Secret Brother

“He’s paying you more,” I insisted, nodding. I calmed a bit. “He probably should, but he’s definitely paying you more than you’d be making anywhere else, right?”

“I’m here to talk about you,” she insisted. “Not me. How you can help make it all easier.”

“There’s nothing I can do. I don’t know anything about physical therapy.”

“Oh, I’m not asking you to do anything like that. Just . . . give him the sense that he’s welcome,” she suggested. “It will please your grandfather, and in the end, you won’t be so . . .”

“Angry all the time?”

“Exactly,” she said, smiling.

I thought a moment. I

had no doubt that my grandfather had sent her up here, but I wasn’t sure if I should be angry about it or pleased that he cared. “Are you going to stay on this job long?”

“As long as I’m needed,” she replied, and stood.

“You’re going to live here practically seven days a week?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you have your own life, your own friends, relatives?” I asked, now curious.

“I am a widow with no children. I have a younger sister who’s married and has three children, the oldest being twenty-five. She and her family are in Oregon. I see them only occasionally. When you’re taking on private-duty nursing positions, you don’t keep as close contact with your friends as you’d like. I’ve worked all over the state these past years.”

“And now you’ll have a job for years in one place, maybe,” I said.

“I don’t think that long. I’m sure he’ll outgrow his need for constant care.”

“Maybe you should adopt him,” I said, as she was turning to leave.

She stopped quickly. “What?”

“William. Maybe you can adopt him. If he has a mother who’s a nurse, he’ll be better off. I think you should suggest it to my grandfather. Maybe he’ll pay you to do it. Buy you a new house.”

She just stared at me a moment. I didn’t have to be taught what the expression of frustration looked like. I had seen it enough in my own mirror. “Think about the things I told you,” she said, and walked out, closing the door softly behind her.

I did think about them. I thought about them so hard and long that I almost didn’t get any sleep at all, but when I woke up in the morning, I didn’t feel any different about the boy or what Grandpa was doing. Maybe I wouldn’t be as vocal about it since Mrs. Camden had spoken to me, practically begged me, but anyone looking at me when I was in this house would know how I felt. I was sure of that. I was just as Grandma Arnold had described me, “a girl who printed her thoughts on her forehead as she thought them.”

It was the same with my classmates, no matter how hard I tried to resemble the girl I was before Willie’s death. I did wear red, and I did enjoy the look of shock on Mr. Leshner’s face when we all walked into his classroom. Every time he saw one of us during the day, he started to laugh, and the story spread quickly through the school. It seemed to make everyone a little happier, and I kept telling myself that I had to stop feeling guilty for every smile, every laugh, and every bit of interest I had in my social life.

Aaron Podwell homed in on me again. He had been just as standoffish and timid about talking to me as everyone except Lila had been, but there was obviously a recognizable change in me that gave him the courage. I welcomed it, even though I was never confident of his true motives. I had had boyfriends, gone on dates to school dances, parties, and the movies. I had kissed and petted but never felt much more than the same curiosity about it all that most of my girlfriends expressed. I knew what stopping before it was too late meant and what condoms were, of course. There had been some nasty jokes pulled on a few of us from time to time, usually by immature losers like Stevie Randolph, who was caught writing dirty things on bathroom walls and slipped condoms we learned he had stolen from his father into girls’ hall lockers with filthy notes attached.

But I hadn’t yet even been bitten by the “crush mosquito.” There were boys, especially the older boys, who I thought were cute, even handsome, like Winston Kettner, who was often compared to Troy Donahue but who obviously knew it and moved about as if he was already in college and president of his fraternity or something. He did dress better than any other boy and was probably going to be this year’s class valedictorian. I had caught him looking at me a few times, but each time, when I looked back at him, he quickly turned away, as if he had done something wrong. At the moment, he wasn’t going with anyone, either. There was a rumor that he wasn’t interested in girls, but I laid that at the feet of jealousy.

Aaron was quite different, even though he had been infected with a similar strain of arrogance. He was good-looking, too, but in a more masculine way, more like my grandfather. His features weren’t as pretty-boy perfect as Winston’s. If anything, his nose was a little too big, and his habitual smile was wry to the point where you felt he was toying with you, but he had his mother’s striking green eyes. Under the name Elaine Calvin, she had modeled for major women’s magazines. When Aaron looked at you, especially when he looked at me, you couldn’t help feeling he was like Superman and could see right through your clothes. He intrigued me, but he often frightened me, too. He was dangerous. I would never tell anyone, especially Lila, what I felt and thought about him.

I couldn’t help having similar feelings about most boys. I had the sense that they thought of me as potentially promiscuous because I didn’t have parents. They had no idea how tough my grandfather could be with me, but I could feel that there was this underlying belief that unlike other girls, I had no one checking on me, demanding that I behave and obey curfews or even taking interest in what I did socially.

There were two girls in our school who had lost fathers, one to sickness and one in an automobile accident, both when they were younger, and there was no question that they were what my girlfriends called “loose lips.” They weren’t referring only to their mouths, either.

In any case, I tried to be friendlier to Aaron without looking too enthusiastic. Like most Prescott residents, Aaron’s family was wealthy. They owned an estate that rivaled my grandfather’s. His father owned and operated one of the biggest heating-oil companies in Virginia. Aaron’s older sister, Tami, was an acknowledged beauty and was in New York trying to follow in her mother’s footsteps at the same modeling agency.

Aaron was instantly at my side in the cafeteria, which resembled an upscale fast-food restaurant. Our tables didn’t have tablecloths, but the furnishings were kept immaculate and always looked no more than a day old. There was a very active parent-teacher organization whose members my grandfather referred to as more like stockholders. Often parents inspected the building, especially the bathrooms, the locker rooms, and the cafeteria, as if they wore white gloves and were searching for signs of dust. Anyone transferring in from one of the public schools nearby surely felt like they had to wipe their feet before entering. From time to time, we heard their comments, but like everyone else who had been attending the Prescott private school, I took it all for granted. They might as well have been talking about schools in foreign countries.

“Glad to hear you’re going to Audrey’s party this weekend,” Aaron said when he sat beside me.

“I haven’t spoken to Audrey yet today. How’d you find out?”