sieve.

art by Mahmoud Dimardi

by heather emmanuel

 

You need to talk about Eve. Okay. I need to talk about Eve. With someone who doesn’t know

anything about Eve. Because? I still sleep with Eve’s purple t-shirt under my pillow. Because

this is a process. Because Eve is dead and the only way to get comfortable with death is to talk

about it. Say it. D-E-A-D. Louder. The doctor shouts my name then asks for it anyway.

Shouldn’t you already know? Well. I wanted to give you the chance to tell me. About Eve? If

you’d like. So I do. Tell her. That me and Eve are both Aquarius born in different months. I tell

her about Eve’s handstands and French braids and the stuffed giraffe she had since she was a

baby. I tell her about our river that isn’t actually our river but should be. I tell her about the

river. A different river from our river because our river would never do that. I don’t tell her Eve

would never do that. Why would she do that? The doctor makes a face like she wants to cough

and asks me if I loved Eve. I say yes because Eve was my best friend. She asks if I love Eve.

Present tense. Why? I don’t answer her even though not answering questions is rude. I ask her

if she knows about machines that breathe for you when you can’t. What made you think of that?

I thought doctors are supposed to be smart. Was Eve your favourite person? Isn’t that a leading

question? The door slams shut behind me. That square, brown room. The car door slams, too.

Mum doesn’t apologise. She doesn’t even drive. Just cries into the steering wheel like this is

her grief, too. Treatment, she says. Pills? No. Maybe. Mum doesn’t know. We have to wait.

Wait for what? Help. Help? They can help, she says. They can make it stop. Stop talking about

Eve. But I thought talking about Eve was the point. I thought this was a phase. She points at

me with her finger, face puffy and pink. The car still in park. Stop it, she says. Stop it, she

repeats. A machine she can switch off. Stop it, as if I can.

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