EVLYN T. LILLITH

NOTIFICATIONS

I can’t imagine how shocking this must be for you.

“Did you get Hannah’s socks?”

“Yeah, I got them. Lavender, right?”

“No, no. The pale green ones.”

“Oh, yeah, right. I’ll grab them.”

Parents often feel blind-sighted after a diagnosis like this. Powerless, even.

“We’re going to be late for the service,” my wife muttered, pulling the tiny socks over Hannah’s feet. It looked more like she was dressing a porcelain doll than our daughter. “If we miss another, people are going to start worrying. Talking. You know we don’t need that.”

But there are still plenty of options—new technologies for Hannah, and for you. Have you heard of a company called Schrӧdinger MedTech?

I’d grown used to driving to church with a vacant passenger seat. Lynn always sat in the back to watch Hannah, and I’d adjusted the rearview mirror to watch Lynn. These rides were usually silent, which helped us prepare for the church gossips and the comments they liked to toss over Hannah’s motionless body.

“She’s so strong.”

“So beautiful.”

“One of God’s little angels.”

“She looks better every week.”

“I believe in miracles. Don’t you?”

I was almost glad Hannah’s hearing went first.

I know you both have your daughter’s best interest in mind.

Sometimes Lynn’s eyes would fill to the brim, but she never let them overflow. She always stole the tears with the back of her hand, not allowing them the freedom to fall down her face. Our daughter’s expression had not changed in six months. Her eyes still tumbled side to side to take in what little pieces of the world they still could, but that was all.

Sometimes it’s better to know exactly what’s happening.

Lynn left the sanctuary at 12:03 p.m. because the schedule of a feeding tube is not as flexible as that of a sermon. I could feel the eyes of the congregation following God’s little angel out the door and then shifting to offer ignorantly sympathetic gazes at me.

Everyone will respect your decision.

I made my exit as soon as the service was over. From the other side of the hall, I saw Lynn and Hannah surrounded by three women, all sporting the same intentionally asymmetrical haircut. Lynn’s eyes read please help when they met mine, and I made my way over to the small crowd hovering over my nearly comatose daughter.

“We just want to keep sweet Hannah in our prayers,” said one of the women as she placed her hand on Lynn’s shoulder. “It would be easier if we… knew what to pray for, and—”

I couldn’t let her finish.

“At this point, we think it’s best if we keep the notifications to ourselves,” I replied, giving the woman a tight-lipped smile and replacing her hand on my wife’s shoulder with my own. It wasn’t a gossip’s right to know each stepping stone of my daughter’s mortality.

This way, you can be prepared for what’s coming.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and the look on Lynn’s face told me hers had buzzed too. I thanked the lopsided-haircut trio for their concerns while Lynn’s quivering hand adjusted our daughter’s breathing apparatus, and we guided the stroller out of the church.

“Do you want to look, or should I?” I asked once Lynn and Hannah were settled in the back seat of our car. We were the only two people still getting the notifications, so it wasn’t like we had to race anyone to discover our family’s most sensitive updates.

“I can check,” Lynn said, pulling her seatbelt over her shoulder with one hand and reaching into her pocket with the other. I was halfway out of the church parking lot when she set her phone on the console. “Hannah’s blind now,” she said flatly. I glanced down at the newest notification: Hannah Whitefield lost her eyesight at 12:19 PM. I flipped the turn signal, and Lynn finally allowed a tear to reach her cheek.

__________

We stopped going to church after that Sunday. Our phones buzzed non-stop with strangers’ requests to follow Hannah’s progression through regression, and we always declined.

“It would have been easier if we’d never let them follow Hannah’s page to begin with,” Lynn said. “Mary Price just tried to subscribe for the third time this week.”

“Hm.”

“Hm?” Her eyes narrowed.

“They mean well, Lynn.”

“Bullshit.”

“Or at least they think they do.”

Our phones buzzed. She froze. I checked the notification.

“Just another request. Jim Barnes this time.”

“Jesus, Simon,” Lynn blurted out, “Is there any way we can change the vibrate patterns or something? One buzz for a follower request, two buzzes for an actual notification?”

“I don’t know. I can try,” I said, tapping my way through the application.

“I can’t handle having a heart attack every time my phone goes off.”

I found the app’s notification settings. Four more taps and it was done.

“Okay. Now we’ll know something’s wrong whenever it vibrates twice.”

Lynn was quiet for a moment. “That’s the whole point of this, right?” She said. “To know whenever something’s wrong.”

“Yeah,” I swallowed deliberately. “It is.”

“Right. Okay.”

There were eight single buzzes that day.

There was one double buzz.

Hannah Whitefield had a seizure at 7:56 PM.

__________

Doctors kept an eye on Hannah that night, but we were advised to never stay in a hospital for more than 24 hours. They said it was because of Hannah’s weakened immune system, but we knew better. This was one of those diseases where it’s best to simply keep your kid comfortable while the incurable takes over. Parents don’t want to watch their child die in a hospital, and doctors don’t want to waste their time on a kid that can’t get better. The only thing still connecting Hannah’s body to life was a tube thrusting oxygen directly into her lungs. We knew hospital walls could not change that, so we went home the following morning. The doctor let us know it wouldn’t be much longer and reminded us that the notification system would continue working at our discretion. If we wanted to turn it off completely, we were more than welcome to do so. I considered it. Lynn did not.

“She’s probably cold,” Lynn said, placing Hannah in her day-bed and tucking another blanket around her trembling body. She wasn’t cold. The shivers were her body’s rejection of the air forcing it to stay alive.

“Yeah, probably. I’ll turn on the heat.”

“You don’t have to do that. I put another blanket on her.”

“It wouldn’t hurt.”

“I just… I don’t think we can make her any more comfortable.”

I stared at Hannah. Her entire body jolted beneath the pile of blankets with each pump of the breathing tube. Her eyes had rolled upward into a permanent, sightless stare at the ceiling. Her jaw now hung awkwardly because she had lost the strength to keep her mouth closed. Deaf. Blind. Immobile. Vegetative… but comfortable.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Lynn asked after a long while. She took my hand in hers.

“What, the seizure?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the doctor said it would most likely be the last one, right?” I said. A two-faced silver lining. Lynn pulled her hand away from mine. I kept staring at Hannah.

“I just…” I started again. “I don’t know if it makes things easier anymore.”

“We agreed it’s better to be notified of what’s… happening, as it happens. We agreed it’s better to know.”

“Like how it would have been better to know we were both carriers?” I regretted the words as they left my mouth, but only for that moment.

“We had no reason to think that we might be carriers. We had no symptoms, and we had no family history of it manifesting in such a terminal—”

“It’s still our fault,” I spat.

“Please don’t start,” she said. “We have the app now. We have some control.”

I paused. Hannah jolted.

Single buzz. Donna Lopez. Request declined.

Control.

“They’re being selfish. Thinking they should know whenever Hannah…” Lynn trailed off, setting her phone down on the coffee table. My silence surprised her.

“What?” She asked blankly.

I sighed. “Maybe we’re being selfish, too,” I said.

“Oh, we’re selfish? For attempting to ease the pain of watching our child die?”

“No, that’s not what I—”

“For not wanting to feel what I felt learning that my child’s health was never, ever going to improve?”

“Lynn, please, all I’m saying is—”

“For choosing to know exactly what is happening to Hannah every day so when that day finally comes we can…We—we will be…We’ll know…” She never finished that sentence. She was no more sure of how this app could soften the inevitable pain of that day.

“No. That’s not what I meant,” I muttered.

“Then what did you mean, Simon?”

Silence fell between us. My lips tugged downward as I pressed my wife to my chest. For the first time since the day of the diagnosis, I wept.

“I just want them turned off. I don’t want to be notified of everything anymore.” Lynn pulled back a bit.

“You don’t think knowing makes it easier?”

“I don’t.” Ignorance certainly wasn’t bliss, but it was admittedly more tolerable than the misery of constant knowing. “It doesn’t even help Hannah anymore. We’re just making ourselves miserable.”

Lynn’s eyebrows formed a crease between them that told me she disagreed, but after a moment, her face softened, and she nodded. “If you’ll get Hannah’s feeding tube ready, I'll turn off all of Hannah’s notifications.” Her tone was flat, and her voice was soft, but I knew she understood.

“Thank you.”

“Mhmm.”

I was two steps into the kitchen when I heard Lynn shout that the phone was buzzing. Double buzzes. A pause. A sob. Then another double buzz. I rushed back to the living room and over to Hannah’s bed. I crouched down and took her fragile body in my arms. Tears were streaming down Lynn’s face. “I was trying to turn them off!” She cried, holding her phone out to me. “I went to the application settings and it started buzzing! I…I can’t make it stop!”

Hannah was lifeless outside of a light tremble.

“Oh God, Hannah, no. Please.” I laid Hannah back on her bed and darted for the phone. I don’t know why.

Double buzz. Hannah Whitefield experienced respiratory failure at 4:12 PM.

“Simon, call 9-1-1!”

“I can’t! I can’t close the application—it’s going crazy!”

“It’s glitching! Try to go back to the home screen!” We quickly glanced at Hannah. The trembling had stopped.

Double buzz. Hannah Whitefield lost her heartbeat at 4:12 PM.

Tap, tap, tap. Nothing.

Double buzz. Hannah Whitefield lost all brain activity at 4:13 PM.

Lynn and I shared a broken look. One final double buzz. Lynn cried out.

Hannah Whitefield died at 4:13 PM.

Single buzz.

Thank you for choosing Schrӧdinger MedTech to keep you notified. Would you like to connect another body at this time?

__________

EVLYN T. LILLITH IS A WRITER OF BOTH POETRY AND PROSE BORN IN CENTRAL NORTH CAROLINA. IN 2018, SHE RECEIVED HER BACHELOR OF ARTS IN ENGLISH AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL, WHERE SHE CONCENTRATED HER STUDIES IN GOTHIC, ROMANTIC, AND MODERNIST LITERATURE. BEST KNOWN FOR HER SHORT STORIES AND POEMS WRITTEN UNDER VARIOUS PEN NAMES, ALONG WITH HER NEWLY PUBLISHED “SERIES ON PEACE,” EVLYN SEEKS TO AMPLIFY TRUTH THROUGH DIFFERENT VOICES—OFTEN SAMPLING STYLES ACROSS GENRES TO BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN REALITY, HOPE, MYTH, AND FANTASY. FIND HER ON TWITTER: @ETLILLITH.