Hannah's Dead

 Al rang me on the phone. The first few times I missed it and it went to voicemail. I called back. When he answered all he spit was, "Hannah's dead." He then hung up. I called him back, and he was in a mental frantic trying to piece together how he was financially going to get over three-hundred miles to a Las Vegas, Nevada hospital. 

It being towards the end of the month, I was completely broke. I phoned Mindy, my brothers ex-wife, "Is it true?" 

"Yes." 

"Fuck." 

I hung up, and told my husband and father the news. I then started phoning friends and family that could lend us money for Al to get to his daughter that hovering on life support at SunRise. 

Those words the way he cracked them to me eat at my soul. I hear them so crisply in my ears, like a whip snapped, and still ringing. 

We found the money to wire to my brother, provided by my niece Kelly. She has always been the only sturdy one I can count on during trying times. Now that my Mom is gone, I know that if worst comes to worst she is 100% reliable, and always has my back. I would do anything for her. 

After the money was wired to my brother, Al, we skimpy slept until the morning and tasks could be done. My husband knocked down the door of the pawn shop pawning his beloved guns to get me a ticket west to aid my brother and see my niece. 

We have been in this place before. Watching a loved one relying on life-support with  no brain activity. It had been our brother, Paul. 

***

Holding her hand was warm and swollen. Her slender jawlines now shadowed the pudge of a swollen double chin. Her eyelids bubbled with small slits. Her beady brown eyes that had once held so much life were no longer present. She was gone in everyway humanly possible but my brother and sister-in-law hung onto a glimmer of hope.