Blues for Zoey Read Free Page B

fault.” Of course, my sister didn’t believ e me.
    At the hospital, they made us sit in an empty hallway while the doctor did his examination. The blue chairs were a gazillion percent plastic and about as comfortable as the crappy bleachers they have around the track at school.
    Nomi sat beside me and kicked her legs, staring at one foot and then the other swinging up, then thumping against the chair legs.
    My sister is eight years younger than me. I was thirteen when Dad died, but Nomi was only five. She says she remembers him, but she doesn’t really. (I can match all of her memories to photographs we have around the house, all the ones with Dad in them.)
    I worry about her. When you grow up with no father and a mom who’s liable to conk out for days at a time, it takes a toll on a kid. Sometimes, I think Nomi ’s forehead ought to be stamped with the word FRAGILE . Everything about her—her arms, her legs, even her hair—seems too thin. The most fragile part of her, though, is her eyes. They’re so big and glossy, it’s like she’s always on the verge of tears.
    I put one arm ar ound her shoulders and felt the thump-thump-thump as her feet hit the chair. “Don’t worry,” I said. “Just a matter of time before she wakes up again.”
    Nomi kept on thumping. “It’s because of me.”
    â€œYou just wanted to wake her up.”
    â€œBut there was B-L-O-O-D.”
    â€œYou don’t have to spell it.”
    â€œBut I don’t want it to happen to you too.”
    I hugged her close. “I’m not gonna pass out just from hearing the word. I promise.”
    â€œWhat if it’s not an attack? What if it’s because she hit her head?”
    â€œIt’s just an attack,” I told her.
    There were televisions bolted into the corners of the room. I thought maybe I could distract Nomi from blaming herself with a TV show. Unfortunately, both sets wer e tuned in to the latest episode of Big Daddy , the worst reality TV show ever conceived. They take a bunch of twenty-somethings who have never known their parents, and make them humiliate themselv es in competitions to find their biological father.
    In the first episode, all of them were exiled on a tropical island (like we’d ne ver seen that one before). They were separated into two groups: orphans who had been abandoned as childr en and fathers who hadn’t known they’d had a kid. The trick is that none of them knew which father had fathered which orphan.
    At the end of each episode, all the fathers voted on which orphan they thought was their kid. The orphan with the fe west votes was booted off the show. At the end of each season, the last remaining orphan won $250,000. This was followed by the big revelation scene of which father had fathered the winner. That lucky dad also won $250,000.
    I hated that show.
    â€œThat girl has big boobs,” Nomi commented, stating the obvious. On the screen, an orphan in a tank top swung upside down fr om a tree branch.
    â€œLet’s read a magazine,” I suggested. I started searching the tables for some kid-friendly reading material, but there wasn’t much. Luckily , the doctor came out of the emergency ward. He had a face like a bloodhound, saggy and dull but reliable.
    â€œYou’ll be happy to hear your mother’s head injury isn’t serious. Nothing that would keep her unconscious.”
    â€œYou see?” I told to Nomi. “It’s not because of you.”
    The doctor started asking questions about Mom: How long had she suffered from somnitis? What p recisely were the symptoms? Were there any warning signs prior to an attack? At first, I thought he needed this information to treat her properly, but then I realized he was just excited to be treating someone with such a rare condition. To him, Mom was a novelty.
    Nomi must have sensed the same thing because she suddenly asked, “Can we go in and see