“Maybe,” I said.
“Maybe?” He was silent a moment. “You’re not mad at me or anything, are you?”
“No. I’m just . . . trying to catch my breath. So much is happening, has happened. I want to think about it all quietly.”
“Right. Think about it,” he said, his voice sharp with annoyance. “Okay, I’ll call you to see if you changed your mind. In the meanwhile, have a good tree thing.”
I said good-bye and stared at the phone after I hung up.
What was I doing? There wasn’t a girl in my school who wouldn’t want Aaron Podwell to be her boyfriend. In my mind, I had committed myself more to him than I had to any boy. Why was I blaming him for trying to do the very thing I had told him I wanted to do? Why was I blaming him for caring?
Or was I doubting now that he really cared? Did I have more reason to suspect that everything he did was for one purpose, to make it with me, to add me to his list of conquests? Was I getting smarter, wiser about all this?
All the girls in my class now believed I was one of the most sophisticated among us, that somehow I had leaped beyond them when it came to romance and sex. Certainly, I wouldn’t make any mistakes or be just someone’s little conquest. They assumed too much. I wasn’t the person to go to with a romance question, but I didn’t let them know it, because I was happy that they saw me this way, happy that my ego was being stroked just when I was falling into a deeper and deeper hole of self-pity. It had pushed back the veil of darkness that had threatened to overwhelm and bury me in sorrow.
Everything negative could have followed if Aaron hadn’t shown interest in me. I could have given up on my schoolwork, on caring about my looks and my social life, on life itself. No one would have blamed me. I’d have been the primary one seeing a therapist, and my self-image would have dwindled until I was a mere shadow of who I had been. I might as well have crawled into the ground beside Willie. Shouldn’t I be thankful that Aaron came along? Why was I so confused about it? The mental turmoil was making me angry.
But this constant questioning wasn’t really surprising. At some point when you’re growing up, you suddenly realize that life is very complicated. I think that makes us all mad. We realize our childhood faith was an illusion. I had discovered that truth much earlier than other girls my age. My parents’ deaths had turned everything inside out and left a hole in our lives so big and deep that it seemed we would never crawl out again, never enjoy anything we ate, anything we were given, anything we used to enjoy. The emptiness inside us threatened to expand until we were two children with vacant eyes who didn’t know how or when to laugh or smile again. Our grandparents and Myra and My Faith brought us up for air, and we began to live again. However, like some giant pushing my head back under every time I emerged from the cold darkness, death visited us again and again.
I was coming up for air once more, and now I wondered if I was only bringing the darkness back by forcing Count Piro to face his own horrid memories. As I had unfortunately learned at an age not much older than he was, emotional and psychological wounds could be more painful than physical ones. He, however, was suffering all three kinds. How well did he sleep? What clicked on and off in his mind when he opened his eyes in the morning? A wall separated us, but somewhere in the darkness, we were both screaming.
I shook off these chilling thoughts and joined my grandfather, who I knew was waiting for me to go with him to pick out a Christmas tree. At first, Dorian thought she would come along herself and bring Count Piro, but he had developed some stomach trouble, and she thought it was best that he remain in bed for a while.
“I don’t think it’s anything serious,” she said. She thought a moment and then shook her head and held her tongue. Maybe she didn’t say anything because she would be saying it in front of me. It was difficult to navigate through all this mystery. Secrets gave birth to more secrets. They multiplied like rabbits in this house.
“Don’t worry. The tree will cheer him up,” Grandpa Arnold assured her. “We have all the fixings, and we’ll get out the electric trains, right, Clara Sue?”
I looked at him with surprise. I had forgotten about the electric trains and the tiny people and little houses. Putting that all together had been Willie’s prized Christmas assignment. He hated to have anyone, even me, help him. But what good would it do in boxes left in a closet? Of course we should take them out. “Right, Grandpa,” I said.
He nodded at Dorian. I caught the silent words they exchanged with their eyes and knew they were all about me. Were they suspicious about my willingness to cooperate now? I didn’t like not being trusted, but I couldn’t deny that I had earned it.
Moments later, we were off to hunt for the best darn tree in Virginia, as Grandpa would say. I felt him looking at me, trying to read my thoughts and feelings, especially now that we were doing this for our Christmas. The first time he, Willie, and I had done this after our parents’ deaths, he had talked all the way to the tree farm and back. I knew he didn’t want us to concentrate too long on our memories of decorating the Christmas tree with our mother and father. It was Willie who remembered that Mommy wanted the angel put on first. Every Christmas, she would tell us, “The angel has to look down and approve of what we do to her tree.”
“I don’t know how we do it,” Grandpa Arnold suddenly said. It was as if he was thinking aloud. He kept his attention on the road. I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t.
“Do what, Grandpa?”
“Come back to the living. Every time something terrible happens in our lives, something terrible to someone we love, we think, Why bother going on?” He turned to me. “Yet we do, don’t we? We go on.”
“I guess I believe Mommy or Daddy, Grandma, or even Willie would want us to,” I said.
“Exactly. That would be like adding insult to injury if they didn’t. I mean, who’s to say they can’t feel guilty about something like that, even in heaven?”
I smiled. “You telling me you believe in heaven now, Grandpa?”
He looked at me, that subdued but loving smile trickling through his face as if the firm, serious face he habitually wore had become a transparent mask through which I could now see the true William Arnold. “I can’t think of anyplace else they’d be,” he said. “But don’t go and tell My Faith I said that, or she’ll smother me in Bibles,” he quickly added.
He tried to look serious about it, but we both laughed.
This is something we haven’t done for a while, I thought, laugh together at the same thing.
After we reached the tree farm, we walked among the rows, inspecting. We needed a rather big and tall tree for a living room our size. Grandpa was not only good at picking out a tree that had a perfect shape, but he was also good at negotiating the price for it.
“You always try to negotiate when you’re buying things, if you can,” he told me after we loaded the tree onto the small pickup he kept for odd jobs. Jimmy used it mostly and would have come with us if it wasn’t his day off. “People respect you more. I wish your uncle Bobby understood that. Artistic people are softies when it comes to the real world.”
“He’s a talented and lovely man, Grandpa. You should be proud of him.”
“Lovely, huh? Anyone ever called me lovely, I’d have their two front teeth.”
“Growl, growl,” I muttered, and he laughed.
Then he turned serious again. “Bobby knows he can go his own way, and I’ll still do whatever I can for him. Your grandma Lucy would rise from the grave and give me what for if I didn’t.”
“You’d do it anyway, Grandpa. You’re the softy at heart. That boy wouldn’t be in our house if you weren’t,” I said, thinking of what Aaron had told me.
He glanced at me. His expression revealed that he was caught between arguing and agreeing. Instead, he just drove on. To our surprise, Jimmy had returned on his day off and was there to help unload the tree
and help Grandpa set it up in the tree stand in the living room. While they did that, I went to the storage room and began bringing out the Christmas decorations and Willie’s electric trains and model village. Before we got started, My Faith announced lunch, and Dorian came down to tell us William was feeling better and she thought he might be up to watching or even helping in a small way to decorate the tree.
“What did he say about it?” I asked.
“Oh, I haven’t told him about it yet. I thought I would just get him down here and surprise him with it.” She gave Grandpa one of those conspiratorial glances and told me that Dr. Patrick had suggested it and asked her to take note of his reaction. “We’re not even sure he ever had a Christmas tree in his home,” she pointed out.
“Well, he should believe in Santa Claus,” I said, and nodded at my grandfather. “Not Saint Nick but Saint William.”
Dorian widened her eyes. They looked at each other, and Grandpa surprised me with a smile. I thought I had sounded sarcastic, but apparently, I didn’t know my own thinking anymore.
Grandpa brought in a ladder after lunch so one of us could place the angel at the top of the tree while Dorian went back up to get Count Piro dressed and into the chair to be brought downstairs. I spread all the decorations out carefully, trying to recall how we had each one placed on the tree last Christmas.
I heard the chair coming down, heard Dorian transferring him to the wheelchair waiting at the bottom, and then turned to the doorway to watch as she wheeled him into the living room. Grandpa stood there holding the angel in his hands. I stood up, thinking I would invite the boy over to attach some of the sparkling crystal balls to the lower branches. He could do that easily while in his wheelchair. He looked from me to Grandpa to the tree, and then his face began to tremble as if it was made of putty and he was being shaken.
It was clear that the tree was connected with a strong memory for him, and now the sight of it brought back some horror like a gust of wind slapping him in the face. He screamed what I thought sounded like “Carry!” and then his head jerked back, and the trembling in his face rippled through his body. Dorian looked shocked, actually stunned, and for a moment, I wondered if she could do anything.
“What . . .” Grandpa cried.
Dorian quickly turned Count Piro’s wheelchair and pushed him out of the room and back toward the stairway. Grandpa and I followed. Before she reached the stairway with him, his head fell to the side. She paused and felt for his pulse. I knew Grandpa was holding his breath like I was while we watched Dorian examine him.
“He’s passed out from the hyperventilating,” she said. She started to lift him out of the wheelchair. Grandpa shot forward and scooped him into his arms, and then, like carrying a baby, he started up the stairs, Dorian following.
By now, everyone in the house was aware that something terrible had happened. Myra and My Faith came rushing down the hallway. One of the maids appeared behind them. I stood on the bottom step and watched Grandpa and Dorian move up quickly, rushing the boy to his room.
“What happened?” Myra asked me.
“I don’t know. We thought it would be nice for him to see us doing the tree and maybe getting him to participate, but when he saw it, he had some kind of emotional crisis,” I said.
“Poor child,” My Faith said.
No one moved. We just stared at the top of the stairway.
Grandpa finally appeared. “We’re calling Dr. Friedman and Dr. Patrick,” he said as he descended. “He’s come to. He’s all right for now.” Everyone stepped back as he turned and headed for his office.
“Just the sight of a Christmas tree did that,” Myra muttered.
“He shouted something, but I didn’t really understand it.”
“What?” My Faith asked.
“It sounded like ‘carry’ . . . maybe he meant carry him away. What’s for sure, I think, is it reminded him of his last Christmas, maybe, or every Christmas. Whatever, it wasn’t something nice,” I said.
“That poor child, so tormented. He needs plenty of tender loving care,” My Faith said.
“Maybe too much,” I muttered, but neither of them heard me. I returned to the living room and just sat looking at the naked tree and the decorations on the floor. Grandpa had put the angel on his chair when he rushed out to follow Dorian. It looked like it was staring at me. So? I could hear it asking. Do you want to trick him into telling you everything so you can get rid of him faster and send him back to whatever horror he came from? It looks easy to do now.
I barely did anything with the tree. Instead, I spent most of the remainder of the afternoon setting up Willie’s electric train set, imagining him beside me as I put the little village together and placed the toy people where I thought he would have liked them to be. While I was working, Dr. Friedman and Dr. Patrick arrived and went upstairs. I heard them all gather in Grandpa’s office later. I didn’t ask any questions or try to be a part of it. I felt myself trembling a little. Did this mean they were going to send him back to the hospital or to some mental clinic? Had they discovered more, and would the police be called?
I imagined them arriving, followed by an ambulance, perhaps, or some vehicle to take him away. The silence that would follow would be deafening. Dorian Camden would pack her bags and be off. The emptiness in the house that I knew Grandpa feared the most would settle in, and those shadows would deepen and darken and come rushing under doors and through windows and rising through the floors to create cobwebs of sorrow and mourning. Whatever energy had returned to the house—to Myra and My Faith and all the servants—would slip away. What I had wanted from the start would happen.
We would all return to mourning Willie.
We would hate the mornings and resist the evenings and sleep.
We would sob through our days and face the winter with only expectations of cold and dreariness. The jingle of bells, the sound of a child’s laughter, and joy with the falling snow would be only painful memories. The protective castle walls that Willie and I had imagined around our grandfather’s luxurious home would crumble. It would become more like living in a museum. I would live for the day when I could leave.
I heard them all come out of Grandpa’s office. Dr. Patrick stopped at the living room to look in on the tree and me.
“This is going to be very pretty,” she said. “I have a younger brother, and he used to look forward to setting up his electric trains. Actually, my father was more excited about it.”
I looked up at her. I had been sitting on the floor, struggling to recall where every toy person had stood in Willie’s village. “I was doing all this for my brother,” I said.
“Were you?” She had that face again, the one with microscope lenses for eyes and that all-knowing smile that at first had annoyed me because it made me feel naked. What was more personal to you than your thoughts and feelings? Having those visible made you vulnerable, even helpless. It was like trusting someone to hold your hands in a trapeze act. You were dangling and totally dependent on your partner’s grip.
“Maybe for the boy upstairs, too,” I confessed.
She changed her all-knowing smile to a warm one. “I suspected that,” she said.
“What’s happening with him?”
“We’ll keep things as they are for the time being,” she said. “Physically, he has made good improvements, although his motor skills, his walking in particular, will take time and, as we feared, might never be what they should be.”
“And?”
“Some breakthroughs. Right now, they don’t make enough sense to act on, but your grandfather’s taken control of that part and will be dealing with the search.”
“For his parents?”
“Whatever family can be located. He’ll tell you more about that. I have to go.” She started to turn away but stopped. “He’s still quite fragile mentally. I know it sounds self-serving, but
my working through his trauma and fears takes the same skill employed by a brain surgeon. Don’t press him too hard. Your boyfriend did well with him, but make sure he understands, too, okay?”
I nodded. She smiled again and left. Dorian walked by with Dr. Friedman, but they didn’t stop to speak with me, too occupied with what they were discussing. I heard Dorian go back up the stairs and Dr. Friedman leave the house. Grandpa remained in his office, so I decided to go up the ladder and place the angel at the top of the tree.
“Perfect,” I heard Grandpa say just as I finished. “Be careful on the ladder.” I started down, and he came over to hold it.
“Dr. Patrick stopped in,” I said. “She said he was all right for now.”
“Yes. I’m going to see the police detective who has been on the case,” he said.
“What did you learn, exactly?” I asked.
He stepped back and sat on the sofa. “I promised Dr. Patrick that you and I wouldn’t pursue him on these clues.”
“I told her the same.”
“Good. Whatever else he says, of course, we’ll relay to the police. So . . . when he shouted that word, ‘carry,’ it seems it’s a name probably spelled C-a-r-r-i-e, because it appears to be a girl’s name. That’s what Dr. Patrick believes.”
“A sister?”
“We believe so. He also mentioned a Cathy, but then he called her Momma, so we’re unclear if that’s another sister or if that is his mother’s name. There’s also confusion over a name that seems to be his father’s but also might be an older brother’s.”
“He does have an older brother. I knew it,” I said.
“We’re not absolutely sure yet, Clara Sue. He referred to a Christopher, but the references would be ones you thought meant a father. It’s very cloudy.”
“But what about his full name?”