Secret Brother (8 page)

“He's so tiny, being so undernourished and all,” Grandpa continued, nodding as he spoke. “You saw that, but we'll get him up to speed. No sense throwing away Willie's clothes, either. He'll grow into them. He might even fit into his shoes. Some of the things in his closet are practically brand new.”

“You shouldn't do that, Grandpa,” I said, the words practically choking off my breathing as my throat tightened.

He looked at me as if he had been talking to himself and just realized I was there beside him. “What else would we do with it all, Clara Sue? We don't want to throw it out. That would be stupid, a waste. We'd only have to go out and buy lots of new things for him. Not that we won't, of course, but . . .” He looked back into Willie's room. “It would be a shame not to use what we have.”

“But they're Willie's things,” I whined.

It was just a little while ago, not even a full week ago, that Willie was in that bed having dreams or sitting up and playing with his toy soldiers and little cars. He recuperated from colds and coughs in that bed, had nightmares there that brought Grandma Arnold to him and, later, Myra and even me sometimes. No matter how many times those sheets and pillowcases were washed, they probably still had Willie's scent, that of his soaps, his shampoos, and all the things he played with, the flowers he touched, and the grass he stained his hands and knees with. Somewhere on the bed, I was sure I could still find a strand of his hair, no matter how
the bed had been remade. That bed was a holy place.
No!

“No!” I shouted. “You can't do that. I won't let you. I'll hate him, and I'll hate you.” I raised my arms, my hands clenched into fists. I wanted to pound him.

He looked at me with more disapproval than I could ever remember. It frightened me, and I turned and ran back to my room, slamming the door shut behind me, and then I fell forward on my bed and cried almost as strongly as I had at Willie's funeral, maybe because this felt like he was being buried again.

I heard my door open and turned.

My grandfather was standing in the doorway. With the light behind him, his face was in a mask of shadows. For a few moments, he didn't say anything. I sucked back my sniffles and wiped my cheeks, flicking off the tears.

“I'm going to forget what you said,” he began. His voice seemed deeper, making him appear even bigger. “You are not a mean, selfish girl. I know you would never hurt someone who is so helpless and alone. It would especially dishonor your brother's memory. Life is like a relay race. When good people die, they pass something important of themselves on to those who continue. Think of it that way, and you'll never stop being a big sister. And I . . . I will never stop being a grandfather,” he concluded, and then he backed up, closing the door softly. It was like someone bringing down a curtain on Act One.

I couldn't help it.

No matter what he had said.

I was still very much afraid of Act Two.

5

My reasons for dreading my return to school proved true. As I moved through the building from class to class, I kept my gaze down as much as I could, because every time I met someone else's eyes, I saw the discomfort of having to greet someone dressed in such sorrow. Not that I wore black. I deliberately avoided it and chose a blue blouse and a light blue skirt. I could feel the dark veil over me, however. It was as if shadows born at the foot of Willie's grave were following me and always would.

The principal, Mrs. Greene, her secretary, and my teachers, especially Mr. Leshner, made it a point to take me aside and express their sympathy. Even the school's head custodian, Henry Hull, paused in what he was doing and came over to me to express his condolences. I think I said “thank you” more times during my first day back than I had said my whole life.

Lila was practically glued to my side from the moment I arrived. She was there ahead of me and
waited at the front entrance to escort me to homeroom. She started babbling immediately, but I kept my face forward and sank into my seat like someone settling on a life raft. After that, Lila leaped up at the sound of every bell ending a class to walk step by step beside me until I was safely wrapped in another seat and desk. I feared that somehow she saw herself as ­imperative—my protector, my personal secret service agent, through whom everyone had to go to speak with me. At one point, I looked at her and thought she was wearing my grief like a ribbon of distinction over her breast. I overheard her whispering to Ellie Patterson and Cora Burns, with Aaron Podwell beside her, describing how devastated I had been and how difficult it had been for anyone, including her, to get me to eat a morsel of food.
Oh, what a burden she has endured
, I thought, and hurried away.

She came looking for me with her favorite question of the day: “Are you all right?”

“Are you?” I asked, spinning around on her. I could feel my eyes blazing. Suddenly, I had found a target at which to aim all my discomfort. The shocked look on her face only encouraged me.

“Me? What do you mean?”

“This is so difficult for you, this burden of having to explain my state of mind,” I said very matter-of-factly. “I'm sorry about that.”

Her eyes blinked, but she had missed my sarcasm entirely. “Oh. No, no. As your closest friend now, I shouldn't run away from helping you.”

I nodded. “I'll tell you what. Do me a favor, Lila.
Run away,” I said, and hurried ahead to our last class of the day, leaving her stunned behind me.

If there was one good outcome from the pressure I felt the first day back, it was not having much time to think about what Grandpa was planning to do with the poisoned boy. In fact, I didn't think about it until the car service that Grandpa had hired to take Willie and me to school brought me back to the estate. It was a mostly cloudy day, and the Indian summer we had been experiencing was in fast retreat. Fall was rushing in, angry that it had been held back. Leaves were already beginning to turn golden brown. Winter would be on its heels, equally eager to strip the woods and leave us surrounded by skeletons. Everything about the future looked glum. No holiday, no birthday, and no party loomed with any promise. I feared I would never dream nice dreams again.

As we passed through the entrance gate, I avoided looking at the house. I had this dark foreboding, this apprehension, that kept me from looking up at the windows I knew to be the windows of Willie's room. I had no idea yet when my grandfather intended to bring the poisoned boy here, but I was afraid that if I did look up at the windows, I would see him peering out from between the curtains, watching and waiting for me, his tiny face the color of bone.

When the vehicle stopped, I practically lunged out, ran up the short stone stairway, and burst through the front door. I did not, however, head for the kitchen to see My Faith or Myra, who usually took her cup of tea at this hour. Before Willie's death, he would rush
in there with me, because he knew My Faith would have some special homemade cookies waiting for him with his glass of milk. I enjoyed them, too. Most of the time, there was an aroma spiraling out of the kitchen, hooking us both like fish the moment we set foot in the house.

Instead, I kept my urgent pace and took the stairway two steps at a time, rushing to get into my room and close the door behind me. Anyone would think I was being pursued by goblins or ghouls. The truth was that there were creatures after me, creatures born out of my own dark thoughts, thoughts that haunted me. How was I supposed to do what I had done for years and years with Willie and not continually think about him and look for him in the places I had always seen him? It had even been weird sitting in the car that took us back and forth to school.

Our current driver, Mr. Beal, a man who looked like he was seventy but was probably only in his fifties, had said only one thing during the entire round trip: “Sorry about Willie.” When I didn't respond, he just drove. I avoided looking at him when I got into the car after school. Would he say “Sorry about Willie” tomorrow morning, too? Or was Willie already forgotten, better forgotten? Who wants to have a sick, empty feeling in your stomach every day, especially if all you had to do to avoid it was forget?

Lila was so shocked at my response just before the last period of the day that she didn't say anything in class and didn't hurry to walk me out to the pickup area when class ended. I didn't wait for her, anyway.
Maybe I was being unfair, but I couldn't help it. All I could think about was being back in my room and away from sad eyes and helpless smiles, all on faces that were like balloons caught in a dreadful gust of cold wind, the wind that hovered around graveyards and waited eagerly for funerals so it could toy with tears streaming down cheeks.

I sprawled on my bed, burying my face in my pillow. I couldn't remember feeling lonelier. Seeing my classmates and hearing them talk about their happy, everyday lives just sharpened the pain. Like someone afraid of drowning, I had avoided even dipping into a conversation. When would it be any different?

I heard the knock on my door, but I didn't respond. She knocked again and then opened it. If I needed any reminder that everything really had happened, it was the sight of Myra in that cast, the bruises healing on her forehead and cheek. She was still slightly bent over, her eyes registering some ache or pain, because she probably had kept her word and avoided any pills.

“Hello, love,” she said, and came to my bedside. I turned completely to look up at her.

“It was dreadful,” I said. “I hated every minute.”

She nodded and sat on my bed. “I would have been surprised to hear otherwise. All I can tell you is it will get better.”

“Time,” I said disdainfully. I practically sneered. “I hate hearing that.”

She shrugged. “What's true is true. All the king's horses and all the king's men . . .”

I looked at her and then, unable to prevent it, smiled. “My Faith has the Bible, and you have English nursery rhymes.”

“Together we know it all,” she said, smiling now, too. With her good hand, she brushed back strands of hair from my forehead just the way my grandma Arnold used to and my mother before her.

I sat up. “Did he tell you?”

“Who?”

“My grandfather. Did he tell you about that boy, what he plans on doing?”

“He did this morning. He told My Faith and me before he left for work.”

“When is he bringing him here?”

“He didn't say exactly. He doesn't know yet. It's up to the doctors. He did tell us there would be a live-in private-duty nurse, too, and he would be bringing her around soon to get her settled in.”

“A nurse? Living here, too?”

“The boy will need special attention and care, at least in the beginning, I'm sure.”

“Why bring someone like that to a house? He belongs in some special clinic.”

“People do recuperate better at home than they do in the hospital,” she said.

“This isn't his home!”

She looked away a moment and nodded. “Well, your grandfather would like us to do what we can to help him feel like it is,” she said, and stood up. “Don't you want one of My Faith's oatmeal raisin cookies? She made them today because they are your favorite.”

“I'm not hungry,” I said.

“Did you eat your lunch?”

“What I could.”

“Well,” she said, sighing as she walked toward the door, “if you get yourself sick, I suppose we'll be happy that we have a nurse in the house.”

“I don't want a nurse in the house. I don't even want to see her.”

“Then if you get yourself sick, you'll have to take care of yourself, Clara Sue. I can't be running up and down the stairs for a while, and My Faith will be busier than ever.”

I turned away from her and pouted.

“It's all right to be angry, but don't punish yourself,” she added. “Are you listening?”

I sucked in my breath and nodded. Of course she was right. It was also like a door had been opened in my mind. I understood now what Uncle Bobby meant when he had told me my grandfather was full of rage and wanted revenge. Grandpa was running on anger. It was helping him survive the grief. Maybe it would do the same for me. “I'll be down in a little while,” I said, just as the phone rang.

Myra left when I picked up the receiver.

“What was it exactly that I did to you?” Lila asked.

“Nothing. It wasn't your fault. I was just frustrated and angry at everything and everyone. I'm sorry,” I said. “I shouldn't have taken it out on you.”

I could almost hear her sigh of relief. “All I was doing was trying to get everyone to understand.”

“If they don't, that's their problem. If something horrible happens to them, they will for sure.”

“I know. You're right, and I'm sorry. Should I come over? You didn't look like you were listening too well to anything we did in classes today.”

I laughed to myself. That was an understatement. “Yes, you're right. Come over and enjoy some of My Faith's cookies, too,” I told her.

“Good. I have a story for you. Ellie Patterson's parents might be getting a divorce. Her mother caught her father cheating with his secretary. Wait until I tell you how she let him know she had found out.”

“I'm holding my breath,” I said, and hung up.

Would I ever care about gossip anymore, delicious or otherwise?

As usual, I hurried to get out of my school clothes, tearing them off as if they were on fire. Our school had a boring dress code. At least we didn't have to wear uniforms like students in other private schools, but the restrictions for ours were strictly enforced. More than one girl and boy in my class had been sent home to change and warned that if it happened continually, they could be expelled, and their parents wouldn't get a tuition refund.

Our school required that we not dress in anything that revealed underwear or bare skin between the upper chest and mid-thigh. No spaghetti straps, strapless tops, or halter tops and especially no see-through mesh garments. No one could wear shorts, and girls could be sent home if their clothes looked too tight.
Girls could not wear skirts shorter than knee length. The only makeup tolerated was some lipstick if it wasn't put on thickly. If it was, you were sent to the girls' room to wipe it off entirely. Everyone hated the rules, and every girl I knew couldn't wait to get home and change into something else.

I put on the sloppiest-looking sweatshirt I had and a pair of jeans that were way too tight on me to “pass muster” at school, as Myra put it. I slipped into a pair of sandals without socks and, after unpinning my hair and shaking it around so it hung loose and wild, hurried downstairs. Even though I hated to admit it to myself, I was looking forward to seeing Lila now. Being alone only sharpened the pain and sorrow.

It was obvious that she had rushed to get here, because she was at our front door almost the exact moment I stepped off the stairway. Myra could be heard bawling out one of our two maids about the poor job she had done polishing furniture in the living room. The look on Lila's face at the sound of Myra's voice almost made me laugh. I shrugged to indicate that it was no big deal and led Lila to the kitchen, where My Faith eagerly piled up a plate full of her cookies. We grabbed some sodas and headed up to my room. As we passed Willie's room, I saw Lila pause to look at it. The door was open. The words wanted to come pouring out, describing what my grandfather intended, but I bit down on my lower lip, and we went to my room.

“So,” Lila immediately began when we sat in lotus position on my rug, “I was in the girls' room after school when I heard someone crying in one of the
toilets. I listened for a moment and then realized it was Ellie Patterson. I called to her, and she was quiet, and then she threw open the door and, still sitting on the toilet, began to tell me about her parents. She had been holding it in all day, and you want to know one reason?”