The Door Charlie Draws

My brother Charlie is dying and nobody will tell me the truth. They keep saying

he's just sick, that he needs special care, but I see it in their eyes.

Every time he comes home from that place, he's different. Paler. Quieter.

Last week I found Mom crying in the bathroom at three AM. She didn't know

I was awake. I asked her when Charlie was coming home for good and she just stared

at me with this hollow look. Said nothing. Yesterday I snuck into his room while

he was at the hospital. His walls are covered in drawings, all of them the same thing.

A door. Just a door, drawn over and over in black crayon. Hundreds of them.