to get Bella’s yearbook photographer pass so I send her a quick text. As I’m about to shift into gear, a knock on the passenger window startles me.

“You forgot your lunch,” Dad says. “Mom told me to bring it out to you before you left.”

I lean over and crank down the window enough so he can pass the bag through.

“Thanks.” I cram the paper bag into my backpack. “Hey Dad, do you think you could write me a note in case I’m late?” I look up when there’s no answer, and Dad’s halfway up the walkway. “Okay, then.” I wind the window back up and shift into gear.

Nine minutes.

FIVE MINUTES LONGER is a story about grief, love, and accepting the messiness of life, complete at 62,000 words. It will appeal to readers who have enjoyed the themes of Marcella Pixley’s READY TO FALL and Jennifer Niven’s ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES.

This project is the culmination of working with my target audience as a literature and composition teacher and my personal experience raising a daughter with epilepsy and intellectual disabilities and her brother who suffers from survivor’s guilt. I hold a B.A and M.A in English and am pursuing a PhD in mythological studies.