"Knocked Out on Sleeping Pills"

Looking back, I wonder if everything would have been okay if G-d hadn’t decided to give Jack a stomach virus at 3 a.m. Because without Jack throwing up all night, I think our mother could have tricked Mr. McGee into believing that everything was hunky-dory, that therapy was not in the least needed for her. But Jack says that was exactly why G-d made him sick. “G-d was trying to make His point,” he’d said. But if that were true, G-d would have given me the stomach pains, and not my brother. Because Jack was already hearing G-d’s point for awhile and I was the one who’d been ignoring Him.



The first time Jack threw up he didn’t make it to the bathroom. Little chunks of regurgitated pizza and tomato sauce splattered against the edge of Jack’s Star War’s blanket and the orange carpet of our bedroom.


I took his arm and, holding my breath, guided him to the bathroom. But again, he didn’t make it and vomit sprayed the pentagon-shaped tiles scrubbed clean only 24 hours before. “Amelia, I’m freezing, just freezing,” Jack said through chattering teeth. His skin felt like flames.


It wasn’t until Jack was safely over the toilet that I stomped into our mother’s bedroom. I turned on the light next to her night table and saw the open bottle of sleeping pills. “Mom, wake up.” She didn’t move. I grabbed one of her tiny arms and watched it flop back and forth in my hand, lifeless. I leaned my head against her chest. I could hear her heart beating as Jack hurled once again in the bathroom.


“Amelia, sweetie, mommy’s tired,” she snorted out to me.


“Mom, Jack is really sick. He keeps vomiting,” I said. But her eyes were still closed, a steady snore her only response.


After I got Jack a wet washcloth for his forehead and a can of Coke, I stared at the upchucked remains of my brother’s dinner. And this time, when my brother asked me to call Mr. McGee, I didn’t argue.