Glory Girl (9 page)

“I can’t feel it any more. I—”

The bus shifted again as it was washed downstream by the current. The water rose in the bus. Uncle Newt held his breath until the bus came to rest against rocks.

A flash of lightning lit up the bus. Thunder roared. Uncle Newt saw his brother’s face, now only inches above the water. “This is your last chance, Bubba,” he gasped. “I’ll pull on the seat, and you yank your leg out of there. You hear me?”

“I’ll try … I don’t—”

“Do it, Bubba. This is
it
!”

Uncle Newt braced his foot against the side of the bus and pulled on the twisted metal. He felt it loosen slightly. He strained harder, arching his whole body backward.

“Now!”
he yelled.

There was a scream as Mr. Glory pulled his leg free. Mr. Glory tried to scramble out of his seat, but his leg was useless. He fell facedown in the water. He floundered, swallowed water, choked. Uncle Newt put his arm under his brother’s shoulders and lifted him. Holding onto each other, they struggled to the door.

The water was flowing into the back of the bus now, filling it. Fighting the current and time and the weight of his brother, Uncle Newt lunged through the doorway. He plunged into the cold water for the last time. His head went under and then, as he bobbed up, his feet touched bottom for a moment.

Towing his brother behind him, he began to swim for shore.

A
NNA REMEMBERED LITTLE OF
being carried up the bank on a stretcher or of her ride to the hospital in an ambulance. She heard nothing that was said to her, and the bright lights and the wailing siren had no meaning.

In the emergency room, however, with a doctor and nurse working over her, there had been one moment of absolute clarity. In all the confusion and urgency Anna had looked across the room and seen a familiar face in the doorway.

“Uncle Newt,” she cried through teeth that were still chattering.

She had tried to raise her head. Hands pushed her back on the table.

“Anna,” Uncle Newt called, somehow sensing what she wanted. “Everybody got out!” He lifted one hand, and Anna lay back, satisfied.

The next three days were a blur. Anna slept most of the time, drifting in and out of consciousness. Her first good morning came on Tuesday.

A nurse came into the room to take Anna’s blood pressure and said, “Well, you’re looking better today.”

“Have I seen you before?” Anna asked.

“Every day.”

“I don’t remember.” The nurse tightened the blood pressure cuff around Anna’s arm and pumped air into it. “How’s my family?” Anna asked.

“Let’s see. Your sister had a compound fracture of the left arm, a broken collarbone, and bad bruises. Your mom—she must have good padding—she’s just suffering from shock and exposure. Who else? Your dad’s the worst—five broken ribs, a punctured lung, smashed left leg.”

“And the twins?”

“Your brothers are driving everybody in Pediatrics crazy. Those boys are mean as snakes. They had a wheelchair race yesterday, almost ran over Dr. Perrini.”

“They weren’t hurt?”

“Cuts and bruises.”

“Stitches?”

“No.”

Anna smiled slightly. “I bet they were disappointed about that.”

“Those boys are tough.”

Anna’s answer was cut off because the nurse put a thermometer in her mouth. When she could speak again, Anna asked, “Have you heard anything about my uncle?”

“Why, your uncle is a hero. He’s been in all the headlines. ‘Former Convict Rescues Family.’”

“I wish they hadn’t said ‘convict.’”

“No, something like that gives convicts a good name. The governor’s talking about giving him a pardon.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and something else good has come out of the accident. The town’s taking up a collection for new costumes, new instruments, the works. They never did catch the boys who were responsible, but the town’s behind you.”

Anna rested against her pillow while the nurse made a note on her chart. “Has Uncle Newt been coming to the hospital?”

“One time. I didn’t see him. Miss Hawkins was at the desk, and she said he came up, asked how you were, and after she told him you were all right, he left.”

“He’s shy.”

The nurse stood at the foot of the bed, watching Anna. “You and your family were real lucky.”

“I know that.”

“I saved the newspapers for you. And when you see the pictures of the bus—that bus went all the way down Sugar Creek and crashed into the bridge. It was just a pile of twisted blue metal. When you see those pictures, you’ll know how lucky you were.”

“I know that now,” Anna answered.

Outside Anna’s room, in the hall, Mrs. Glory was beginning her morning rounds. She had a routine just like the nurses.

First she would check on Anna. Mrs. Glory had not worried about Anna, not even when the doctors told her it was touch and go. She knew Anna would pull through.

Then Mrs. Glory would go in to see her husband. He was in the men’s ward at the end of the hall. When that was out of the way, she would stop in Angel’s room.

Mrs. Glory was so glad that Angel’s face had not been hurt. Angel was as beautiful as ever. It was a miracle. Her arms and legs were covered with cuts and scrapes. There was a bruise on her hip bigger than a grapefruit. But her face—Mrs. Glory considered this the hand of the Lord—was still perfect.

Mrs. Glory would linger in Angel’s room, putting off as long as possible the moment when she had to go up to the fourth floor, Pediatrics. She dreaded that.

If the nurses up there told her one more time, “You’ve got to do something about the twins. They’re driving us crazy.” If they said that one more time, she would …

Mrs. Glory squared her plump shoulders under her bathrobe. She reminded herself that she would do nothing. She had promised, in that dark moment when the bus tipped over the bank and started down, that if her family was spared, she would never lose her temper again.

She went into Anna’s room, smiling. Three days in the hospital had flattened her beehive hairdo so that she no longer looked like herself.

“Anna, you’re awake!”

“Yes’m.”

“You look fine.”

“You too.”

Mrs. Glory crossed to Anna’s bed. In the new cheerful voice she had picked up from the nurses, she said, “Yes, we all look just fine.”

T
HE GLORY FAMILY WAS
on the stage of the George Washington High School auditorium. Mr. Glory was standing at the edge of the stage, leaning forward, talking to the audience.

“Friends, you all know how lucky the Glory family is to be here tonight. You read about our accident in the newspapers. We’re just so grateful to be alive, to be up here onstage again, singing for you.”

Mrs. Glory said, “Amen,” from the piano bench.

“It’s been like a miracle. And so tonight our first song is going to be ‘We’re Thankful,’ because that’s exactly what every one of us is. Maudine.”

Mrs. Glory brought her small hands down on the bass notes and went up the keyboard, playing a series of chords that used every single note on the piano.

Mr. Glory stepped back. He walked with a limp—he always would—but tonight, for the first time, he felt no pain. His injury was forgotten in his happiness at being on the stage again.

Oh, we’re thankful and we’re grateful

And we’re singing His praise.

We’re telling everybody

These are happy, happy days.

He gave us our life

Not once, but twice

And we’re thankful and we’re grateful

To the Lord.

Oh, we’re …

In the back of the auditorium Anna sat watching her family on the stage. For this, their first performance since the accident, everything was new—new white outfits, new drums, new guitar. It did seem like a beginning.

There was a new feeling from the audience too. They had bought albums tonight even before the performance started. That had never happened before. Anna had already collected a hundred and twenty-eight dollars.

Anna glanced over her shoulder. Behind her the entrance was empty. Only the large white plaster statue of George Washington stood in the shadows.

In the two months since the Glorys’ accident, Anna had been looking for Uncle Newt everywhere. She never went out of the house without searching for him, and she had not seen him once. It was as if he had disappeared from the earth.

“Where do you think Uncle Newt is?” she had asked her mother.

“He could be anywhere, Anna. He could be in Nome, Alaska, for all I know. Once he got his pardon, he was free to go anywhere.”

“It looks like he would have called at least. Maybe something happened to him.”

“I don’t understand that man. I never have. I am as grateful to Newt as I’ve ever been to anybody in my life. We would all be dead if it wasn’t for Newt. I said to your father, ‘When I see that man I’m going to throw my arms around his neck and hug him to pieces.’ Your father felt the same, in his own way. He told me he wanted Newt to sing with us, be one of the Glorys. Your father said, ‘From now on, I’m treating Newt like a brother.’ Only how are we going to do these things with him gone?”

“I guess you can’t.”

“Anybody else would
want
to be thanked. I just don’t understand what gets into that man. It seems like he deliberately won’t let people do what’ll make them feel better. If I wasn’t so grateful, I’d be downright mad.”

“Now, Mom.”

“I’m not mad,” Mrs. Glory added quickly, remembering her promise. “It’s just that when you owe somebody, you don’t feel right until you’ve thanked them.”

“It’s like it’s unfinished,” Anna said.

“Exactly.”

The fact that Anna had not seen her uncle since that moment in the recovery room did leave everything unfinished. Had that been his farewell, she wondered, that lifted hand in the doorway of the emergency room? It wasn’t enough.

Angel had told her, “Quit looking for him. You’re going to wear out your neck turning around so much.”

“I can’t help it, Angel,” Anna had answered. “He’s the only person I ever felt really close to.”

Angel had looked at her with her pale eyes. “He’s the only person you ever wanted to feel close to.”

On the stage Mr. Glory was saying, “Thank you,” to the audience. He adjusted the mike. “And now Angel is going to sing one of the songs her grandaddy wrote. This was the last song Grandaddy Glory wrote before he died, and the first time it was sung was at his funeral. ‘I’m Almost over the Mountain, Going Home.’ Angel.”

Anna shifted in her seat. She watched as Angel, white flowers in her hair, came forward. The music began.

Audiences always got quieter when Angel sang, and tonight there was not a sound in the auditorium. As she listened, Anna thought that her family was better than before the accident. They were actually singing better.

Anna had noticed it for the first time in the hospital when they had sung in the hall for the patients one afternoon. They had stood around Mr. Glory’s wheelchair, singing hymns together, and for the first time Anna had been proud of them without being bitter that she wasn’t part of them.

Tonight her mother looked happier at the piano. Her father’s looks had softened. The twins looked the same, and yet maybe they weren’t after each other quite as hard as before.

Suddenly Anna felt a cool breeze on the back of her neck. Someone had opened the door in the entrance hall.

Anna wanted to turn around at once, but she stopped herself. It might be Uncle Newt, she thought, as she had thought many times in the past weeks. If it was, she did not want to scare him off.

Onstage Angel was at the mike, singing the chorus.

“Yes, I’m almost over the mountain.

Yes, I’m going home at last.

Yes, I see the golden valley.

I am almost to the pass.”

Anna was no longer listening to the music. The footsteps behind her were slow and reluctant, the way Uncle Newt’s would be, Anna thought. Anybody else would have walked right over and looked in the auditorium to see who was singing.

The footsteps stopped, and Anna turned her head.

U
NCLE NEWT WAS STANDING
in the shadows by George Washington, dwarfed by the huge white statue. A baseball cap was in his hands. He was turning it around, smiling awkwardly.

Anna got up—she was smiling too—and walked toward him. They stepped back against the wall, farther away from the loud music. Anna said, “I was wondering if I was ever going to see you again.”

“Well, here I am.”

“I knew it was you when the door opened.”

“Did you?”

There was a pause, and then Anna said in a rush, “The whole family’s so proud of you. It’s just—well, you’re all we talk about these days.”

“Well …” There was another pause. Uncle Newt glanced behind him at the door.

Anna went on in a rush. “They just want to thank you. That’s all. And Dad wants you to sing with the family. He says you’ve got the best voice of any of the Glorys. And Mom wants you to live with us. She says—”

He shook his head, interrupting her.

She sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m babbling. I just wanted to see you so much, and now that you’re here—well, I feel like I’ve got to say everything at once.”

“You got time.”

“No, you’ll disappear again.”

Anna watched the way he grinned, and she knew it was true. She said, “Then just let me say that everybody is grateful and that I am so happy to see you again.” She smiled up at him. “I hope you feel proud.”

“You know what it’s like?”

She shook her head.

“Well, all my life I been running away. If something’s hard or if it don’t feel right, I just had one answer—run away. Anyway, this is one time in my life when I didn’t.” He squinted as if he had said more than he wanted to. He turned his baseball cap in his hands. “Anyway, it’s something to look back on.”

“For us too.”

There was a pause, and then Uncle Newt said, “Well, I just wanted to drop by for a minute. I figured you’d be back here by yourself, getting ready to sell records. I didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye.”