An Atheists Promise

Josh had a vague memory of his mother, he seems to recall her in the kitchen baking something, telling him not to make a mess as he licked the spoon she used to stir the mix for a chocolate cake. The details are not clear to him. He remembers her reading to him before bed as they cuddled and her kissing him in the head and telling him she loved him. But that was long ago, and she had been dead for years. He remembers going to the funeral, but at the time he thought in his child’s mind that she would come back after a little while. The doctors would make her better again, that’s what they did. But Josh was a grown man now, of twenty-five, and had known he had been wrong long ago.

Growing up his father had never remarried when he lived with him, but would bring women to the house quite often. None stayed to move in. but the other women felt like a slap on the face on the memory of his mother, which he now regarded as a saint. He never had a good relationship with his father and regretted it now. He was never warm towards him, but not abusive either. And besides it was Josh who became cold towards him first. His father had gotten other woman pregnant after Josh had left the house after High School he knew, but had never met the woman nor the child. His father was gone due to cancer, died when Josh was twenty-four. Josh was informed that a little girl had been living with his father, the mother had committed suicide. Josh had already graduated from college and was making a decent living, and his little sister had no one else. He became the guardian.

She was a weak and sickly little girl, with blonde hair and big blue pale eyes that reminded him of his. He had no idea how to be a parent, he bought her video games, and clothes, and toys, and got her signed up to the art classes she asked for. She was obsessed with horses, and drew them all the time. The first time he felt the two bonded was when he put on horse documentaries for them to watch on the TV. She began asking him questions about the horses, and then was interested in other animals. They would spend most evening watching animal documentaries. She learned how to find funny compilations of animal videos on YouTube. He remembered how happy she was when she discovered them, and would run up to his room with a big smile ear to ear and say “Jooooooosh! You have to see this one it’s soooooooo funny!” and she would laugh nonstop at the horse making a funny sound and face, or a video of the horse playing with a dog, etc.

Josh swore he would protect Kimberly, and be a better father to her than their father had been to them. He had always been emotionally detached, but with Kimberly his heart melted. He knew she loved him, the type of unconditional love that reminded him of his mother. The type of love families were supposed to have. He would be there for her, always.

It was the summer and the rain season was here. Kimberly had been playing outside in the rain with the neighbor girl Sally. Both girls had come running in back to the house dragging water and mud, Josh first shouted at them not make a mess, but the two seemed so happy, giggling like girls do and running back to their room. He would let Kimberly enjoy her time with her friend. Josh went ahead and cleaned up the mess himself and went back to work. He had had the two girls play together lately since he was falling behind some deadlines at work and figured that Sally would keep Kimberly company as he couldn’t watch TV with her.

The next day Kimberly said that she was feeling a little sick, and seemed to have the flue, Josh gave her some cough medicine and gave the two girls his Netflix account and told them to watch cartoons, he would order some food latter. For the rest of the day he didn’t see the girls. Food was in the table he shouted, and remained in his desk typing away and finishing the deadline. This was a big opportunity for him. If he could pull it off he knew more responsibilities would be placed on him, and this meant opportunity to move up in the company.

Around 8:30 PM Sally comes down and tells Josh that Kim isn’t feeling very good, she thinks she’s sick. Josh decided to take a break and go look at his little sister. He had been sick as a kid also, a little rest will do her good. She might even enjoy missing a few days from school as he did he thought with a smile.

When he got up he saw his sister laying in bed, she seemed tired. And then came the cough… It was an ugly cough, and seemed like she had mucous in her throat. But what was worse was the way she forced herself to breath. He immediately wrapped her in a couple of blankets and picket her up, dropped Sally at her parents house and rushed to the hospital.

In the hospital they told Josh that Kimberly had pneumonia, and after talking with Josh and Kimberly they figured that she had fallen asleep in wet clothes while having her rooms window open.

Josh enters the hospital room and his heart breaks when he sees Kimberly with wired pushed up her nose, and connected to the monitoring machines. His presentation for work which he had worked so hard for is tomorrow morning, but it seems meaningless now. He’s blaming himself for what happened to Kimberly. He was her older brother, and guardian. He was supposed to protect her. He had been too busy on that god damned project and forgot to check on her before bed. All he had too do is make sure her window was closed and she had put on some dry clothes and she would have been fine…

He’s sitting next to her, small talk, not sure what to say. He sees a stack of books in a small table in the room filled with colorful children’s books. He finds one about horses, and as predicted, she loves it. He reads her the whole story, even making funny horse like voice when the horse spoke. She tries to laugh, but a cough attack stops her. Josh has a broken heart and takes all his strength not to cry in front of her. He wondered why he hadn’t read with her like this before, as his mother did. It was the most beautiful memory of parenting he had, and didn’t do it with the only person he loved in this world.

Kimberly asks her if there were horses in heaven. Josh, the atheist, lies and tells her that of course they are. He describes heaven as a paradise where she could ride with her horse friends in big open green fields covered with flowers of all colors. Kimberly smiles, and says that sounds really fun. She had never seen a real live horse before. And then Josh thought about it, and realized he had never taken her to see one. Not even to pet one at a park or zoo. He promised her he would take her too see horses all the time once she got better, and would put her in training lessons to lean how to ride the horses, and she would be with them every week.

Kimberly smiled and her face came back to life. She told Josh of how she wanted to own a whole family of horses, with a mommy and a daddy and brothers and sisters like them two. And Kimberly would be their mother and love them very much. Josh thought about that for a moment, and realized that Kim didn’t have a mother either. She must feel very lonely also, like he did, like he does… And he continued listening to Kimberly as she named the horses she would own, and talked about the cute hats she would make them wear.

Josh remembered that Kimberly asked him about heaven, and asked her who had told her about it. He wasn’t religious himself, and had never spoken about it. His sister told him that it had been Sally who had told her about it. And that his mommy, and her mommy were friends in heaven, and loved both of them very much. Josh’s eyes begin to be filled with tears. Kimberly is falling asleep. Kimberly asks Josh with closed eyes if she can go to church with Sally, he says she can. She asks Josh if he can come too, he said he could. She makes him promise, Josh promises.

He falls asleep also, his head resting next to that of his little sister. He awakes the next morning to the bright medical light being turned on in the dark room. Medical staff is rushing in, they tell him to move aside. The sound of Kimberly’s heart monitor is one long unchanging beat. Kimberly never woke up.