Every time I glance over at her, I’m struck with the thought that I might never see her again. That we’re arriving together, but that she might not leave. I have her overnight bag by my side, along with her ugly fuzzy pajamas from Mom. We’ve been shown pictures of the room she’ll stay in. It’s decorated to look like a decent-to-nice motel for business travelers with this ash-colored fake-wood paneling covering a wall, but I still can’t imagine her there. June doesn’t make sense in hospitals.
We’re led to a changing area. It looks, unnervingly, like any old dressing room in a strip mall store. She’s told to remove any jewelry.
“Will you stay?” she asks me in a small voice. I nod. “Of course.”
She’s given two paper gowns and a box for her possessions. She hands me her phone. I put it in my pocket. This is the wrongest part by far. My sister sleeps with her phone under her pillow. That she won’t have it with her is so unnatural and scary.
I open up my phone, and when I see her face icon hovering over mine in the exact location of the hospital, the squeezing in my chest gets tighter.
We don’t talk as I wait for her to change.
“These are pretty cool,” she says, wriggling her feet in socks with little rubber grips. “They’re probably like two hundred bucks a pop.” She grins, but when we’re told she has to have an IV put in, we both stop smiling.
We’re taken to a waiting area in what seems like a warren of different waiting areas. There’s a stretcher in there, but she’s told she can wait in the recliner for the moment.
I concentrate so as not to look down at my own name on her tag. I’m trying so hard to be chill, which means I’m smiling often and unnaturally. They keep calling her Jayne.
I can’t bring myself to look at the stretcher. I hate it so much.
Her vitals are taken. Blood drawn. She’s being hammy, in that June way. Cracking jokes and being affable, putting everyone at ease, and I almost want to strangle her. To demand that she pay attention to what’s going on. To understand what a big deal this is. That it’s November 19. That it’s finally happening.
A super-short, smooth-skinned Black woman with wide-set eyes and distractingly good brows comes to see us, immediately followed by an equally diminutive Asian woman with freckles. They’re both wearing thick-framed tortoiseshell glasses, and I wonder if there’s a story behind the matching eyewear.
“Jayne,” says the first woman to my sister. “How are you feeling?”
June exhales and says, “Okay.”
The doctor extends her hand to me. Her palm is cold but soft. “I’m Dr. Ellington, Jayne’s surgical oncologist. Your sister tells me that I’ll be coming to speak to you afterward.”
“Yes,” I croak, and then clear my throat. “Yes,” I repeat. I’m already feeling like a disappointment. That she was expecting a real adult, a more convincing advocate for a person undergoing surgery.
“It’s good to meet you,” she says warmly, turning to the woman beside her. “This is Sandy Chee, our nurse liaison, who’ll be updating you throughout the surgery.”
“Hi, June,” says Sandy to me. “I can also answer any questions as you have them. And I’ll let you know when you can see your sister in the post-anesthesia care unit. Oh, and please don’t bring flowers until she’s set up in her recovery room.”
June pipes up. “Sandy?”
“Yes?”
“Did you get the glasses first, or did Dr. Ellington?”
Dr. Ellington laughs abruptly, then clears her throat.
Sandy smirks and taps the right side of the frames. “It was a joint decision,” she says. “I got them first, but then Suze tried them on, and they looked better on her.” She rolls her eyes and then laughs.
“They were on sale,” pleads Dr. Ellington.
“They were on sale,” agrees Sandy.
“They’re really good glasses,” says June, nodding.
“We’ll come get you shortly,” says Dr. Ellington.
As soon as they leave, I’m terrified that I’ll start crying hysterically. I pull my lip. Rolling the meat between thumb and forefinger.
My phone rings. I check the screen.
“Tell Patrick I say hi,” says June cloyingly. And then, “What does his dick look like?”
“June, stop.” I grab my phone and walk out into the hallway.
With Patrick I’ve been as honest as I can be. I already told him that I’d be out of pocket for a few days. That I’m dealing with a family thing but that I’ll see him on the other side. He didn’t press, and my heart was so grateful, it hurt.
I need to show up for her. I need to get used to the strangeness of helping June for once and not the other way around. This phone call is the best way I know how.
Once I’m back, June sighs extravagantly. “I think the last half hour is the longest I’ve been without my phone,” she says. “You were gone, what, five minutes? Without a phone it was like an eternity.”
I check the time. They’ll be taking her in shortly.
“June,” I tell her.
“Don’t you mean Jayne?”
“I did something.”
I know from the tone in her voice and the crumpling in her face when she says “Umma?” as the door opens that I did the right thing.
“Oh, Ji-hyun, Mom’s here,” she says in Korean. “Don’t worry.” She rushes in, kissing June’s temple.
As soon as I’d gotten home from school yesterday, I’d called her. She’d left last night, made two connecting flights to arrive in the early morning after a thirteen-hour flight that would have normally been three, just to be here. Even when she called me from downstairs, asking what room we were in, I couldn’t believe it.
Our mom’s here.
Mom’s tears fall freely as she cups June’s cheeks. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
There are no more jokes. No snappy chatter. My sister begins to sob. “We’re here,” says Mom. “Don’t cry, Ji-hyun, or you’ll make your sister cry.”
I’ve been crying. I’ve been openly weeping from the moment June said “Umma.” Mom smooths the worry lines on my sister’s forehead with her hands. “Shhhh… Stop crying, stop crying. Honestly, you’ll get wrinkles.”
June laugh-sobs. Even if Mom’s deigned to descend upon us in filthy, freezing, godless New York, she’s still Mom.
There’s a knock on the door as a nurse comes in. She’s young with bright, round eyes and shiny dark hair. “Good morning, Ms. Baek. I’m Celia,” she says, and slots June’s arms into the blood pressure cuff.
“Aw, y’all make me miss my sisters,” she says in a distinctly Brooklyn accent. “I have two sisters. One in the city, the other in Westchester. I love them so much I want to kill them all the time. Who’s older?”
I look over at June sharply. “I am,” I tell her.
Celia takes a quick look at Mom. “You don’t look nearly old enough to be their mother. You look like sister number three.”
Mom smiles charitably.
“And what’s your name?”