StevenA True Short Story

By Nancy Reil Riojas

2012 Smashwords Edition

Steven

San Antonio, Texas 1963

She clicked her fingers. “Get down on your knees,” Mom said while pointing to the floor.

We knew she meant it by the stern look on her face and the manner her straight arm and finger

seemed never to have flexed at all. In her bedroom, we gathered closer together in front of the

Virgin Mary and quickly kneeled.

She lit the candle beside the statue, performed the sign of the cross, and immediately knelt next

to us and said, “He’s close to death, so we’re all going to pray for him once more.”

**~ ~ ~ ~**

During our formative years, when not everything was as it seemed, my brothers and I befriended

diverse groups of people mostly from school, as each of the four us was four years difference in

age. In retrospect, the most memorable people were Linda and Steven. My older brother,

Andrew, loved his beautiful, kind girlfriend Linda. Handsome Steven was her brother. No one

knew, but I was truly smitten with Steven as I saw this perfect person: besides being tall, and

drop dead gorgeous, he was helpful, considerate, and appreciative.

At seventeen, his shoulders were already maximally formed, his lavishly full head of dark hair

laid with just the right amount of wave, and his wide green eyes, the windows to his soul, were

beyond dazzling. He had everyone’s attention when he walked into a room. It was unthinkable

that he had no girlfriend; consequently on the weekends he spent much time at our home with his

sister and my brother, playing card games, board games, reading, and eating Mom’s cooking.

Our home was small and at times I clearly heard my parents speak about Linda and Steven: they

lived two miles from our home in an apartment with their gambler father and housewife mother.

He was an abusive man. When he won, all was well, but when he lost, she suffered beatings that

most women would not survive.

I thought, “No wonder they spend so much time at our home.”

**~ ~ ~ ~ **

The snow of 1963 was quite unusual for San Antonio, so unusual that that was the only snow in

my short twelve years. We rose earlier than normal on a memorable Sunday morning and were

so excited about playing out in the snow that we forgot to turn off the alarm clock. We were

bundling up at the front door to go outside when the alarm sounded. At the same moment, Mom

slammed the phone down and started screaming. It all snowballed from there.

“Oh, no!” she cried out, “Steven and Linda’s father shot their mother last night and then he shot

himself!”

While I stared out the window at the peaceful snow, covering as far as the eye could see, I was

unable to connect that displaced horror to Steven and Linda: they seemed so wholesome.

Linda and Steven spent the night at the hospital. By the end of the following day, the doctors

were not able to save their father, yet their mother was still alive. It was determined that she

required special attention because of the massive damage to her brain, and right away she had to

be moved to a hospital in Austin, Texas. That night Linda drove her old car and Steven, his

motorcycle. The snow turned to ice, creating treacherous freeways. As they followed the

ambulance, the worst happened: Steven’s motorcycle veered out of control on the slippery road,

flipping several times before coming to a halt.

The emergency crew saw the accident in their rearview mirror, made a U turn, and tended to

Steven. All of this was too much for Linda; no words could soothe her, only sedation. Even

though trained to maintain their composure, the crew nervously snapped at each other while

tending to all three patients in the emergency vehicle. When she awoke at the hospital, she

telephoned Andrew. Not concerned about their own safety, our parents and Andrew drove to the

Austin hospital in the wee hours of the morning while I stayed home to watch over the younger

brothers.

By the following morning, they returned with Linda, and she stayed with us for weeks until her

mother was released from the hospital. As for Steven, during the following seven months, the

nurses continuously whispered about him: the fact that he miraculously lived on after the Priest

gave him his last rites was mind boggling. He suffered massive internal injuries, broken bones

throughout his body, including a broken leg, a skull fracture, and punctured lungs. With the help

of our mother, it was then that I began to believe in the power of prayer.

Although emotionally drained, Linda maintained a schedule, juggling caring for her mother

before she drove to school, then immediately returned to their apartment to care for her in the

evenings, and completed school assignments as well. In addition, every Friday night, she and

Andrew drove to Austin to visit Steven.

Time crept by while our family wallowed in worriment. Then, on a breezy fall day in

September, I saw a man I did not recognize, limping through the leaves toward our home.

Unannounced, it was Steven. Mom was elated and was able to ignore his appearance, but I was

in shock. Steven did not look like Steven any longer: he looked like a living skeleton; his facial

bones protruded; his chest was caved in; his hair was wispy and dry; and his speech was slurred.

Oh, just how deep could my shock go?

Yet, there were things about him that had not changed. He was still helpful, considerate, and

appreciative. Only weeks later, Linda, Andrew, Steven, and his newly found girlfriend sat at our

dining room table playing cards. . . . . Eventually, as they approached the end of adolescence,

eager to go their separate ways, the time came when they just stopped coming.

**~ ~ ~ ~**

Twenty long years later, while I was shopping at a local department store, the elevator door

opened. And there she stood, tall and beautiful, dressed in a business suit. She had not changed,

but I had as I was only a young girl then.

I said, “Linda, you don’t recognize me; I’m Nancy, Andrew’s sister.”

When she turned to look at me, her face slowly and pleasingly lit-up. After we hugged, she said,

“How are you? How are your parents and Andrew?”

I explained that they were all doing well. That’s when I asked about Steven.

“He died three years after his accident, complications from the injuries. Mama died shortly

thereafter.”

The elevator door abruptly opened, and we said our goodbyes. When we walked away from

each other, toward the rest of our lives, I stopped and turned around to see her for the last time

and thought, “She seems so strong.”

THE END

Thank you for reading “Steven.”

Other stories available:

Monster At My Window

Moonshiner~Revised

Hannibal

The Rabbi’s Books

Flood of 1965

U.S. Copyright Office, Washington, D.C. Literary Works by Nancy Reil Riojas