Left Behind by Jayton Young

I was crying until Jordan had come in for breakfast.
    “Hey, Sis. Do you need me to help with breakfast?” He asked, but as soon as he saw my face, he came, sat beside me, and pulled me into a hug. “Are you ok ay ?”
    I nodded and signed. ‘ Yes. I was just thinking about Daddy.’
    “Want to talk about it?” He said as he got up to put a pot of coffee on.
    I got up to get breakfast on, he would burn water if he tried, and just waited to finish breakfast before I could really get into a conversation with him. That’s one of the things I hate the most , having to put off conversations. It’s so inconvenient when you can only talk to people when they are looking at you, which is why Jordan made me the voice keyboard. That thought gave me an idea.
    By the time breakfast was done, James and Shelby had joined us.
    “About Dad…” Jordan said looking at me, trying to continue the conversation that was started before I was cooking.
    ‘ Hearing about Tory just got me thinking about Dad. I don’t want to go through that again. No more death. I’m goi ng to help as much as possible.’ I told him.
    “Will you really travel all that way to see him?” James asked.
    I shook my head. ‘ I’m having Toby transfer him here so he’ll be with all of his family and friends in familiar surroundings. I’m hoping he’ll wake up then.’
    James looked at Jordan, both with confused looks on their face. “But, there’s not a VA Hospital around here or they would have already brought him.” Jordan said.
    ‘ I’m paying to have him brought to his house. He’ll have home care there.’
    “Toby’s letting you pay for this?” Jordan said disbelieving.
    ‘ I gave some very good arguments for it and he finally conceded. I think he really wants him here as much as I do. Can you add all three trips to my main account, J? That way Toby and Troy have the access t he y need and do n’t have to go through one of us each time.’
    “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Sissy. Home healthcare is very expensive. And do you really want so many people to have access to your account? Things can get confused. I don’t want you to lose everything.” James voiced his concern.
    I got angry at that. ‘ Do you really th ink that they’d take advantage?’ I signed heatedly. ‘ You’ve known them as long as I have. Do y ou really think they’d do that? To me of all people? ’
    “I didn’t mean it that way, Sissy. I know they wouldn’t just take from you. What I meant was that with so many different people, there will be different charges everywhere. If you don’t get all invoices and receipts, it can mess up your account.”
    I slapped the table hard enough to sting my hand. Did he really think I was stupid? I was furious at this point.
    ‘ I went to school for my business degree with a minor in accounting. I may have not finished it all, but I know enough. I’m good at it and I did it for you and Jordan. I will get my degree eventually, but I think I know enough to be able to handle my own finances.’ I stood up and stomped to my bedroom, slamming the door.
    I was pacing back and forth, fuming. I know my brothers love me, but they treat me like a kid on important stuff like this. I’m eleven months older than James, how dare he treat me like I’m stupid. We were always in the same grade in school because my birthday was past the cut off for the start of school, so I had to wait a year and go with him. It never bothered me. We did everything together anyway , but we always made the same grades.
    There was a knock at the door before it opened for Jordan’s head to stick through. “Can I come in?” He asked.
    I nodded and sat down, and he came and sat on my bed beside me. “You know he didn’t mean anything by that, don’t you?”
    ‘ That’s what makes it so bad, J. Both of you make comments like that, not really thinking about what it means that you think you need to ask questions like that . Maybe it’s