By Blood

Jennifer Dickinson

I imagine what my family would do if they’d been allowed in Teresita’s hospital room at the end of her life, taking in her bruised body while a machine plays the part of her lungs.

My sister-in-law and my niece would open their pocket Bibles and quote the verses that’ve brought them peace since childhood. They’d say Teresita is a good and special woman, something they know from me, and that her taco salads and tuna salads and taquitos will be missed forever.

They’d say they know Jesus is waiting to take Teresita in His arms because, like them, Teresita clung to Jesus during hard times. My sister-in-law would paint a picture of rolling hills, sunshine, and Teresita’s two sisters, also lost to the virus, waiting for her.

My niece, laying eyes on Teresita for the first time, would take her limp hand and whisper: “Today…you will join Him in paradise” —a sentiment Teresita would certainly agree with if she were still conscious.

My father-in-law would ask me her favorite song, play it beautifully on his trumpet, moving all of us to tears.

What comes next is what I know for sure, what I do not have to imagine.

A text from my niece: “I feel silly to make an appointment for a vaccine as a young person with good health.”

A text from my sister-in-law telling us “Nope” when my husband volunteered to pay for a rapid test for her so he could hug her after a year of separation.

My father-in-law’s voice on the end of the line, telling me the virus is a hoax and a lie.

I know for sure that last night when Teresita’s grandson, Diego, found out my relatives refused the vaccine, he looked at me from behind his square-framed glasses, tensed his brow, and asked, “But maybe if they knew about my grandma they would?”

I know this made me cry.

I know he got me a paper towel from the kitchen, that he has never done something this sensitive toward me before, because, at thirteen, he has trouble with emotions, and even if it wasn’t a hug, it felt like one.

I know my sister-in-law will post Bible verses on Instagram. Perhaps one of her followers will have a sick loved one and wish my sister-in-law could be in the hospital room with them at the end, because it is clear that the Lord is my sister-in-law’s rock and shelter.

I know my niece will attend a Bible camp this summer. She’ll make a new friend, perhaps a girl who has a terrible secret, and she will confide it in my niece, who promises to pray for her when camp is over.

I know my father-in-law will go to Lowe’s and make the girl behind the register blush when he flirts with her. I imagine this girl walked into work hungover, that Lowe’s is the last place she wants to be, and now my father-in-law has made her not want to drive her truck through the front door.

I know one day I will see my sister-in-law and my niece and my father-in-law again, when the virus is not all I think about, when it’s not killing hundreds of people every day.

My sister-in-law will make me my favorite chocolate cake. I will say I love it and eat another slice.

My niece will tell me she is marrying a man and that Jesus brought them together, and I will go to the wedding and celebrate the new chapter in her life.

My father-in-law will call and ask how my writing is going and the thought will run through my mind, as it always does, that my father-in-law is more attentive than my own father.

My own father who stood in line and got the shot.

I know for sure that I’ll be back in therapy soon, discussing how confusing it is that even though my father never asks me about my life, he cared enough about other people’s lives to become vaccinated against what has left Diego without a grandmother, her kindness, her laughter, her taco salad and tuna salad and taquitos.

And I know once a week Diego sits at my dinner table, sometimes eating taco salad because he asked for it, and he’ll tell me it is good, and neither of us will ever say what we both know—that it will never be as good as hers.

Jennifer Dickinson is a graduate of Hollins University. Her writing has appeared in The Florida Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, Maudlin House, Isele Magazine, Blackbird, and elsewhere. The recipient of a Hedgebrook residency and a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Foundation, she works as a writing teacher and book coach in Los Angeles. Connect with Jennifer at jenniferdickinsonwrites.com or on Twitter: Pinktreesj and IG: Chapteroneworkshopla.