Secret Brother

I smirked. How could a stranger’s future make any difference for me now?

“It’s true, Clara Sue. He’s mostly angry right now, and he wants to strike back at something. I know my dad. He doesn’t accept defeat, even when it’s staring him right in the face. He wants revenge.”

“What do you mean? What revenge? On whom? The truck driver?”

“That, too, I’m sure, but mostly on death,” he said. He looked away.

“I don’t care. He should be here, with us, not at a hospital worrying about a boy he knows nothing about. You know he told me that Grandma told him to take care of the boy?”

Uncle Bobby looked up quickly. “He said that? He didn’t tell me that.”

“He said he could hear her whisper in his ear at the hospital.”

He thought a moment, and then his lips did relax into a small smile. “Maybe my old man is softening up,” he said. He didn’t look upset about it anymore.

“People are calling and starting to come over, and he’s not even here yet. His secretary, Mrs. Mallen, is here in his office handling Willie’s funeral like it’s a truck delivery. Myra won’t tell Grandpa, but she told me she heard Mrs. Mallen arguing about prices with the funeral director.”

“We’ll take over for him and hold down the fort until he gets here,” he said, rising. “Let’s go down and have something to eat. I see My Faith has whipped up her wonderful fried chicken.”

“Willie loved it the most.”

“Well, we’ll eat it for him, then. Come on, Clara Sue. Let’s be together. I need you by my side,” he said, holding out his hand. I knew he was saying that to make me feel better. The truth was, I needed him by my side and not vice versa.

I couldn’t say no to him for anything anyway. I put on my shoes again and took his hand, and we walked out of my room and down the hallway, both of us deliberately avoiding looking into Willie’s room. Some of Grandpa’s friends and business associates had begun to arrive to comfort him. Uncle Bobby greeted them and simply told them Grandpa was out making the arrangements for Willie and would be back very soon. He did not mention the poisoned boy. We looked at each other after he spoke. He didn’t have to tell me not to say anything about it. I wouldn’t if I could.

Grandpa arrived a little while later and began to talk to people. He tried ordering Myra back to her room, but by now, she was almost herself again. With my brother killed and her arm in a cast and a sling, people were even more frightened of seeing those eyes turned in their direction. Both Grandpa and I knew she was far too stubborn to stay in her room recuperating. Despite what Grandpa had told her, it was easy to see that she still carried some guilt for what had happened to Willie. It was written across her wrinkled brow: if only she had not taken him with her. She would think about that all her life, even though no one would blame her.

When Lila arrived, I had never been so happy to see her. I wanted to get away from the older people, who were all looking at me with such pity in their eyes that I had to take deep breaths to keep from crying hysterically. Uncle Bobby tried to console me as much as possible, but people were pulling him away with their questions about his musical career and talking about anything they could that would avoid mentioning the horrible tragedy. It was almost as if they would stop when someone said something and then raise their eyebrows with curiosity, as if they were thinking, Oh? Little Willie was killed?

No wonder I took Lila’s hand quickly and led her to the stairway so we could rush up to my room and close the door. I felt like I was rising out of a bigger and wider grave than the one Willie would be laid in tomorrow. The first thing we did in my room was hug each other.

“Don’t cry,” I warned her, pointing at her. “If you start, I won’t stop.”

She swallowed back her tears and nodded. Then, as we often did, we lay be

side each other on my bed and looked up at the embossed circles swirling on my ceiling. She reached for my hand. I closed my eyes because I was getting dizzy.

“I can’t imagine what you went through at the hospital,” she began. “I thought about it all night and couldn’t sleep. How hard it must have been to look at him.”

“I never did,” I said. “My grandfather did. He was in the room when they were trying to save Willie, but he didn’t take me there to look at him.” I paused, then opened my eyes and added, “He took me to see another little boy.”

“What? What other boy?”

“The poisoned boy,” I said, and then I told her some of what my grandfather had said and what I knew he was doing for the boy.

She was silent, thinking. “He probably doesn’t know which way to turn or what to do,” she finally concluded.

“That’s what my uncle Bobby thinks, but my grandfather has always been in control of everything. He always knows what to do.”

“Well, you can’t be angry at him for trying to help someone.”

“Now? Now he tries?”

“What else can he do for—” She stopped herself and turned away, but she didn’t have to finish her sentence. It was one of those sentences that finish themselves, like a launched rocket you couldn’t turn back.

“For Willie,” I muttered. “What else could he do for him? He could think of nothing and no one else but him, just like me.”

“I know. Did the boy say anything to him?”