The Eraser In My Brain Moved And My Sister Disappeared Chapter 09
Seeing them in pain hurt me too.
But my head was still slow.
Even after I died, I was still slow.
Then a man suddenly appeared in front of me.
He said he was a reaper, the one who had come to guide me into my next life.
“Mr. Reaper, if I move on to my next life, will I really forget everything?”
The reaper nodded.
“Then… can you give me back all the memories I lost? Can you let me stay with them until New Year’s is over?”
I spoke carefully.
Mr. Reaper hesitated for a long time before he finally nodded, agreeing.
He lightly touched my forehead and said, “I’ll come for you at midnight.”
Before I could answer, a violent wave of dizziness swept over me.
It felt as if someone had pressed rewind. Countless images flashed past my eyes.
When I was four, Mom lifted me high over her head while Dad stood below with his arms open.
“Up she goes! Our Sunny is flying!”
The sunlight was warm on our faces.
“Sunny is Mommy and Daddy’s little sunshine,” Mom said, kissing my cheek.
When I was seven, I went to school with a new backpack. After school, I came home and excitedly told Mom everything that had happened.
Mom listened with a smile while knitting a sweater.
“Our Sunny has such a good memory. She remembers everything.”
When I was ten, I had my first episode.
I stood in the middle of the living room and stared blankly at Mom.
“Who are you?”
The bowl in Mom’s hand fell to the floor and shattered.
She rushed over and hugged me. “Sunny, don’t scare me.”
That night, I heard her and Dad crying quietly in their bedroom.
When I was eleven, I was diagnosed.
Outside the doctor’s office, Mom clutched the diagnosis papers so hard that her nails dug into her palm.
“Progressive memory disorder. Hippocampal atrophy. There is currently no effective treatment.”
When I was thirteen, I started losing things all the time. I forgot my classmates’ names and the lesson I had learned the day before.
Mom taught me again and again, “This is a spoon. This is a bowl.”
I repeated after her mechanically, but the moment I turned around, I forgot again.
At last, she broke down and swept everything off the table.
“Why can’t you remember? Are you doing this on purpose?”
But after yelling, she held me and cried.
“I’m sorry. Mom didn’t mean it.”
When I was fifteen, Sunny was born.
Outside the delivery room, Dad said to me with red eyes, “Sienna, you have a sister now.”
I looked at that wrinkled little baby, and my heart felt empty.
That night, I heard Dad say to Mom, “If we have another child, then if Sienna completely forgets us one day, at least we’ll still have one.”
Mom said, “But that isn’t fair to Sienna.”
Dad was silent for a long time.
“Then we’ll be better to her. Even better.”
When the baby was one month old, Mom held her and suddenly said, “From now on, let’s call her Sunny.”
Dad froze.
“But Sienna’s nickname…”
“Sienna has her full name now. Let’s give the nickname Sunny to her little sister. That way, every time we say Sunny, it’ll feel like we’re still calling Sienna too.”
When I was sixteen, I broke Sunny’s baby bottle.
Mom rushed over and shoved me.
“Why are you so careless?”
I staggered and caught myself against the wall, staring at her blankly.
Mom regretted it at once and reached out to pull me close, but I avoided her.
“I’m sorry. Mom didn’t mean it.”
The tide of memories surged over me and drowned me.
So I really had been Sunny once.
So Sunny had been born because I was broken.
I looked at Mom sitting on the floor.
She finally picked up the broken doll and held it tightly in her arms.
But it was okay.
It was good that Sunny was here.
Sunny could be there with Mom and Dad in my place.
Sunny could make them happy.
They cried for a long time before Dad finally stood up.
“Let’s say goodbye to Sienna properly.”
Mom raised her head. Her eyes were so swollen she could barely open them, but she still nodded gently.
Together, they brought in warm water, clean towels, and clothes.
Mom wrung out a towel and gently wiped my face.
I could feel that her hands were shaking the whole time.
“Our Sienna always liked being clean.”
Dad helped comb out my tangled hair.
He used the comb little by little, working through the strands that had been stuck together by ice.
Then they dressed me in my favorite pale purple sweater.
Mom had knitted it for my birthday the year before last.
The cuffs were a little worn, but I had always loved it.
Mom lowered her head and mended the worn cuff. Her tears fell onto the yarn, leaving dark marks that spread through the fibers.
She lifted a hand to wipe them away, but the more she wiped, the more tears fell.
Sunny stood quietly in the doorway, her small hands hidden behind her back.
After Mom and Dad finally cleaned me up and fixed my hair and clothes, Sunny
slowly walked over.
She opened her palm. Inside was the button eye.
At some point, she had found it again.
Or maybe she had pulled the matching button eye from her own doll.
She held the button eye out to Mom.
“Mom, Sienna likes it.”
Mom looked at the button, then at the broken doll in Sunny’s hands, and took it with trembling fingers.
She found a needle and thread in the sewing basket and began repairing the doll stitch by stitch.
She mended the torn body, sewed on the missing eye, and carefully embroidered a small flower on the doll’s chest.
It was just like the little duck on the collar of my thermal shirt.
After she finished the final stitch, she cut the thread and gently placed the doll beside my pillow, close to my cheek.
“Mom fixed your doll.”
“Can you forgive me? I will never leave you behind again.”
I wanted to wipe away Mom’s tears.
But there were more and more of them, and no matter how hard I tried, I could not wipe them all away.
A few stray fireworks popped in the distance, the last belated echoes of New Year’s.
At last, the holiday was over.
Mom suddenly stood up, walked to the closet, and opened the bottom drawer to search for something.
She took out a tin box and opened it. Inside was a stack of photos, several award certificates, and a few faded bow hair clips.
Ever since Sunny was born, Mom had shoved the box away and left it there.
She looked through the photos one by one.
There was my chubby smiling face when I was one month old, my third birthday with a paper crown on my head, my dance performance at six, and me at ten holding an honor-roll certificate.
With every photo she looked at, another tear fell and landed on it.
The last photo was taken not long before I was diagnosed.
I stood beneath the old oak outside our house, wearing a white dress and smiling without a care in the world.
On the back of the photo, in childish handwriting, was written, [May Mommy and Daddy be happy forever. Love, your Sunny.]
Mom’s fingers stroked those words.
At last, she could not hold it in anymore, and she broke down sobbing.
“My Sunny. My Sunny.”
Dad walked over and hugged her from behind.
I walked over too and slowly wrapped my arms around Mom.
Even though I was dead, and even though I always passed right through her, the eraser had only erased my memories.
It could not erase the traces of the love they had once given me.
And it could not erase my love for them.
Mr. Reaper’s voice suddenly sounded beside my ear.
“It’s time.”
I was reluctant to leave, and I took one last look at Mom and Dad.
I looked at Sunny too.
Goodbye.
This time, I really would not forget.