more than six months; the grounds people, the gardeners, the pool man, and anyone who came onto the property to do any work made sure she was happy with what they were doing, even before my grandpa had a look at it.
“But what about Willie?” I asked now, hoping to hear a different answer.
He shook his head. His face was still ashen gray. When my grandfather was deeply upset about something, he seemed to close up every part of himself through which rage or emotion could escape. The steam built up inside him and made him look like he might explode. The only indication came in the way his hands and lips trembled slightly. Anyone who didn’t know him well would probably not notice or would notice when it was already too late, especially if he was angry. And then, as Grandma Arnold used to say, “Pity the fool who got his engine started!”
Grandpa Arnold was always the biggest and strongest man ever in my eyes. He was six feet three and at least two hundred twenty pounds of mostly muscle. He owned one of the country’s biggest trucking companies. He had been a truck driver himself, and because he hated the long days and weeks of separation from his family, he had put together his own company and built it to where it was today. It was even on the stock market now. I had no idea how rich my grandfather was, but to most people who knew us, he seemed to be the richest man in the country. Wherever he went, people practically leaped out of their skin to please him.
He put his hand on my shoulder and then brought me into a hug. We stood while nurses and doctors went around us as if we weren’t there, which made it feel more like a dream.
“Come on,” he said when he stopped hugging me. He took my hand and led me down the hallway to another room, where a nurse and a doctor were working around a very small boy. Despite the scary-looking equipment and the wires and tubes attached to him, the boy didn’t even whimper. He didn’t cry, and unlike any other child his age, he didn’t call for his mother. He was lying there with his cerulean-blue eyes wide open but looking as glassy and frozen as the eyes of the worried people in the lobby. His pale face seemed to be fading into the milk-white pillow, making his flaxen hair more golden. I thought he looked like a fallen cherub, an angel who had floated onto the hospital bed and was still too stunned to speak.
“What happened to him?” I asked, sniffing back my tears.
“They say he was poisoned.”
“Poisoned?”
“With arsenic. They don’t know if it was done deliberately or if he was eating something meant for rats.”
I grimaced. I was close to heaving up everything I had eaten all day as it was.
I looked up at my grandfather and saw something different in his face. The terror, anger, and horrible sadness that had been there from the moment we had driven off to the hospital suddenly were gone, replaced with this look of awe and interest I had seen in him only occasionally since my parents’ deaths and especially since Grandma Arnold’s death. He always seemed impervious. It was as if he had a new limit to how deeply he would smile or laugh and how tightly he would hold on to the reins of his curiosity, especially about people. He did what he had to do for Willie and me, but I couldn’t help feeling that he was moving about robotically most of the time and that we were very dependent on Myra to care for us.
I waited a moment to see what my grandfather wanted to do now. Why were we looking in on this little boy, anyway? How would this make what happened to Willie different? There was nothing that could make it any better.
“He was dumped off here,” my grandfather said, his eyes still fixed on the doctor’s and nurse’s actions around the boy.
“Dumped?”
He looked down at me. “Like the doctor told us when we first arrived, someone brought him to the hospital and left him without giving any names or telling what had happened. They said it all happened so quickly that no one could do anything about it.”
“But what does this have to do with Willie and Myra, Grandpa?” I asked.
He looked at me but didn’t answer. He just looked back at the boy and nodded as if he heard someone else speaking.
“Where is Willie?” I asked, sounding annoyed. Why didn’t my grandfather take us to Willie’s room instead of this little boy’s room? Was he already too terrible to look at, his face distorted by death? I wanted so much to look at him, to touch him. Maybe if he knew I was there beside him, he would come back to life. I still believed in miracles.
“They’re taking him to a place in the hospital where he’ll be until the funeral director comes for him,” he said. Now his voice was thinner, his throat closing up. His lips and hands had that tremble again.
The word “funeral” brought an intense rush of heat to my face. I felt like a blowup of myself losing air quickly. My body seemed to be sinking in on me, collapsing.
“No,” I said, very softly at first, so softly that Grandpa Arnold didn’t hear it. It was all taking a firmer grip on me. “No,” I repeated, much louder. He turned and looked down at me. He was still holding my hand. “No!” I screamed, squatting and pounding my hands against the sides of my body. “No! Willie can’t be dead! No!” The nurse and the doctor stopped working on the little boy and looked at us.
Grandpa reached down and lifted me up. I realized immediately how silly that looked, a sixteen-year-old girl picked up like a child half her age. To him, it was just the natural thing to do, I guess. For a moment, that took my breath away.
“Shh,” Grandpa said, stroking my hair. He lowered me and then he turned with me, and we headed back to the lobby to wait for more news about Myra.
I slumped over in the chair, my head resting against my grandfather’s shoulder. My emotional outburst had drained me of so much energy that I didn’t think I’d be able to get up on my own when the nurse came to tell us Myra was ready and we could take her home.
I felt Grandpa’s strong arm around my waist. He literally lifted me to my feet. Then he took my hand. The nurse, a woman who reminded me a little of my mother, put her hand on my shoulder and stroked my hair.
“I’m so sorry about your brother,” she said. “You have to be strong for everyone now,” she added.
Strong for everyone? What language was she speaking? How could I be strong for anyone now?
Tears were frozen in my eyes. I thought I probably looked as comatose as that little boy with the flaxen hair. We walked back toward the exam rooms, where the nurse led us to another exit. Myra was in a wheelchair. An attendant was waiting to wheel her out to Grandpa’s car.
“She’s under some pain sedation,” the nurse told Grandpa.