Echoes of Dollanganger (37 page)

When I stepped out of the front 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 that morning, 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 the stretcher. There was blood running down the left side of his face, and his eyes were shut. His
head turned from side to side as if his neck was broken. 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, but 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 quickly; 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 quickly. He drove away so fast 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, 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, with his teeth clenched. I never knew any other man who had a face as strong and as hard as my Grandpa Arnold's. It looked chiseled in granite. Anger didn't make him redden; it made him gray. When he turned his hazel eyes on people, they could feel the rage so quickly that it would start them stuttering.

“Drunk?”

“Drunk! This early in the day. Drunk!”

“What did he do?”

“Do? He lost control and hit the sidewalk, and instead of pressing down on his brakes, he apparently pressed down on his accelerator and
smashed right into them. He couldn't have done worse if he had done it on purpose,” he said.

“Who is he?” I asked. I just wanted to keep on talking and keep my grandfather talking. My heart was still beating so hard I was sure that if we were silent, he would hear it, too.

“Some rover. Jimmy says he works for Mackingberry's Plumbing Supply,” he said, and took a breath. “He'll never work again if I have any say about it,” he added. “And that company won't do another thing in any home around here if he isn't immediately fired.”

Grandpa drove so fast that we were only about a minute behind the ambulance. The paramedics and hospital personnel had just carried Willie and Myra into the emergency room. Grandpa pulled into a no-parking zone and bolted out, barely closing his door. I ran to keep up with him. He looked like he would walk right through the emergency room's glass door rather than take a second to open it. In fact, when he did open it, he nearly ripped it off its hinges. The sight of him still in a rage stopped people talking.

There were many other adults in the lobby, mostly patients waiting to be seen because of minor accidents or illnesses and some of their relatives or friends. There was a great deal of
commotion in the hallways. My grandfather was never one to stand and wait for someone to ask if he needed help. He marched in past the admittance nurse despite her protestation, and I followed in his wake.

When one of the doctors stepped out of an examination room and looked at us, Grandpa simply said, “It's my grandson.”

“Which one?” the doctor replied.

“What?”

“We have two little boys just brought here. One brought by ambulance and one left here by some idi—” He sucked in what he was going to say when he saw me standing there, too. “Someone who left without giving any information.”

“My grandson was in the ambulance. He was hit by a drunk driver, and my nanny was also brought in.”

“Okay. Just give me a minute to check on your grandson. Your nanny is in the far right examination room,” he said, and went down the hallway to a room where some other doctors and nurses had gathered.

When a fancy-looking machine was wheeled into that room, Grandpa looked at me gravely. “Stay here,” he ordered, and walked ahead, even though the doctor had told him to wait. He
looked into the busy room and then took a step into it.

I waited, holding my breath. No one seemed to notice me. I think everyone was simply too busy to waste time inquiring about my presence. Nurses rushed by. Another doctor appeared, this one in a suit and tie but with a stethoscope around his neck. He went quickly into the room Grandpa had entered. I had no idea how much time had passed; to me, every second was a minute, and every minute was an hour. When I finally saw my grandpa emerge, he had his head down, and the doctor in the suit was standing beside him, talking to him softly, his hand on Grandpa's shoulder. The doctor stepped away, but Grandpa remained there looking down.

I know anyone would think I made it up, but there was the same high whistle I'd heard when I was told our parents had been killed in a freak boating accident thousands of miles away on a blue sea with the sun shining and excitement and laughter whirling about them. It was as if all the air was being sucked away from me. I could hear it seeping off—the whistling sound. I would hear the same sound years later, too, when Grandpa returned from the hospital to tell me Grandma Arnold had died from a massive stroke. I don't think
I was breathing either time, and I didn't think I was breathing now.

When Grandpa Arnold finally lifted his head and looked at me, I knew: Willie was gone.

But I would soon learn in a strange way that he would not be gone forever.

V.C. Andrews
^®
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