Prologue
I don’t think I shall ever forget the exact time and what I was doing that second Saturday in October. It wasn’t unusual for us to have an Indian summer in Virginia, but this one promised to linger longer than the others we had enjoyed. Six days before, we’d had an early frost, so no one had expected this change in weather. Of course, I was only sixteen years old then and hadn’t experienced many weather surprises compared with someone like my grandfather, who was fifty-eight, or our nanny, Myra Potter, who was sixty-three. The lush green leaves on the trees and bushes on our property and other estates nearby hadn’t even begun to show a hint of the brown and yellow to come. People, especially young people like me, returned to wearing short skirts, short-sleeved blouses, and shorts on weekends and after school. The day before, our grandfather had decided to reheat our pool for us to use on the weekend.
I remember the weather that day so well because it seemed out of place for what was to come. There should have been more clouds, even an overcast, dreary sky. If it had rained, what happened wouldn’t have happened, because my nine-year-old brother, Willie, wouldn’t have been out there. That day, the nice weather was our bad luck.
I was up in my room, sitting at my desk and gazing out the windows that faced the front of my grandfather’s estate. It was one of those lazy mornings when, instead of flying about, birds would rather sit on branches and doze to the point where they looked stuffed. Even clouds were reluctant to move. As usual by ten thirty on a Saturday, I was on the phone with my newest best friend, Lila Stewart, planning what we would do with our afternoon and evening. I was thinking of having a pool party.
The Stewarts had recently bought the property next to my grandfather’s on the north side. Because our property and theirs were at least ten acres each, their house wasn’t exactly close by. If either of us walked to the other’s front gate, it would take about fifteen minutes. Lila’s house, like ours, had a long driveway with gates, so you had to buzz the house to get in and start up the drive. If we rode our bikes, we could do it in about five minutes.
Willie was very anxious to master riding his new bike on the street outside our grandfather’s estate. Grandpa Arnold had bought it for him on his last birthday, but he had been permitted to ride it off the property only twice before, both times short rides accompanied by me. There was an immaculately kept sidewalk outside our property on both sides of the street. Nevertheless, people hardly ever walked there, which made it all right for Willie to ride his bike safely. At least, that was what we all believed.
I had my bedroom windows open to catch any cool breeze. Myra demanded that the maids air out the house at least twice a week even in cooler weather, and her orders were followed as if my grandfather himself had issued them. Lila was running through a list of boys and girls I should invite to a pool party when, suddenly, I heard what was clearly a man screaming for help. Jimmy Wilson, who was the head of Grandpa’s maintenance staff, came out of nowhere and ran down the driveway to the front gate, where I could now see a man in a dark blue suit and tie grasping the bars like someone locked in a prison cell, shaking them as he screamed. I remember he had cotton-white hair, the strands of which looked like they were dancing every time he shook the gate.
Jimmy opened the gate. The man spoke to him, gesturing wildly, and Jimmy turned and shouted to one of his staff to call an ambulance. Then he charged out with the stranger and turned right, disappearing behind the tall, thick evergreen hedges that lined Grandpa’s estate. They were so thick they seemed as impenetrable as the Berlin Wall.
“Something’s wrong,” I told Lila, interrupting her ramble. “Something bad just happened.”
“Where?”
“Right in front of our property. I’ll call you back,” I said. I hung up before she could utter a syllable, threw on my sneakers, and rushed out of my room and down the stairs. I had no reason to suspect something involving any of us, but my heart was thumping so hard it felt like it might burst out of my chest. Grandpa was outside the house, charging down the driveway, too. I shouted to him, but if he heard me, he didn’t want to pause to turn, so I started after him.
When I stepped out of the front door and turned right, I saw the red pickup truck on the sidewalk. The driver was bent over the steering wheel, his head down. And lying on the sidewalk was my brother, Willie. Beside him, barely able to sit up, was Myra. Only a short while ago, she had agreed to let Willie ride his bike slowly beside her while she walked up to the Qwik Shop. Grandpa, Jimmy, and the stranger, whose car was stopped on the street, were beside Myra and my brother. I saw his new bicycle against the fence and the hedge, bent into an L shape.
“Grandpa! Is Willie all right?” I called.
He was kneeling beside Willie. “Stay back, Clara Sue,” he said, putting his right palm up like a traffic cop. “Just stay back.”
I stopped and stood there, frozen by the uncharacteristic hysteria in his voice. Grandpa was talking to Jimmy, who was holding Willie’s head off the sidewalk. The stranger was kneeling down now and talking to Myra. Then he rose and went to the truck and started yelling at the driver, who didn’t so much as lift his head from the steering wheel. A siren sounded, and I looked behind me as paramedics leaped out of a truck and hurried to Willie’s side. Carefully, they lifted him and put him on a stretcher. There was blood running down the left side of his face, and his eyes were shut. I gasped. My throat closed so quickly I couldn’t swallow. My whole body was shaking now.
“Grandpa!” I shouted, unable to contain myself any longer. He didn’t turn to me. He just held up his hand again and watched as they brought out a second stretcher and helped Myra onto it. She glanced back at me and closed her eyes; she was obviously in great pain. Moments later, they had both been loaded into the ambulance, and the doors were being closed. Grandpa and Jimmy Wilson hurried past me.
“Come on, Clara Sue,” Grandpa called, and I ran behind them. All the maids and grounds people were out front looking at us. As Jimmy started to explain to them what had happened, I got into Grandpa’s car. He drove away so quickly I was still struggling to close my door. We sped down the driveway, turned, and shot off after the ambulance, neither of us speaking. By now, there were two police cars at the scene of the accident, and the pickup driver was sitting up and talking to the officers. I looked back and then looked forward again as we made the turn, the tires squealing. I had never seen my grandfather drive like this.
“Is Willie going to be all right, Grandpa?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
All my life, when something bad happened or seemed about to happen, adults would tell me everything would be all right. Grandpa Arnold was never someone who would lie to me or to Willie, but he certainly would do and say everything he could to make us less afraid and less sad. He tried to do this after our parents were killed in a boating accident off Naples, Italy, four years ago while we were staying with him and Grandma Arnold. It was supposed to be a very special holiday for our parents.
“That man was drunk,” Grandpa suddenly muttered, his teeth clenched. I never knew any other man who had a face as strong and as hard as Grandpa Arnold’s. It looked chiseled in granite. Anger didn’t make him redden; it made him gray. When he turned his ha
zel eyes on people, they could feel the rage so quickly that it would start them stuttering.