Broken Flower (Early Spring 1)

"I overheard Mother call her and make your appointment. She didn't know I heard her, but I did. What's wrong with you?" he asked. "Is it catching?"

I shrugged. Was it? I wondered. Could one of the other girls in school have given me this?

"Well, what's wrong with you?"

What was I supposed to say? Mama didn't want me to tell anyone, but we had told Daddy. Did that prohibition still include Ian now? And even if it didn't, did I want to share a secret like this with him? I had no doubt that he could keep it secret even better than I could and I had no fear that he would tell

Grandmother Emma.

With Mama off in her room probably lying down with a warm washcloth over her eyes, and Daddy not even coming to the doctor's office. I felt alone and frightened. Having a secret wasn't so wonderful, especially this one.

"Mama doesn't want me to tell anyone. She doesn't want Grandmother Emma to find out," I told him.

That was obviously the wrong thing to say. It only made him more interested, but I liked having him interested in me. I could count on my fingers how often he came into my room or how often he actually invited me into his. We spent many days without uttering a word to each other. He attended a different part of the school building, so sometimes after breakfast we wouldn't even see each other until dinner. Suzie Granger, a sixth-grader, had a crush on Ian and tried to get him to look at her, but even if she stood in his direct path, he acted as if she were invisible. One day in school, she grabbed me angrily and said, "Haying Ian as a brother must be like being an only child."

I had no idea what she meant, but that was when I found out she wanted him to pay attention to her, and Lila McIntyre, a girl in my class, explained what it meant to have a crush on someone. Her sister had told her.

"Why do they call it a crush?" I asked.

"You love them so much you just want to squeeze them to bits," she said, which I thought wasn't that great anyway. It sounded painful.

"You're not talking to just anyone, Jordan.," Ian said. "I'm your brother, and you should trust your brother more than any stranger."

"I don't trust any strangers. I don't talk to strangers...

"I didn't actually mean you talk to strangers," he said, a little frustrated. He put his hands on hi

s hips. "Look, you're my sister. We're family, so what happens to you is important to me," he said.

What happens to me is important to him? I looked at him. He had never said anything like that to me before. I was never interesting to him and nothing I liked or did attracted him, but he did like to tell me about the things he did. It wasn't his fault that I was bored too much to listen or care. The truth was he talked to me more than he did Mama and especially Daddy. At least I listened, even if I didn't understand much of what he had to say.

"So? What's the big secret? Spit it out," he said.

It felt like something I would like to spit out. I thought.

He stood there looking down at me. He had lots of patience and never stamped his foot or shouted. Unlike some of my girlfriends at school who had older brothers. too. I never had mean fights with my brother and we never said mean things to each other. In fact, he didn't argue much with anyone. He would just say, "I'm not wasting my breath."

I looked up at him and then I looked at the open door. "Mama might get mad at me if I tell you," I said.

"So. I won't let her know you told me, okay?"

I knew when Ian said he would do something, he would do it, and when he said he wouldn't, he wouldn't, no matter what, but I didn't like betraying Mama. He knew what was bothering me. Ian was almost as good as Grandmother Emma when it came to reading faces.

"She won't get mad anyway. Jordan, and even if she does, I'll tell her it was my fault, okay?"

"Okay," I said, but I didn't say anything. I was trying to find the right words, words that made sense to me.

"Well?"

"I've got precocious," I said.

"What?" He squinted and twisted his nose. Then he smiled. Had I said it wrong?

"Precocious," I repeated.

"You're precocious? I doubt that," he said. "You're most likely an average student, not that there's anything wrong with it. Anyway, they don't take people who are precocious to set medical doctors, Jordan. Psychologists, maybe, but not MDs. You're not precocious."

"It's true, Ian. Dr. Dell'Acqua said so and she poked my arm and took blood out of me even though blood came out of me already," I blurted, and immediately regretted it. All that was still