A Thursday in Winter

🏅Honorable Mention, 2023-24 Winter Writing Contest

It is a Thursday in winter, and the Carter family clusters around a hospital bed. There isn’t a sound from anyone; even Fred, the seven-year-old, has left his iPad in a chair, forgotten. In-laws, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles all cluster together around the frail, dying body of the only force that could bring them together.

Lucas isn’t here. He isn’t holding onto his grandmother’s hand as her heart monitor shows her slow flatline. He is in her arms and he is nine. He is crying because his dad is drunk again, and she is holding him as she knits a scarf for him to bear the cold. She doesn’t ask. She knows. She’s always known. Her peace-loving heart was too good for this monster of a family. He is thirteen and has gotten a suspension for starting another fight. She makes him a bowl of chicken noodle soup and sits him down. They talk for hours, until the teapot is nothing but dregs and the bruises on Lucas’ knuckles have stopped throbbing. She doesn’t understand, but she cares. She listens. No one else has ever listened.

She was always there. His first days, his last days, his heartbreaks, and his leave. She was the last one to hug him before he got into the car to drive to campus for the first time. She let him into his house during his first Thanksgiving break, and had his favorite pumpkin bread sitting, warm, on the table.

The first person he introduced Hana to was his grandmother. Hana squeezed his hand three times before the two of them walked inside. She knew about his childhood from his rare stories or moments of weakness. He was in love with her. Nan sat them both down and asked Hana about her family, her story, and her heart. That night, when she was getting ready for bed, Hana gave Lucas a hug that he has yet to forget.

Lucas glances at the heart monitor and sees the flat line. For a moment, all is still. The family shares a holy, peaceful silence. Then his mom lets out a wail and the moment is shattered. Lucas was there. He was with his Nan. He could feel her soul in the air with them, more present than she’d been in the last several months.

And just like that, the magic is gone. The peace has left. There is chaos. His mom and aunt howl in unison. His uncle, who Lucas has never seen experience an emotion other than anger, is sobbing as he turns to Lucas’ father and the two embrace tightly.

Suddenly, he wants to punch each of their teeth in. He hates them all; for not caring until now; for allowing her to break her back for them every single day; for allowing his littlest cousins to witness her death at such a young age. None of them understood her the way he did. The oldest child, the firstborn, the one with the weight of the family legacy on his shoulders. She cared for him more than anyone else ever had.

Of course she left in winter. Of course she left during her season, when her spirit could entangle itself with the snow.