“I have too much to do for school,” I said. “I might just take a bike ride.”
“A bike ride?”
“Yes. I would like to get some air and exercise, or do you want me to end up like him in a wheelchair? If that happened, you’d get me a private nurse, too, wouldn’t you?”
He jerked his head back as if I had spit at him. “Don’t make it too difficult for me to be your guardian, Clara Sue,” he said, his voice full of warning.
“I don’t think of you as my guardian, Grandpa. I think of you as my grandfather. At least, I used to,” I added, turning away.
He didn’t respond.
When I looked back, he was gone. I lay there for a while, wondering how all this had happened. There was so much darkness now between today and all the wonderful yesterdays that Willie, my parents, and I had once enjoyed, wonderful memories like the sound of laughter or my parents singing some favorite children’s song they shared from their own youth while we drove somewhere. Willie would fall asleep against me back then. He was so little. I would put my arm around him like Mommy did, and when she looked back and saw us, she would smile brightly enough to light up a room.
All those memories were so distant. They were slipping away like smoke caught in the cold wind that had rushed in under the bruised and angry clouds of my great sadness. Reaching out for them was like reaching into wisps of haze, grasping nothing. I fell asleep like someone falling down a tunnel whose walls were lined with tears.
The following morning, I deliberately went to breakfast later than usual. By then, my grandfather had finished eating and was outside doing things with Jimmy on the property. Mrs. Camden was busy with the boy and his physical therapist. My Faith had left for her church work in Charlottesville, and Myra was in her room. They had left out the orange juice and my favorite cereal with a banana. I ate alone and then returned to complete my homework and pick out something to wear for my bike ride and my rendezvous with Aaron.
No one came looking for me at lunchtime. I was sure they were all preoccupied with the big adventure with the boy, but when I went down, Myra was there to make me a toasted cheese sandwich. She tried to talk about my behavior and my attitude, but I wouldn’t say anything, so she gave up. At one thirty, I left the house, got on my bike, and headed for the playground. I didn’t even tell her where I was going. I was angry at everyone. It felt good to get away from the house. I paused only when I was near the place where the truck had hit Willie and Myra. Then I rode faster.
Aaron had gotten Paulie to drive him there and pick him up in two hours. The park was busy with families, dozens of young children on the rides. Two teenagers drew some passing attention. Some of the parents knew who we were, but most weren’t interested.
“Now I know what Romeo and Juliet felt like,” Aaron said when we met. We started walking away, me walking alongside my bike.
“That didn’t end well,” I said. We had just read it in my English class.
He laughed. “You know the creek down here?” he asked when we made the turn south of the park.
“No.”
He led the way through an empty lot. When we reached a patch of woods, he told me to leave my bike, and then we followed a path for about half a mile to a hill that looked down on the creek. We sat at the top and watched the water flowing over the rocks and dead tree stumps.
Aaron played with a blade of yellowed grass and then took a tiny branch and held it with both hands. “See this?” he said.
“So?”
“My father’s got this expression. ‘A branch that doesn’t bend breaks.’” He demonstrated by bending it but not breaking it.
“What are you saying?”
“You have a little war going on at your house now.”
“No kidding, Dick Tracy.”
He smiled and shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about it all morning. My guess is that if you won and your grandfather shipped the kid out, you wouldn’t be all that happy, because you wouldn’t like how everyone at the house thought of you, including your grandfather. I’m not saying he’s done the right thing by giving him your brother’s stuff and putting him in your brother’s room so soon,” he quickly added.
I was quiet. He wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t thought. I just didn’t want to think about it now or ever.
“I have a selfish motive for bringing this up,” he added when I didn’t speak.
“And what’s that?”
“If you were a happy camper at home and your grandfather wasn’t on your case, I wouldn’t have to be dreaming about you so much. I could see you more. Get it?”
I nodded. I liked what he was saying. Right now, I didn’t think anyone was as happy being around me as he was. I hoped it was for the right reasons. Was I an easy target, or did he
mean it? Lila and the gossips had stirred up my natural paranoia. He saw how deeply I was thinking.
“I mean, you were suggesting it, too, when you said you might do a trade to get the chains off, right?”