caelum

Kind of a long story, but I'll try to shorten it up.

My brother's close friend was in a bad car accident a few weeks ago. He needed surgery for a broken pelvis, broken femur, plastic surgery on his face, and has been in an induced coma for a week. It's been a difficult time, especially for my brother. When me and him finally saw him in the hospital bed with tubes sticking out everywhere, it hit us pretty hard. The friend has always been close to the family and lived with us for a spell in his teens to get away from a troubled home.

Where the crazy person came into it, and I mean nutcase, is when we met the friend's sister, thirty-ish, in the hospital waiting area one day, who had been estranged from her brother and whom we had never met. Now—she gave me a funny feeling right off the bat. She was a little too. . . cheery, given the circumstances. All smiles and bright, even when my bro, one of the toughest guys I know, was having a hard time keeping a straight face.

Immediately, she started making the situation about herself, making her out to be the most effected person and the center of attention. On top of this being weird in and of itself, it was weird because we're a lot more family to the friend than she is. But she started playing the family card anyway in little power games against us. First she demanded my brother hand over the friend's belongings, namely his car and wallet, which my brother refused to do for a few reasons: the brief time the friend had been awake before the coma, he had expressly told my brother to watch over his stuff; and two, it's absurd, this estranged sister coming in out of nowhere and demanding his stuff. There's no way he'd want her near it.

Well, she didn't like getting told no very much, and the next thing we knew we needed a password to visit the friend, even to get into his area of the hospital. No ****. Apparently family of unconscious patients can do that. We we're like wtf. We haven't seen him since and she won't lift the password till we hand over the car and wallet, and as for her brother’s spoken wish, she hand waved it away or outright accused us of lying.

Around this time my brother started getting these really pissy texts, "YOU'RE not family. WE'RE family," and, "If you don't give us the car, we'll have no choice but to take legal action." Meaning her and her boyfriend, who also has the crazy. There's no legal grounds for them; we checked, and it would be doubly pointless for them trying anything because the instant he wakes up, which won't be long, and hears of the retardation she's been pulling, he'll put a password on her crazy ass and even more sever their relationship.

Such a psychopath. We couldn't believe she was pulling this kind of drama with him in the hospital. And the password wasn't only for us, but all visitors. Friends who drove in from out of province were denied access. We phoned the friend's dad, who informed us in so many words that yeah, the sister is touched, don't give her the car or wallet because she'll drive and spend respectively. He tried to phone the hospital to remove the password, superseding her, but he has to be there in person which he can't do yet (out of province).

I swear, it’s all her trying to make the situation about herself in some insane way, imposing on everyone. It's the vibe I got the instant she opened her mouth in the waiting room, "I, I, I. . . Me, me, me. . ." We've also caught her in about five lies so far: reasons why friends were denied access (apparently they were "drunk and high"—her words—but in fact it was the non-discriminating password), times she'd been at the hospital, and things we'd said. We've cut off contact at this point and are just waiting for the friend to wake up. We have a very interesting phone message saved of the boyfriend shouting and swearing demanding the car. I wonder how that's working out for them. Because they ain't getting it.

Whew, needed that vent.