Secret Brother

“His family?” I laughed. “All this time, no one calling the police or getting it into the papers?”

“You told me there was the possibility that he was kidnapped and the ransom wasn’t paid.”

“So? Wouldn’t you still be looking for him?” I asked.

She nodded. “Weird.”

“Let’s not talk about it anymore,” I said, as if that was the secret to making it all go away. “Homework.”

“Right,” she said, relieved. “Math first.”

When we went at it, I realized just how much I hadn’t absorbed. I must have been in a daze all day, I thought, and quietly told myself that I would do better tomorrow. We worked for hours and didn’t talk about anything else. After Lila left, I looked at all of Willie’s things that we had gathered. It gave me some satisfaction. I had told Lila not to talk about it, any of it. She took an oath. I had wanted to invite her to stay for dinner, but I could see she thought she should go home to be with her parents. What was happening to Ellie Patterson, the destruction of her family, frightened Lila. Who could blame her for wanting to cling harder to her loved ones? She knew I had lost most of my family in tragedies.

When you’re young, even a teenager, you just don’t believe in the possible end of some things. Divorces weren’t as common as they would become. Sickness and tragedy always seemed to happen to someone else. We were gliding on naivete, seemingly just a few days away from the innocence and gullibility we left behind in preadolescence. You didn’t have to live in our privileged world to drift about in a refusal to accept reality. There would be time for that years from now, right?

Go home, Lila, I thought enviously. Cherish every moment as if it will be your last. Somewhere above or around us, God is turning a page, and you might not like what is written on it.

Grandpa didn’t come to see me as soon as he arrived. I was half-hoping he would, but he went to his room and then to his office before I went down to dinner.

When Willie was at the dinner table, Grandpa always seemed to have a lot to say. Whatever Willie said about his day or something special he had done, Grandpa had a story to tell about himself when he was Willie’s age. He told it as if he was telling it to both of us, but I knew he was really telling it to Willie. Boys needed fathers and grandfathers; girls needed mothers and grandmothers. I had become more and more of an orphan as I grew older and needed them more.

Of course, Grandpa asked me about school. I tried to make it seem as if it had gone all right. I assured him that I had caught up with my work. I kept waiting for him to say something about the poisoned boy, but he didn’t talk about him. Instead, he told me things about his business, things he never really talked about. I thought he was just trying to fill the silence. I tried to pay attention and be interested, but it was like listening to someone speaking in another language.

The following evening, he talked about his business less, and the evening after that, he stopped altogether. Our meals grew quieter and shorter. Myra and My Faith did their best to make them festive, but as that first week drew to a close, Grandpa missed the last two dinners entirely. Myra sat with me, and one night, Lila did come to dinner. We worked on homework and talked about boys again.

The grip that sadness had on me weakened. I could feel myself moving with more energy in school, and I was paying attention to the work again. I did well on my first tests and quizzes since returning. However, I still refused to do anything social on the weekend, and I regretted it. I insisted that Lila go to a party without me, promising her I would do something with her the following weekend. But in the middle of the following week, Grandpa introduced me to the private-duty nurse, Dorian Camden, and I couldn’t think about much else.

He had finally decided to tell me directly of his specific plans to bring the boy to our house, how he would accommodate him and provide what was necessary for his recuperation. He went on and on about his medical treatments, the diagnosis, the horrible impact the slow arsenic poisoning had on his body, filling his descriptions with terms the doctors had used. He emphasized how important it still was for him to have private nursing care.

I sat and listened, sullen and quiet, but if he noticed, he either didn’t care or thought that the more he talked, the better the chance would be that I would relent and be more cooperative, even happy about it.

“I introduced her to him at the hospital,” he said.

“Did he talk to her?” I asked sharply.

“No. He still hasn’t said anything to anyone.”

“Then maybe she’s not a good nurse,” I said petulantly. “Nurses are supposed to be trained for that, aren’t they?”

“Oh, no, no. Dr. Friedman recommended her. She was the first one who came to his mind.”

I didn’t say anything more. There was no way I could discourage him.

When he brought Dorian Camden to our house and introduced her to everyone, I saw that she was an attractive woman, with intelligent light blue eyes and short but stylish hair the color of a ripe lemon. I wondered if my grandfather had gone searching for a nurse who bore some resemblance to the poisoned boy, with his cerulean-blue eyes and flaxen hair. Nothing seemed too ridiculous when I thought of how determined my grandpa was to provide for this boy’s needs. Although he didn’t tell me how old she was, I concluded from her description of places she had worked that she was easily in her mid-forties.

“I hope I can count on you for some help,” Dorian Camden told me. I didn’t answer. She held her smile. It was a soft, warm smile. I wished it wasn’t. I wanted her to be ugly and mean so I could have an easier time hating her being here, but she had a pleasant voice and a kind way about her. I supposed a nurse had to have all that in order to provide tender loving care.

Grandpa asked Myra to show her where her room would be. She was going to take the room upstairs that had always been my parents’ room when we visited. It was close to Willie’s room. Of course, it bothered me that she would stay in that room. No one had since the day we learned of their deaths, but Myra always made sure it was kept clean and polished, as if she expected their miraculous return.

I assumed that because she was moving in now, it wouldn’t be too much longer before the boy was brought here. My grandpa still didn’t come right out and say he would be here tomorrow or the next day or anything. I could see from the way My Faith and Myra were moving about that things were being rearranged in anticipation. I wasn’t going to give anyone the satisfaction of asking about him. I wanted them all to believe I had little or no interest. I expected Myra at least would force me to know things, but suddenly, every mention of him was behind closed doors or well out of my hearing. To me, it felt like the house was full of whispers, new secrets that made me feel like more of a stranger than the boy who would be here.

Of course, Lila was asking me about him whenever we spoke. My answers were short and simple. “I don’t know. I don’t care. No one has said.”

“Well, maybe he’s not coming after all,” she said the day after Dorian Camden moved in.

“Why would the nurse be there, then, Lila?”

“Maybe only just in case,” she offered weakly.