Secret Brother (10 page)

“He's here,” he said.

I looked down. For a moment, I didn't move, and then I started toward the stairway.

“Clara Sue!” he called firmly.

“What?”

“I'd like you to welcome him. I'll go up with you, and you can just welcome him, help make him comfortable.”

“He didn't talk to me before, and he didn't even want to look at me. He won't now,” I said. “I don't want to waste my breath,” I added, and before he could say another word, I shot up the stairway. I heard him shout after me, but I kept going. I practically ran past Willie's room, not looking in, and when I got to my room, I shut the door quickly behind me.

My heart was pounding. I just stood there, anticipating my grandfather coming up after me.

But he didn't.

Silence was uncomfortable, but I was glad to have it.

Later, I heard the activity in the hallway, but I didn't look out to see. The walls in Grandpa's mansion were thick enough to prevent talking or almost any reasonable noise from being heard by the person in the next room. I did put my ear to the wall to see what I could hear, but the murmur of Dorian Camden's and my grandpa's conversation was so muffled and incoherent that I quickly gave up. And then I chastised myself for having any curiosity or interest at all. It wasn't good enough just to hide it from everyone else; I had to prevent myself from having it. Was that impossible? After all, he was here with all his mystery, his emotional and psychological problems, and my grandfather's determination to do something about it. Those weren't easy things to ignore.

At dinner, Dorian Camden declared that for the first few days or so, it would be wise for her to have her dinner with the boy. She explained to Myra and My Faith, who were obviously fascinated by all of it, that what she had to do was win his trust.

“All the patients I've had who were wounded or injured badly were angry at everyone and everything in the beginning. The first question that comes to mind is ‘Why me? What did I do to deserve this?' ”

“Even someone this young?” Myra asked her. I couldn't help listening. I tried to pretend I wasn't.

“Oh, especially so, because at this age, you are dependent on someone who is supposed to care for and protect you. Obviously, that didn't happen or was prevented from happening. I've spoken with Dr. Patrick, who has treated children who were taught to believe they were somehow unworthy.”

“You mean evil?” My Faith asked.

“Possibly, so between her work and what I will try to do, we have to get him to believe more in himself.”

She looked at me.

“We can all help,” she added. I turned away, tempted to ask, “What if he really is evil?” That would widen My Faith's eyes for sure, but I didn't say a word.

Grandpa was obviously very angry with me and said little at dinner. The way we were behaving, it could have been only a day or so after Willie's funeral. The air around us was that heavy. A phone call drew him away, and I finished eating before he returned. Then I went up to do my homework. I walked quickly past Willie's room, tiptoeing, in fact, so Dorian wouldn't hear me approaching and try calling me in. Then I closed my door.

It was almost impossible to concentrate on my homework. Lila called. I told her the boy was here.
Her sympathy began to irritate me, and I told her I had to finish my homework because I had been too upset to start it. She apologized for not coming over, “especially tonight.”

“Especially tonight, it's better that you didn't,” I said, and said good night.

Hours later, after everyone seemed to have gone to bed, I opened my door and peered out. The light from Willie's room was spilling into the hallway. Would the boy always need a light on? I wondered. Was Dorian Camden still in there with him? Was he hooked up to the same sort of machinery he was hooked up to in the hospital? It was impossible not to be curious now. I relented and tiptoed down the hallway. Just before I reached the door, I heard Grandpa's voice clearly.

“You're in Willie's room. It will make it easier,” I heard him say.

Make what easier? I drew closer and peered into the room.

The boy was in Willie's bed but without any machinery attached to him. He was just lying there, and Grandpa was sitting beside the bed. It looked like he was holding his hand.

“Lots of his stuff has the initials W.S.,” he continued, “but there is one difference. You won't be Willie Sanders, which was my grandson's name, but I want you to be Willie Arnold . . . William Arnold. It will be more like you are another grandson. Yes, that's my name, too, but it's not uncommon for boys to be named after their fathers and grandfathers.”

I tried to swallow when I realized I was holding my breath to the point where my throat and my chest ached. Grandpa was giving him Willie's name, too!

“Until you remember your own name,” he added. “Okay?”

I waited to see if the boy would speak, but he didn't.

Grandpa acted as if he had, however. “Good,” he said. “Good.”

I felt everything I had eaten churn in my stomach. I covered my mouth and then moaned and rushed back to my room and into my bathroom, where I vomited and vomited until I sank to the floor by the toilet.

Which was where Myra found me in the morning.

6

Dorian Camden was at my bedside, looking as concerned as my mother would have. Myra had called her out of Willie's room. I imagined everyone expected I would be happy that we had a real nurse in the house when we needed one, but I still couldn't get used to the sight of her parading about in that nurse's uniform and all that it meant.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Sick,” I said. I wanted to add,
What kind of a nurse are you? How am I supposed to feel after throwing up and falling asleep on the bathroom floor?
But I didn't. I didn't want to talk at all. I closed my eyes and then opened them when I felt her hand on my forehead.

She looked at Myra, who was gray with worry. Who could blame her? Willie was killed, and now I was sick. What was next? The very walls falling in?

“Are you going to the bathroom a lot?” Dorian asked.

“You mean, do I have diarrhea?” I wasn't the poisoned boy. She could talk to me like an adult.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“It still could be a touch of the stomach flu,” she told Myra. “I don't think she has any fever. I'll check. You don't always have a fever with the flu.”

“I'll get My Faith to put up some tea and honey,” Myra said, and hurried out.

Dorian looked down at me, her eyes full of suspicion. “You haven't eaten or drunk anything you shouldn't have, have you, Clara Sue?”

“Of course not.” Was she thinking I had been sneaking whiskey into my room? “You can search my room if you want,” I snapped at her, and turned away, just the way the poisoned boy would turn away when someone spoke to him or asked him questions.

“But you threw up?”

I didn't respond. I could feel her gaze locked on me.

“Do you have any pains in your stomach?”

“No.”

“Are you still nauseated?”

“No,” I said, a little louder. I didn't want her asking me any more questions.

“People can make themselves sick, you know. They can get themselves so upset that they start to take on the symptoms of illnesses or just make themselves more vulnerable to diseases and such. Is that what's happening here?”

I spun around and glared up at her. “You're the nurse. Figure it out,” I said.

She winced, turned, and walked out. I thought that was the end of her, but she returned with a thermometer and said, “Please open your mouth.” She put it under my tongue. As soon as Myra arrived with the tea, she took out the thermometer, looked at it, and said, “Normal.”

“That's good.”

“I would keep her on a light diet today and make sure she has lots of liquids,” she advised Myra. She looked at me, expecting me to say thank you, I was sure, but I just turned away until she started out.

Myra watched her go and then set my tea down. I saw she had brought along a piece of toast and jelly as well.

“She's a very good nurse, Clara Sue. I watched her with the boy. I could see he likes her.”

“The boy? You mean William?” I said disdainfully.

“What?”

“Didn't Grandpa announce it today?”

“Announce what?”

“Drumroll, please. The poisoned boy has been baptized.”

Myra shook her head. “I don't understand what you're saying, Clara Sue.”

“Grandpa wants him to accept being called William Arnold,” I said.

I sipped some tea and studied her reaction. She was in deep thought a moment. “He told you he wanted you to call the boy Willie?” she asked.

“No. I overheard him talking to the boy and giving him Willie's formal name, William, until he remembers
his real name. He's sorta borrowing it, borrowing ­everything that was my brother's.”

“I suppose it must be pretty frightening not to remember your own name,” she offered. “Your grandfather is just trying to help.”

“Why doesn't he call him something else, anything else? Jack? Mark? Tom? Or just keep calling him Boy. Tarzan called his son Boy, didn't he? Maybe if everyone called him Boy, he would finally get tired of it and remember his name.”

She shook her head.

“He told him Willie's initials are on lots of things, W.S. But he wants him to accept William Arnold. He'll probably get the initials changed.”

“You think your grandfather would change them?”

“Yes. Lucky boy, huh?”

“Well, I wouldn't say he's been too lucky up to now, would you, Clara Sue?”

“I don't care. Right now, he falls into a vat of good luck just when my brother Willie fell into a vat of very bad.”

Myra pressed her lips together. Her eyes were filling with tears. I realized that I wasn't helping her feel less guilty about what had happened.

“None of it was your fault, Myra,” I said, now struggling to keep back my own tears. “It was just bad luck to be there at the same time some horrible drunk man was driving along our street. This all just makes it . . . makes it worse!”

She patted my hand and stood up. “We'll see. In the meantime, try to hold down some toast and jam,
and maybe you'll be able to have My Faith's mushy eggs for lunch.” She started to turn away.

“Bad things can happen to good people, too, Myra. I know My Faith doesn't like to talk about it, why God lets that happen, but it's true. And it doesn't matter how rich you are or where you live.”

I thought she would stay and argue with me about it, but all she said before she left was “Don't make yourself sicker over it. Stop having these thoughts. If you ever need strength in this life, it's when you have troubles like this.”

I felt like pounding the bed and screaming. How could I stop having these thoughts? All these dark thoughts seemed to have seeped in under my door and through my closed windows. They were swirling around me. Nightmares would dance at the foot of my bed forever. What Grandpa was doing was only making everything more terrible. I wanted to scream louder, until Myra would call him and he would come rushing home from work and decide to put the boy into a clinic or something, but I choked it all back and fell asleep.

When Myra returned with another cup of tea, I felt guilty about her waiting on me like this. She wouldn't tell anyone else to bring it up to me, and I knew she was still having trouble getting about with that cast and her aches and pains. A little while before, I had heard some voices in the hallway. One of them was Dorian Camden's, but I didn't know who the other person was, except that it was another woman. I asked Myra about it. I was hoping it was someone from one
of those government agencies here to arrange for the boy to be taken away. She would tell Grandpa that no matter how rich he was, he couldn't just scoop up some child and take care of him. There were rules.

“Oh, that's the psychiatrist,” she said. “Her name is Dr. Patrick. They were very excited because the boy was speaking a little.”

I was disappointed. “Really? What did he say?” On the other hand, maybe he was finally revealing his family name, and they could contact the police and get him home.

“He wasn't answering much about himself, but he was expressing how happy he was to be here.”

“Who wouldn't be?” I said. “Look what he's been given.”

“You don't want to sound uncharitable, Clara Sue. He's a helpless soul.”

“Maybe we all are,” I muttered, and she gave me one of her schoolteacher disapproving glances that could probably stop a charging bull in its tracks. “I'll get up for lunch.”

“Mrs. Camden will be happy to hear it. She thought it was nothing more than an upset stomach.”

“I'll bet,” I said, and paused. “‘Mrs.'? I don't remember Grandpa saying she was married. How can she be married and live here, anyway? What about her husband?”

“Her husband passed away a little more than three years ago. She said he was a severe diabetic, and that led to other complications.”

“What about her children?”

“They never had any. She's really a very nice lady besides being a very good nurse,” Myra said. “Your grandfather hired her to do a job, and that's what she'll do.”

In other words, I shouldn't take my unhappiness out on her
, I thought. That's what Myra was saying. I grunted and drank a little more tea. Dorian Camden had been right, of course. I was making myself sick, and who benefited from that? Not me.

“Please tell My Faith that I've been thinking about her scrambled mushy eggs,” I told her.

She smiled. “Good.”

“Is that Dr. Patrick still here?” I asked. I was thinking that I'd like to ask her some questions and maybe get at the truth.

“No, she just left, but your grandfather is coming home.”

“You told him I was sick?”

For a moment, she looked confused or afraid to reply. She shook her head. “No. I didn't speak with him. He called to let Jimmy know he was bringing a contractor to do some work. He's arranging for a wheelchair for the little boy,” she told me. “Mrs. Camden thinks they should be able to get him up and into it in a day or so.”

“What did you mean by ‘some work'?”

“Your grandfather is thinking about making some changes in the house to accommodate him,” she replied.

“What sort of changes?”

“I don't know yet, Clara Sue. Changes. I'll tell
My Faith you're coming down, then,” she said, and left.

Why would Grandpa be making changes in the house? How long was the boy going to be here? How long would he be in a wheelchair? Did I care? Was he turning this place into a hospital or something? Hospitals smelled like . . . hospitals. Was that what the hallways outside my room would soon be like? How could I bring any friends here?

I went to take a shower and get dressed. Curiosity about the things Myra had told me was motivating me to get up and about. By the time I descended, Grandpa was home, and there was a man talking to him about the stairway.

“We'll have two wheelchairs, then. One for upstairs and one for downstairs,” I heard Grandpa say before he saw me. “Hey,” he said. “I just heard you were home from school because you were sick this morning.”

“Just an upset stomach. I'm all right now,” I told him.

He nodded. I knew what he was thinking. Grandpa Arnold was never good about anything that could possibly be related to feminine problems. He fled from the mere suggestion. He returned to talking with the man, the back of whose shirt read, “TLC Healthcare Equipment.” I lingered to hear more of what they were saying. Grandpa wanted the man to install a stair lift. The man was saying he'd been busy doing that work ever since the polio epidemic had created such a dramatic need for lifts, especially for young children who were teenagers or young adults by now.
He wanted to know if the child had not had the Salk vaccine and had contracted polio.

“From what little I know of the way the boy was treated, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that his parents never had him vaccinated, but no, that's not his problem,” he said, and didn't say anything else.

Install a stair lift?
I thought. On that stairway Grandma Arnold was so proud to show off because of its thick, embossed mahogany banisters and newel posts carved from a single block of wood? As soon as someone entered the house, it was the first thing they saw. It was like our centerpiece. Sometimes Grandma used to laugh and pretend she was some actress in a movie descending those steps. I remember how my mother laughed at her and called her Scarlett O'Hara. What would it look like with a lift?

After lunch, I would discover that Grandpa had also contracted with some construction workers to build a ramp in the front right beside the short stairway. They were already constructing it, in fact. What other changes would he make? Would he buy an ambulance and have it parked outside the front door?

I returned to my room. In a few hours, Lila was sure to be calling to see why I didn't go to school. I thought I would do some reading for English class. This time, as I approached Willie's bedroom, I paused and glanced in. The boy was sitting up in bed. He had what looked like a small pile of new comic books. Grandpa would always buy a bundle of them for Willie when he was home sick. The boy was wearing what I knew to be a newer pair of Willie's polka-dot
yellow pajamas. When he glanced up at me, I hurried away.

As expected, Lila called the moment she came home from school to find out why I wasn't there. I told her I had woken up sick, but it was just an upset stomach.

“You know, I still get bad menstrual cramps occasionally,” she said. “Sometimes so bad that I don't want to go to school, either, but my mother makes me.” I could sense that she wanted my problem to be anything other than my sadness or my attitude about the boy taking over Willie's things.

“It wasn't that, but I'm okay,” I told her.

She then informed me of our homework assignments, because she wasn't coming over. Her mother wanted her to go with her to buy some new clothes for the approaching winter.