We are three years apart, and she was the glue that kept the family together. Always making people laugh, she had so many friends and stories to share. She was the last person you’d thought this could happen to.
I was at school getting ready to leave from my after-school curriculum which caused me to come home late.
The house was silent and the only sound was the train from two blocks away as I closed and locked the door before climbing the stairs to pass my parents’ room then her room then finally my room. Something told me to open her door and check her realm of memories on her wall, the perfumes she left on her table, and lastly her closet where I borrowed the sweater I wore that day to school putting it back in between the graduation gown showcasing her achievements and the jean jacket she thrifted. I knew I wouldn’t find her as she was somewhere else a million miles away at college upstate.
I let my mother know I was home over the sound of the TV and went back to my room to do homework she waved me off, letting me know dinner was on the stove. I ate and put the leftovers on a plate for my father, who unlocked the front door before turning on the living room TV to find something we could both watch. Nothing but small talk and how your days were exchanged. We were watching a comedy before he turned to me, “ I’m gonna go upstairs and to bed.” I said goodnight, watching him go up the stairs. Thinking to myself how he came to have two daughters and drove us home from chorus practices to school dances, making sure we (mostly me) were safe from car accidents that were nowhere near his fault. Except this time we weren’t sure if she’d be coming home safely at all.
It was close to midnight and I was nowhere close to being tired. I kept telling myself one more episode, but that turned into the call that changed my family’s life. I heard a phone ringing followed by my dad’s booming voice.
“What!?”
I didn’t know what to think so I went back to watching TV, lowering the volume. Almost as if I wanted to block whatever was coming.
“ WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE…”!?
I couldn’t hear the rest. That’s when reality had no choice but to set in like a car that knows it’s about to crash, and there’s no time for you to brace yourself for impact.
I found myself in my parents’ room on my phone trying to gather her last location and her friends’ Snapchat stories. While my dad was trying to get as much information out of my sister’s best friend. She wasn’t much help as she was there when it happened. It wasn’t long till we were in my mother’s Ford Explorer headed for the Holland Tunnel going as fast as her mother’s instincts would allow her.
Silence was the loudest thing I have ever heard in my seventeen years of life, especially in a car. The memories of my mom, sister and I singing to house music on the way to school came to me while looking at the designated seat she loved sitting in behind the passenger seat. The way the darkness of the car and the unknowingness of if she would ever sit in it again made it more unsettling as the highway lights reminded me it was nothing, but a memory. Who knew millions of miles away would feel like such until you were driving it in the middle of the night with your parents.
The drive felt like an eternity with questions unanswered and staring at my phone with my sister’s location on it. I couldn’t cry as I had to be strong for my mom. The woman who wanted nothing, but to be a mother to two girls. She imagined going to the dance recitals and getting her nails done with them praying one of them would turn out to be a girly girl or at least grow into someone she could be proud of.
When we got to the little town that said Ithaca crossing the bridge and the church at the end of it. It was like we all took a deep breath not letting go of it until we got to the hospital. They didn’t have my sister as they had to transport her to another one thirty minutes away. “They couldn’t have told us that on the phone?” my mother asked, infuriated and with no patience left in her body. “The transfer happened an hour ago,” the receptionist replied, nonchalantly checking her nails.
The same deep breath we took when we crossed the bridge was taken as the thirty minutes felt like five by the way my father was driving and there being no cars on the road. “Please Jesus let her be okay”. My mom prayed, clasping her hands together.
When we got to the hospital we were expecting the worst: her being in a hospital bed with tubes coming in and out of her body lifeless, and having to make the tough decision to take her off of life support. We checked in at the desk “Tindel”. My dad nervously said “patient’s first name” to the nurse who seemed like her job was worth a damn. “Allison”. The nurse walked us to a waiting room with seats surrounded by little doctor rooms you would go to for a checkup. A few nurses came out of her room and there she was in the door frame lying in bed alive.
She tried to talk but nothing came out. I figured it was probably from the screaming and the shock of her accident. There was a gash on her forehead and she complained of not being able to lie on her back due to falling on it, and had to lie on either her stomach or her side. Whilst the doctor was talking to my parents she fell asleep. I couldn’t help but stare at her and how she kept most of her life private from me as we once shared everything before sharing a wall to now sharing distance. She’d listen to Pierce The Veil, and My Chemical Romance on weeknights and ask me if I wanted to watch true crime or Scared Straight on the weekends. Our community knew me as Allison’s little sister and complimented me on how great of an older sister she must’ve been to me. I didn’t know I was crying until one of the nurses offered me a napkin. When my parents came back into the room they told me they wanted to keep her overnight and that we could get her in the morning given how she felt.
I don’t remember sleeping in the aftermath of her accident that led her to come to the hospital in the early hours of the morning. The sun came up and they let her sit up on her own. She winced, but she said it wasn’t as bad as the night before given that they gave her painkillers. A couple hours later they said she was free to go and helped wheel her to the car with a simple set of directions. I immediately thought that’s it? We took her out to eat for breakfast at the nearest Ihop then dropped her back at school. Her roommates promised to take care of her as well as my aunt who would visit her the next weekend as my cousin attended Syracuse.
The ride home felt just as long as the ride going, but with my parents and my questions answered. She was walking to a party and was struck from behind by a three-wheeler truck that caused her to land on her backside and was the reason why she needed stitches. Her best friend explained to my father on the phone that she was hit by the truck and was no longer with us. He didn’t like the statement she made to the police as it was inaccurate and nowhere close to the truth of what happened. I didn’t know what to think as a seventeen-year-old who thought she was going to lose her sister, but I did know life obviously wouldn’t be the (expletive) same without her.
