If There Be Thorns (Dollanganger 3)

I picked him up and ran with him in my arms. He was crying, telling me his leg hurt . . . "Jory, I really don't want to die, I don't."

By the time Dad picked him up and put him in his car, he was unconscious. "I don't believe this," said Dad. "That leg of his is swollen three times larger than it should be. I only pray he doesn't have gas gangrene."

I knew about gangrene--it could kill people!

In the hospital Bart was put to bed immediately, and other doctors came to check over his leg. They tried to force Dad to leave the room, since it was professional ethics for doctors not to treat someone in their own family. Too emotionally involved, I guessed.

"No!" stormed Dad, "he's my son, and I'm staying to see what's done for him!" Mom cried all the time, kneeling and holding onto Bart's slack hand. I was sick inside too, thinking I hadn't done nearly enough to help Bart.

"Apple, Apple," whimpered Bart whenever his eyes opened. "Gotta have Apple."

"Chris," said Mom, "can't he have an apple?" "No. He can't eat in his condition."

What a terrible state he was in. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his small, thin body soaked the sheets. Mom began to really sob. "Take your mother out of this room," ordered Dad. "I don't want her to watch all of this."

As Mom cried in the waiting room down the hall, I stole back inside Bart's private room and watched Dad shoot penicillin into Bart's arm. I held my breath. "Is he allergic to penicillin?" asked another doctor. "I don't know," said Dad in a calm way. "He's never had a serious infection before. At this point there isn't much else we can do but take a chance. Get everything ready in case he reacts." He turned to see me crouched in the corner, trying to stay out of the way. "Son, go to your mother. There's nothing you can do to help here."

I couldn't move. For some reason, perhaps guilt for neglecting my brother, I had to stay and see him through. Soon enough Bart was in worse trouble. Dad frowned, signaled a nurse, and two more doctors came. One of them inserted a tube in Bart's nostril. Next something so dreadful happened I couldn't believe my eyes. All over his body, Bart was breaking out in huge, swollen welts. Red as fire, and they itched, too, because his hands kept moving from one patch of fire to another. Then Dad was lifting Bart and putting him on a stretcher so orderlies could wheel him away.

"Dad!" I cried, "where is that stretcher going? They're not going to take off his leg, are they?"

"No, son," he said calmly. "Your brother is having a severe allergic reaction. We have to move fast and perform a tracheotomy before his throat tissues become inflamed and cut off his air passage."

"Chris," called the doctor pushing one side of the stretcher, "it's okay. Tom has cleared an air passage-- no trache necessary."

A day passed and still Bart was no better. It seemed likely Bart would scratch himself raw and die from another kind of infection. With fascinated horror I stayed very late watching his stubby, swollen fingers work convulsively in useless efforts to relieve the torment of his itching body. His entire body was scarlet. I could tell his condition was serious from Dad's face and from the attitudes of the other professionals all around his bed. Then Bart's hands were bandaged so he couldn't scratch. Next his eyes puffed up so much they looked like two huge, red goose eggs. His lips swelled and protruded three inches beyond normal.

I couldn't believe all this could happen just on count of an allergic reaction.

"Oh!" cried out Mom, clinging tightly to Dad, her tired eyes glued on Bart. He'd been sick forever, or so it seemed. Two days passed and still Bart was no better. He'd spent his tenth birthday on a hospital bed, delirious and raving, his fourth trip to Disneyland canceled, our trip back to South Carolina put off for another year.

"Look," said Dad, pointing with a glow of hope on his tired face. "The hives are diminishing."

The second hurdle cleared. I thought now Bart would get well fast. Wasn't so. His leg grew ever larger--and soon he proved allergic to every antibiotic they had. "What are we going to do now?" cried Mom with so much anxiety I feared for her health.

"We're doing everything we can," was all Dad would say.

"Oh, Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?" mumbled Bart in his delirium. Tears streamed down my face and fell on my shirt like rain.

"The Lord has not forsaken you," said Dad. He knelt by Bart's bed and prayed, holding fast to his small hand while Mom slept on a cot put in the room for her to use. She didn't know the pills Dad had given her were tranquilizers, not aspirin for her headache. She'd been too upset to even notice the color.

Dad touched my head. "Go home and sleep, son. There's only so much you can do, and you've done that." Slowly I got up, stiff from sitting for so long, and headed for the door. When I gave Bart one more long last glance, I saw him tossing restlessly as my father fitted himself on the cot behind my mother.

The next day Mom had to rush to the hospital from ballet class, leaving me to warm up to piano music. "Life goes on, Jory. Forget your brother's problems for awhile, if you can, and join us later on." No sooner was she out of sight than something dawned on me. Apple! Of course! Bart didn't want an apple . . . he wanted his dog. His puppy-pony!

In ten minutes I was out of my leotards and in a telephone booth calling my father. "How's Bart?" I asked.

"Not very good. Jory, I don't know how to tell your mother, but the specialist working on Bart wants to amputate his leg before the infection has a chance to weaken him more. I can't let him do that--and yet, we don't want to lose Bart."

"Don't you let them amputate!" I almost screamed. "You tell Bart--and make him hear--that I'm going home to take care of Apple. Please let Bart keep both his legs." God knows, Bart would feel even more inferior if he lost one.

"Jory, your brother lies on his bed and refuses to cooperate. He isn't trying to recover. It seems he wants to die. We can't give him any kind of antibiotic and his temperature is steadily rising. But I'm with you. There must be something we can do to bring down that fever."

For the first time in my life I hitched a ride home. A nice lady let me off at the bottom of the hill and I raced the rest of the way. Once Bart knew Apple was okay he'd get well. He was punishing himself, just the way he beat his fists against the rough bark of a tree when he broke something. I sobbed with the realization my kid brother was more important to me than I'd known before. Nutty little kid who didn't like himself very much. Hiding in his pretend games, telling tall tales so everyone would be impressed. Dad had told me a long time ago, ". . . indulge him in his pretense, Jory." But maybe we'd indulged him too much.

I gasped when I saw Apple in the barn of the mansion. He was chained to a stake driven into the ground of the floor. A dish of moist dogfood was placed just beyond his reach.

His thick shaggy fur told the story of his hunger. He was ragged, p