One Million Eyelashes

Trigger warning: illness, death

One Million Eyelashes

Once my brother found an eyelash stuck to the inside of his glasses. Mum told him he should make a wish, so he scrunched up his face and blew it off his finger, eyes tightly shut in concentration and belief. He wouldn’t tell anyone his wish. When we asked, he mimed zipping his mouth shut from one side to the other with the self-satisfied look of someone trusted with a great responsibility. We got a puppy that Christmas, Belle. Arron held her close and whispered to me,

“It’s a good thing I didn’t tell you my wish.”

We took Belle to the beach on Boxing Day. It was bright and crisp. Dad was wearing his new bright red jacket from mum and Arron was bundled in so many layers that he was almost a completely round. If I had pushed him I think he would have rolled all the way down the dune to the grey blue sea which was slowly lapping its way towards us. Arron and I raced Belle up and down the dunes, getting red faces and sand in our boots. She panted and raced after us, desperate not to be left out of the game. Mum and dad watched, passing a thermos of steaming hot coffee between them. Mum occasionally shouted out half-hearted warnings to be careful of tiring out the puppy, but I could see they were both laughing.

***

The first hospital appointment was in February. The doctors’ mouths wrote serious lines across their faces. They asked to speak with mum and dad alone. Arron and I waited in the hall, waving at people as they walked past and counting how many waved back. Then Arron was called in as well and I was left swinging my legs on the plasticky chair, alone. I stopped waving at passers-by but I did keep looking at them, wondering where they were all going with their purposeful steps and conversations in an English that I couldn’t understand.

“Intracerebral infiltrate identified”, “adenoids blocking the Eustachian tubes”, “risk of extrapyramidal symptoms”.

Nobody spoke as they came out the office. Later on, I asked mum what the doctors had said to take all the colour and noise out of our house. She tried to laugh but it came out sounding crackly and brittle.

        “No need to worry, love”, she turned the corners of her mouth upwards in my direction, “We’re going to sort it out.” I wanted to tell her that this wasn’t actually an answer. Instead I waved a rope in front of Belle and we each tugged on it. I let her win even though I’m much stronger.

Dad was very quiet that night. He sat in his armchair with a newspaper open to the cryptic crossword spread across his lap. Sometimes I caught him looking at me or Arron. I didn’t understand his expression, and when he caught my eyes looking back he huffed some air out his nose and quickly returned to the puzzle.

“Geronimo for instance eaten by lions (4,4)”, he read to no one.

Belle looked up quizzically at this crack of light through the thick curtains of silence. No one had given her dinner until she finally took matters into her own hands and squatted down to pee on the carpet in front of dad’s chair. He jumped up and swore and half pushed, half threw her out into the garden. She got her dinner after that.

When I went to brush my teeth I found Arron in the bathroom. His left eye looked red and naked. He was looking intently at the small pile of eyelashes cradled in the palm of his hand. He lifted his head when I came in.

“How many do you think I need to make sure my wish comes true?”

“Arron, what are you doing?”

“Maybe I should wish for a million eyelashes first just in case.”

“Look at the state of your eye. Mum’ll be raging.”

“No she won’t. She said we all need to wish for a miracle.”

I didn’t hear dad go to bed. Mum’s soft voice drifted up the stairs, followed by her the pad of her slippered feet. The steps continued to outside our bedroom door. Suddenly the hallway light arced through the room and landed across my bed. She went to Arron first. Then to my bed, the shards of light from the doorway cutting dark angles into her face. She squeezed me so tightly that night. I couldn’t move. When she was gone I felt strange and uncontained, as if without her arms holding me together different bits of me might float away and never be able to find each other again.

***

In the morning dad’s clothes were crumpled and his eyes were bulging from the dark shadows of his face, but he was buzzing with energy. His newspaper sat unread on the armchair, and he sat, eyes wide, in front of his laptop.

“We’re going to Luxembourg,” he burst as I walked in, “your brother’s not well but there’s a doctor there who knows how to fix him.”

“What about the doctors here?”, I don’t know if he heard me.

Mum and dad fought a lot after that. I don’t remember them fighting before. It made my insides all curl up and shrivel and I buried myself under my duvet until the quiet meant I could breathe again. I’m not sure what they were fighting about. I don’t think mum wanted to go to Luxembourg. She does always get stressed out in airports and holds tightly to her folder with all our passports and reservations and carefully printed directions.

“Some quack isn’t going to change anything Donald, you heard what they said”, mum’s voice was louder than normal. I’m not sure what a quack is. Arron thought we might be going to see a European duck but I’m not sure how a duck would help.

***

In the end, none of it mattered. I watched my brother die from the other side of a plastic screen. He never saw the quack, and he didn’t get his million eyelashes. Maybe he shouldn’t have told me that’s what he was going to wish for. The hospital smelt of fear and sanitiser. We all had to put on masks and protective suits and the doctors checked we were all wearing them properly before we were allowed in. I imagined the layers like bubble wrap between me and the world. Maybe if I put enough on I wouldn’t feel anything. He looked very small through the screen. I imagined the screen wrapping all the way around me so that nothing could touch me. I imagined curling up beside Arron like a comma and fading away until that all that was left was him. I imagined getting smaller and smaller, leaving an emptied pile of clothes. I’m not sure my parents would notice. His eyes were closed. The machines had stopped making noises. There was a doctor. She looked at me standing next to my parents’ grief. She reached out and held my hand and through the layers meant to keep us safe I could feel the warm squeeze of her fingers and the reassuring press of another person. I looked up and met her eyes. They were kind and sad and full of life. She let go. I let out a shaky breath, and took a step into my parents embrace.