Secret Brother Read online

  “Someone brought you here the same time my brother, Willie, was brought here in an ambulance,” I began. “A drunk driver hit him on his bike, even though he was riding on the sidewalk.”

  The word “bike” seemed to attract his attention. He looked at me, waiting to hear more.

  “He died,” I said. “He really died in the ambulance, and they couldn’t do anything wonderful for him here.”

  The boy didn’t show any surprise or sympathy. He just stared blankly.

  “He was only nine. He was so excited about riding his bike outside our property,” I continued, but still, the boy showed no reaction. “Did you hear what I said? My little brother is dead, killed, and the man who did it was drunk.”

  He barely blinked.

  “Do you know why you’re here, at least? Do you know you were poisoned? Did you eat something you shouldn’t? You almost died, too, but the hospital saved you, and my grandfather is helping you.”

  He looked away. How infuriating, I thought.

  “They couldn’t save my brother,” I continued, raising my voice. He turned back to me. “Willie couldn’t speak now even if he wanted to, or smile or thank anyone for anything, especially my grandfather. You know, he’s paying for everything that’s being done for you. He even hired a private detective to find out who you are and who did this to you.”

  He turned to me. His eyes blinked, but he still didn’t speak.

  “Why don’t you at least say thank you? Didn’t your parents teach you any manners? Who are they? Where do they live? Why aren’t they looking for you? Why isn’t anyone looking for you? Don’t you want to go home?”

  His lips trembled a bit, but he didn’t speak. Instead, he looked away again.

  “You’re going to have to talk someday. It’s stupid now to pretend you can’t. People want to know what happened to you and how they can help you and how to get the people who did this to you and put them in jail.”

  He looked at me again, this time his eyes a bit wider. Was I finally getting him to talk?

  “Yes, jail, if they deliberately poisoned you. Who would do such a thing to you? Was it someone you knew? It was someone you trusted, right? Or were you kidnapped, and no one would pay your ransom? That’s it, isn’t it?” I asked harder. It seemed right, seemed like I might have solved the mystery. I had read stories about things like this. I couldn’t wait to suggest it to my grandfather. Then he might return to the police and get it all solved, and the boy would be on his way back to his family.

  His lips moved like he was tasting something, and then he turned away again quickly, as if someone was talking to him on the other side of the bed, too.

  “What’s your name? Tell us! Who did this to you?” I demanded, raising my voice even more. “This is stupid! No one can help you if you don’t talk! I know you can talk. You need to trust us. We’ll get you home! Talk!”

  A nurse appeared in the doorway and came rushing over to me. “Why are you shouting at him?” she asked.

  “He’s just being a stubborn little brat,” I said. “My grandfather is helping him, and he won’t even say thank you.”

  “Maybe you should step out,” she said.

  “Gladly,” I said, and walked out into the hallway. I could see my grandfather talking with a doctor near the nurse’s desk. I folded my arms across my chest and leaned against the wall.

  When she emerged from the poisoned boy’s room, the nurse glared at me and then walked to the desk. She said something to the doctor and my grandfather. They both looked my way and then continued talking. I shuddered a little. Grandpa did look annoyed. Suddenly, the nurse behind the desk called to him and handed him a telephone. I watched him talk and listen. He handed back the phone and turned to walk toward me.

  “I wasn’t really shouting at him, Grandpa,” I said. “I just think he could talk if he wants to. I tried.”

  “Oh, he could talk,” he said. “But you gotta wonder why he doesn’t want to.”

  I hung back when Grandpa went to the boy’s bedside. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I knew he was talking to him. The boy seemed to be paying attention, too, more than he had to me. Grandpa reached down and touched his hand. Then he turned and walked toward me.

  “I have to get to the office,” he said.

  “Now?”

  “That was Mrs. Mallen calling me here. One of our trucks was in a bad accident about an hour ago.”

  “Oh, no. Was the driver hurt?” I knew some of the drivers by first name now. My favorite was a man they called Curly, but it wasn’t because he had curly hair. Grandpa explained that everyone teased him and called him that because he could curl up anywhere and fall asleep. Even though he was a little more than six feet tall, he could twist his body so that he could put two chairs together and take a nap. He called me Starlight, because he said I had two eyes that could be stars.

  “Some broken bones,” he said as we walked to the elevator.

  “Was it Curly?”

  “No,” he said, smiling. He knew how fond I was of Curly. “It was a new guy. He’ll be all right. We just have a delivery problem. I’ll take you home first.”

  “What did the doctor tell you just now?” I asked after the elevator doors closed.

  “That as he first thought, it was going to take a while, maybe quite a while, for the boy to get well,” he replied. “He’ll need physical therapy. He’s still evaluating the extent of the damage caused by the poison. He said it looks to him like a slow but steady ingestion of arsenic. Most likely, then, not an accident.”

  Accident? I thought. The word brought Willie back to mind instantly.

  “He’ll need lots of tender loving care,” Grandpa said as the doors opened for us.

  “Who doesn’t?” I muttered, mostly to myself.

  He was very quiet after that. I could see that he was in deep thought. I imagined it was because of the truck accident, but later I would find out that it wasn’t, and I wouldn’t be happy about it.

  By the time he took me home, before he went on to his company, Myra had come out of her room and was having coffee with My Faith. They hadn’t heard about the truck accident. I sat with them, had a cup of cocoa, and described the poisoned boy and how I was unable to make any difference.

  “It was stupid for me to go. The nurse even asked me to leave his room.”

  “Why?” Myra asked.

  “I guess I got a little impatient and annoyed and raised my voice.”

  “Oh. Well, let’s give it time,” she said.

  “I don’t want to give it time. No one’s giving Willie any more time,” I snapped back. I immediately felt bad about yelling at Myra. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It’s all right, love. It’s very hard right now,” she said, and then told us about a little boy who had been hit by a lorry on her street in London when she was fifteen. I knew from some of her other stories that a lorry was a truck. She said she used to babysit for him and that it was like losing a little brother. “Those parents were devastated and were never the same. Surely this little boy’s parents are desperate to know about him,” she added.

  My Faith agreed. “Children are a blessing and a gift from the Lord,” she said. In my way of thinking, someone was returning the gift or trying to. “Your grandfather will get it solved,” My Faith said.

  Afterward, I went up to my room. Some of my friends had big brothers or big sisters. Some had both. I wished right now that I had one. I wished Uncle Bobby had stayed longer. Despite Myra and My Faith, I hadn’t felt this alone since my parents died and then even more when Grandma Arnold died. Grandpa Arnold was just too busy to keep me company, and now it looked like whatever spare time he had he was devoting to this boy wilting like an undernourished flower.

  I couldn’t deny that he had a nearly perfect doll-like face with hair more golden than that of any blond boy or girl
I knew. Again, I wondered how anyone could want to hurt someone like that or not care about him. He looked huggable and precious and now so helpless. When I was calmed a bit—even though I refused to acknowledge it—it wasn’t hard to believe that someone, my grandfather, would want to help him.

  Don’t think about it anymore, I told myself. Grandpa would pay for the doctors, and then they’d send him somewhere to get therapy and recuperate. If his parents never appeared, someone would surely adopt him, and that would be that.

  I began to think about Monday and returning to school. My teachers would all feel sorry for me, but I didn’t want to linger in sorrow at school. I couldn’t help Willie anymore, and it certainly wasn’t going to do me any good. The truth was, I had to stop feeling guilty for being alive. It seemed so cruel to even think it, but what else could I do?

  I sat at the desk and began another letter to Willie.

  Dear Willie,

  I made Grandpa happy tonight by going with him to the hospital to see that poisoned boy I described to you. It was a worthless visit. I couldn’t help him. All I could do was think of how lucky he was to have our grandfather care about him and how ungrateful he was.

  I suppose that was unfair. Something is seriously wrong with him, and maybe he can’t help being ungrateful. I’m going to tell Grandpa I don’t mind him helping the boy and paying for him to go to some institution or something. Then I’ll put him out of my mind.

  I have to return to school on Monday. I know how hard it’s going to be. I’ll keep looking for you, keep wishing that all this is a nightmare and that it will be over soon.

  Sometimes I think you’re the lucky one. You’re back in our parents’ arms. I know everyone would be angry with me for thinking that, so I’ll never say it aloud.

  I’ll go to sleep thinking about you and push all thoughts about that boy out of my mind. I promise.

  I’m still planning on riding my bike to the cemetery. I’ll visit you as much as I can, forever.

  Clara Sue

  I put the letter in another envelope and put that in the same drawer. I was thinking about doing some more of the homework Lila had brought me, but I heard footsteps in the hallway and peeked out. It was Grandpa. He was back from the office. He was standing outside of Willie’s room and thinking so deeply that, as Grandma Arnold used to say, “you’d need a microscope to see his thoughts.”

  As quietly as I could, I stepped out of my room and walked up to him, expecting to see tears streaming down his face, just like mine every time I looked in on Willie’s room. I even had seen Uncle Bobby do that and wipe away tears. But Grandpa was firm and dry-eyed. Uncle Bobby was right about him. He cried only on the inside. I didn’t think he realized I was there, but he surprised me. He did.

  He started to speak without turning to me. “I think I’ll leave everything as it is, Clara Sue,” he began. “What little boy wouldn’t want all that your brother had?”

  My heart stopped, and my blood froze. “What do you mean, Grandpa? Leave what as it is?”

  “The room,” he said, nodding.

  “Little boy? You don’t mean the poisoned boy? You don’t mean you’re bringing him here?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean,” he said, still staring into the room.

  “But . . . he can’t come here! He has to go back to his own family someday.”

  “I doubt that, Clara Sue. I doubt that very much.” He looked at me and smiled. “I’m confident that he’ll end up here with us.”

  “End up? For how long?”

  “Forever, I think.”

  I felt an electric shock go through my body. I looked into Willie’s room and shook my head. I couldn’t be hearing right. I couldn’t. Give this strange boy Willie’s things? It was as if Grandpa was sweeping away our memories of my brother as easily as erasing a blackboard. No! I screamed inside myself. This room should be locked away, especially from strangers. It should be kept as a shrine. I wanted to come in here often and think about Willie and cry about Willie. I didn’t want to see another boy’s face, see any other boy, especially a stranger, in Willie’s bed. My heart would do flip-flops, and my stomach would shrink into a thimble.

  “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.