Prologue #3
“Yes,” she told her brother firmly. “We will.” And she added a smile to it because it was not Jan’s place to worry.
Turning back to the salesclerk, Ilse gave the older woman her last card, smile still in place. “Third time’s the charm.”
“Of course.” The woman’s slightly bored tone almost made Ilse’s smile slip, but she held on to it with all her might.
Ilse watched the salesclerk swipe the card on the reader, and her heart started to beat hard. It was like asking someone out, she thought, and not knowing if that other person would say yes—-
Beep.
The official receipt started to come out from the machine.
Oh, thank the Lord the machine said yes!
They were still going to watch the game!
Tickets in hand, she and Jan hurried up to the very top of the stadium, and when they were in their seats, she immediately bought a hotdog sandwich and bottled water for Jan.
“You’re not eating?” her brother asked, surprised.
She shook her head, lying, “I’m not hungry.” But the truth was, they only had cash enough for Jan’s food and the cab ride back home.
The game started without Ilse noticing. She had been too busy making calculations in her head, trying to figure out how to make her meager pay from her office job sufficient for Jan’s needs.
A buzzer sounded throughout the stadium, interrupting her thoughts, and when people surged to their feet and chanted their favorite team’s name, Ilse realized that the game had already ended.
Jan was jumping up and down happily, saying over and over, “We won! We won! We won!”
She looked at him, at his cute and perpetually boyish face that made him seem no older than eleven when he was in fact already twenty-two-—
Jan turned to her with a grin. “We won!” No trace of despair or loneliness in those shining eyes—-
Jan started jumping again. “We won!” Nothing that would suggest he understood or even knew the predicament they were facing—-
Ilse hurried to her feet, saying with equal cheerfulness, “We won!” She bumped fists with her brother. “Yay!”
“Yay!”
As they headed down the stairs to reach the exit, Jan talked her ear off, recapping the game with blow-by-blow details and then relaying the current team standings to her.
It was amazing and uncanny, the way he could memorize the standings of every team in the NBA and yet get an extraordinarily low score on an IQ test, low enough for him to be classified as someone with mild to moderate intellectual disability.
“He will never grow old in here,” Ilse remembered the doctor tapping the side of his head as he relayed his diagnosis to her and her parents on Jan’s eighteenth birthday. “He may eventually be trained to perform basic to moderate chores, but he can never be fully independent.”
And the way the doctor had spoken, it was as if he believed Jan was a noose around everyone’s necks.
When they made it back to their place, it was quiet and dark, and she told Jan to hurry and change his clothes while she prepared their midnight snack. It was a Christmas tradition their parents had started, and even though they were gone now, Ilse was determined for the tradition to continue.
As she took out a knife from one of the kitchen drawers, she heard Jan’s heavy footsteps coming down the stairs. Later, she heard his voice coming from the living room and knew that her brother had already started role-playing.
It was one of his favorite pastimes, and as she listened to his imaginary conversation, she knew that right now he was pretending to be an NBA coach.
How nice it was, she thought absently, to live such a carefree life.
She began slicing the one-day-old Christmas loaf she had bought on sale.
He will never be fully independent. The doctor’s words echoed in her head.
If she only had herself to think of, Ilse knew she could and would make it.
But with Jan around—-
Her reflection on the knife caught her eye, and Ilse’s fingers stilled.
It would be so, so easy to kill herself.
She liked to think that the thought came out from nowhere, but she knew that wasn’t true. Lately, the thought of giving up had taken on a sweet scent that lingered in her dreams, tempting her every night, when she was alone in the darkness of her room.
Wouldn’t it be better if she killed herself?
At least then, the government would have no choice but to take care of Jan.
At least then, her worries would be over, and Jan would be in a better place.
She could just do it right now.
She could aim for her heart, thrust it deep, and—-
“Ilse?” Jan suddenly appeared on the doorway.
The knife fell from her grasp, clattering to the marble countertop.
Oh God.
Oh God.
Oh God.
How had she become so weak?
Jan walked into the kitchen, and she swallowed past the painful lump in her throat. “W-what is it?”
He handed her several pieces of mail. “I forgot to give you this.”
“T-thank you.” She managed a smile. “Go back to the living room. I’ll bring the food out when it’s ready.”
“Okay.”
She waited for him to leave before reluctantly reaching for one of the envelopes on the table. It used to be that prospects of receiving letters excited her, but now it only filled Ilse with dread.
Tearing the envelope open, she pulled out two greetings cards and was startled to find that it was from her parents and Jan. They were dated almost exactly a year ago, a day after Christmas.
She read Jan’s card first, her lips curving at his familiar and nearly illegible scrawl. Everything was also written in big block letters, mainly because he found it the easiest style to write.
DEAR ILSE,
MERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!
SORRY IF I MAKE YOU ANGRY SOMETIMES.
I LOVE YOU.
JAN
She folded the card closed with shaking hands.
Our dearest Ilse,
May this be such a wonderfully sweet surprise that you will think it is your most precious gift, and you will have no need to burn a hole in our pockets like you usually do. Even now, we can’t remember how it is you’ve convinced us that it’s okay for you to shop for your own Christmas gifts.
We love you very much. You are the image of perfection the first day you were born, but when we saw how much you love your older brother, we realize that you were even more perfect than we realized.
We used to worry about Jan, wondering who would take care of him if we were gone, but then you came into our lives, and we realized that God has answered our prayers through you.
Stay as you are, our beloved baby girl.
Merry Christmas!
Love,
Mama and Papa