Secret Brother

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.”