The rain had stopped, and everything would be okay. After all, she was back. She had been swept away by rainwater gushing down the street like a true river from the first flood of the season. It had come early that year. The search-and-rescue team took two days to find her. When we found her, she was dehydrated, covered in cuts, and screamed at the sight of a shower. But she was back. My baby sister was back.
I spent the entire week after we found her trying to get her ready to go back to school. What she needed was a mother, who would probably be able to make her bathe whereas I could only convince her to endure a warm washcloth. No matter how many times I told her she was safe at home and that the rain had stopped, I could not part her from the purple umbrella now permanently clutched in one of her hands.
She wore a thick coat to school on Monday, exactly a week after she had been found. She refused to walk to school alone. My palm grew sweaty from how tightly she clutched my hand. Her other hand drug the purple umbrella through the dust, too tired to hold it up properly. I would have done anything to not leave her at school, but I had to go to work if I wanted to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. “The rain had stopped,” I said. She didn’t seem to hear me, and I didn’t know what else to say.
“Hello, is this Julie? Your sister is sick, and we need you to come get her,” was all the voicemail left on the work phone said. I buried my head in my hands, silently screaming into the history textbook I’d desperately been trying to read during my short lunch break.
The girl I picked up was clutching the umbrella like a teddy bear. Her skin was so pale, I was certain the white walls had more color than her cheeks. The teacher was biting her like and urging me to take her to a hospital.
Listening to her vomit and having to carry her home, I wished I could have afforded to take her to a hospital. My worn-out biology textbook suggested infection but no treatment options. All I knew to do was to let rest; but watching her shiver and vomit, I wished there was something else I could do.
I spent the rest of the day holding her, trying to comfort her with the same thoughts. I hoped she could fight if she had reason to believe she could make it. “The rain has stopped. You’re safe at home. Everything will be okay.” Through the night and into the next day, we sat.
Her last breath was at sunset. I only whispered desperately to myself in the dark, as I clutched her purple umbrella.
“Everything will be okay.”