The Children's Hospital

72

Praise them! my sister sings. Praise their last days!

But I am silent.

Praise their last days! she sings out again, as if I had merely missed my cue.

I don’t feel like singing, or praying, I say.

The whole hospital trembles, and all over people look out the window or at the ceiling, expecting some new catastrophe. It’s not a matter of feeling like it, she says when she has recovered from her shock.

Our brother is merciless, I say.

Our brother is perfect, she replies.

Our brother is cruel.

He does not know the meaning of that word.

It would be better if they had all drowned.

Who are you to question the violence of grace?

I am he who commanded grace, I shout, and stretch myself to stand over the whole hospital, and for a moment I am a giant in the sky. Thin and rarefied and empty.

You are the recording angel, she says, after a moment has passed, and I feel as foolish as I look, a hollow spirit, full of air. Do not torture yourself with memory and with doubt. Sing with me. I am crafting a lullaby, you know. When I am diminished again she starts to sing, a dull, quiet croon.

Why is it so hard to remember, I ask her, how richly they deserved it?