He lowered his head for a moment. Then he sighed deeply and sat up again. "You'll be all right," he continued, smiling. "We'll bring you back here for visits time to time as well, and next summer we'll all go to the cabin at the lake, maybe. You'll do fine, just fine."
"Sure you will," Kimberly said.
The eagerness with which she wanted to get rid of me didn't slip past me. I glared at her, putting on my Ian face and turning my eyes into Ian eyes. It worked. She looked away quickly.
"What about when Mama gets better?" I asked.
"When and if that happens, we'll see," he replied. "But for now, you've got to concentrate on yourself. You can't dwell on your mother and your brother or me."
"Your father's right, Jordan," Kimberly said.
"You don't know what's right," I said. "When my mother gets better, you'd better go away."
"Jordan!"
"It's all right, Christopher."
"It's never all right to be disrespectful. Kimberly's only been trying to help make things easier for you. The truth is she would have been a better companion than your great-aunt Francis, but there's nothing I can do about it and that's that," Daddy said, growing irritable.
"You're getting tired, Christopher," Kimberly said. "You should take a rest."
"Yeah, right. Anyway," Daddy said, looking at me, "that's the way it is and will be. When anything makes you upset or unhappy from now on, blame it on your grandmother," he told me, and started to wheel himself out from behind her desk.
Kimberly rushed to help him. "Fie needs a nap," she told me as she pushed him along.
He was staring down at the floor, his shoulders turned in, his head lowered.
She looked back just before the doorway. "This is why it's better for you to do what your grandmother wanted," she threw back at me, and pushed Daddy out of the office.
I sat there staring at Grandmother Emma's desk and I thought maybe she was right.
That night I began to arrange my things, the things I would take with me. Nancy came up after dinner to help me. I didn't want Kimberly doing it. Nancy knew everything by now and while she worked, she told me she would probably leave the March Mansion soon herself.
The following day, just as Grandmother Emma had arranged from her hospital bed. Felix took me to Philadelphia to set my mother in the hospital. He told me Grandmother Emma had set things up so that he could take me there from time to time, even from Great-aunt Francis's home.
I wondered aloud if Ian would ever visit Mama again. Felix didn't say.
Although Mama's nurse, Mrs. Feinberg, was happy to see me. I could tell from the way she greeted me and looked at Felix that she already knew about Grandmother Emma. Considering all the bad news that had fallen around and over me, she was eager to tell me something good.
"Your mother has made a little progress with responses," she said. "It's too soon to tell what it will mean, but her doctor is very happy about it. Every little change looks big to us now. But don't get your hopes up too high too quickly, Jordan. People often take years to make significant progress."
Mama didn't look any different to me when I entered her room, but I immediately noticed that her hand wasn't opening and closing the way it had. It was still.
"Go on," Mrs. Feinberg urged. "Talk to her."
I sat beside the bed. Mrs. Feinberg and Felix stood in the doorway watching. I decided Mama had to know every-thin because that might get her angry and excited enough to force her to get well.
"Hi, Mama," I said. "I've come back to see you and I hope you're getting better and that you'll get better even faster because until you are. I have to go live with Great-aunt Francis. Grandmother Emma had a stroke and is in the hospital and Daddy, who is in a wheelchair, can't take care of me properly."
I hesitated, glanced back at Mrs. Feinberg and Felix, who both smiled at me and then left, and then I turned back to Mama and took her hand into mine.
"That old girlfriend of Daddy's, Kimberly, is in the house with him now. They told Mrs. Clancy, the nurse, to leave, and Nancy is going to leave soon, too. I don't like Kimberly being there. You've got to get better, Mama. You've got to, and you've got to come home. Please, Mama. Please get better."
I couldn't stop the tears from flowing freely down my cheeks now. They dropped off my chin and some fell on my hand and hers. I lowered my head against her arm and I sobbed for a while.
Suddenly, I felt Mama's hand tighten slightly around mine. I was sure of it. I raised my head quickly and looked at her. She wasn't turning her head toward me and her eyes were still fixed on nothing, like the eyes of a blind person, but I was still positive she had squeezed my hand. She wasn't doing it now, but she had. She had.
"Mama? Mama, can you hear me? Will you get better? Mama?" I squeezed her hand gently and I rose and kissed her cheek. "Mama, say something. Mama!"
"Easy, dear," I heard. Mrs. Feinberg returned to the room and put her hand on my shoulder.
"She squeezed my hand," I said. "Mama squeezed my hand."
"Did she?"
She smiled and we looked at Mama's hand in mind. It wasn't squeezing anymore, but I knew it had. I was so sure.
I could see Mrs. Feinberg wasn't convinced.
"Why don't you believe me? You said she was getting better.'
"There were some small reactions to stimuli in her legs, honey. It's going to be a while yet before we can tell you anything, okay? You just be a good girl and do what you have to do."
"Her hand moved. It did," I said firmly.
"Okay. Don't cry." She wiped my cheeks with a tissue. "Sit and talk. Go ahead," she urged.
I sat again and stared at Mama and then, after I caught my breath. I did talk. I told her everything that had happened in as much detail as I could. I told her I had gone swimming. I told her about my work, and then I let slip the bad news about Ian. I just forgot.
"He didn't mean it," I said. He was just so angry and he didn't like what she had done to me. So you see," I said, "you have to get better and come home now so we can go get Ian and bring him home, too. They'll listen to you and know Ian wouldn't hurt anyone again."
I sat there, staring at her.
Felix came to the door, "We've got to start back. Jordan," he said.
I nodded and stood up. I still held her hand. "Mama. I have to go. Tomorrow. I'm going to Greataunt Francis, but I'll return to set you. Grandmother Emma promised I would. Don't worry about me. I take my medicine every day, and I'm okay, but I know Ian must be very unhappy. We need you, Mama."
I leaned over and kissed her cheek, and then I felt it again.
I felt her hand tighten on mine.
And I knew that she would come home someday.
Someday, we would be together again, her. Ian, and me, at least.
I've got to tell Grandmother Emma, I thought, as we left the hospital. If she knew this, she wouldn't have me sent away to live with Great-aunt Francis. She would know all would soon be well.
"I want to see my grandmother, Felix," I said when we got into the car. "Please take me to that hospital. Please, Felix."
"I'm supposed to bring you directly home again," he said.
"We can stop there on the way, can't we? Please, Felix," I begged. "I have to see her one more time. I have something very important to tell her. Please."
"Okay, okay, we'll just stop for a few minutes. You're right. It's on the way anyhow," he said.
I sat back, full of hope.
Hours later, Felix drove into the hospital parking lot and opened the door for me. I saw people getting in and out of their cars look our way, probably wondering. Who is this little girl who has a uniformed chauffeur taking her around in a limousine? Is she a princess?
Hardly. I thought. I'm as far from being a princess now as anyone could be. Even if a handsome young prince fell in love with me, he'd find out about my family and he would hurry away. Who could blame him?
Felix took my hand and we walked into the hospital and went directly to Grandmother Emma's room. Her priva
te nurse was standing outside her door talking to another nurse.
"Oh," she said when she saw me. "I didn't know you would be visiting your grandmother tonight. I would have brushed her hair and put her into one of her nicer nightgowns
"That's not important," I said. Even I thought I sounded like Grandmother Emma. "I'm not here for a party."
She recoiled as if I had tried to slap her face, and then she grimaced at Felix, who shrugged.
"Well, excuse me. You're right. This isn't a party. For anyone," she added.
Slowly. I entered Grandmother Emma's bedroom. There was only a small lamp lit next to her bed and she had her eyes closed. I quickly stepped up to her and touched her left hand. Her eyes opened and she looked at me. I thought she was smiling even though it was hard to tell because of the way her lips remained slightly twisted.
"Grandmother Emma, I just came from visiting Mama. A wonderful thing happened while I was talking to her. She squeezed my hand. She really did. She's going to get better and sooner than everyone thinks. I just know it. When she does, she'll be very upset if I'm not home. She won't want me to be living with Great-aunt Francis. You've got to change everything and make Daddy take care of me now. He can do it. I'll put up with Kimberly until Mama comes home and then you'll come home soon, too, and everything will be the way it was. Please," I said, and I waited to see what she would do.
She shook her head.
"But why, Grandmother? Why do you want me to live with your sister? You never see her, or hardly ever, and she never visited us, not once. Maybe she doesn't want me to live with her. It's not good to force her, is it? She'll resent me. She'll hate me. It will be horrible. Please, Grandmother."
Again, she shook her head.
I couldn't help crying now. Why was she being so stubborn and mean?
"You didn't send my letter to Ian," I said sharply. "I found it in your desk. You lied to me. You always told me not to lie. You always said it was important to do and say what was true no matter what,
"I don't want to go to Great-aunt Francis's house. I don't. I don't need someone else to hate me," I said firmly.
She stopped shaking her head and just looked at me. Then she raised her hand and made a gesture with it I didn't understand. I shook my head and she did it again and suddenly. I understood.
She wanted to write something.
I jumped up and ran out to her nurse, "My grandmother wants a pen and paper. She wants to write something to me."
"Write something?" She grimaced and looked at Felix, who shook his head. Then she shrugged and went to the desk to get me a pen and a pad.
As soon as she handed it to me. I ran back to Grandmother Emma. She pointed to the bed so I put the pad there and then I put the pen in her hand. It was very hard for her to write anything. I was so intrigued now that I couldn't move a muscle or complain as she struggled to create squiggly lines that made sense.
I waited and then, after what seemed to exhaust her, she stopped and closed her eyes.
Slowly. I turned the pad and read. It took me a moment to understand the letters because of the way they ran into each other.
But I finally did.
She had written, "Take care of Francis. She needs you more than I do, more than I ever could. She will never hate you."
I read it and reread it to be sure I understood what she was telling me.
How could the great-aunt I didn't know, and who didn't know me, need me more? How could any gown-up need me? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Surely, Grandmother Emma was confused because of her illness. I thought.
She opened her eves and gestured for the pen and paper again. Again. I waited as she scribbled, almost illegibly. I turned the paper around.
She had added, "Someday you'll know more about this family than your father does and you'll understand it all, even me."
Again. I was confused. How could I ever know more than my father knew about his own family? I wanted to ask her, but I could set she was exhausted, perhaps from the effort to write.
I folded that paper neatly and stuck it in my pocket. Somehow I knew it was the most important thing she had ever told me and maybe ever would. She smiled.
Then she closed her eyes.
I hesitated, but after a moment. I leaned over to kiss her cheek. Her lips relaxed into a bigger smile.
And that was the way I left her.
The Last Good-bye
. Before I left the mansion to go live with my great-aunt Francis Wilkins, I had to write one last letter to Ian. Daddy had made it sound like it would be a very long time, maybe years and years, before I would see Ian again, and if and when he returned here. I wouldn't be here.
I didn't realize until I was home that I had taken the pen Grandmother Emma had used. There seemed to be something magical about it.
I thought of her smile and then I decided I would use the same pen to write to Ian.
I would use it whenever I wrote to him.
And he would know. Somehow, some way, my brother Ian would know that magically we would be together again..
Before I left the mansion to go live with my great-aunt Francis Wilkins, I had to write one last letter to Ian. Daddy had made it sound like it would be a very long time, maybe years and years, before I would see Ian again, and if and when he returned here. I wouldn't be here.
I didn't realize until I was home that I had taken the pen Grandmother Emma had used. There seemed to be something magical about it.
I thought of her smile and then I decided I would use the same pen to write to Ian.
I would use it whenever I wrote to him.
And he would know. Somehow, some way, my brother Ian would know that magically we would be together again..
V. C. Andrews, Broken Flower
(Series: Early Spring # 1)
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