Part 19 (2/2)

You must have loved your brother very much.

We'd brought him home from the hospital three weeks after the accident. By then he'd regained some of his strength but still needed a great deal of a.s.sistance. He'd broken both legs, and although he could hobble about on crutches, his sense of balance had been impaired by the crash, so that he was nonetheless quite unsteady on his feet.

Still, he had remained adamant about returning to his own home rather than moving in with me or our father. Both of us had been more than willing to take him in. At first, we'd even insisted that he live with one of us, but at each insistence, Billy had grown more adamant in his refusal.

By then we'd all noticed how much he'd changed. It had been evident almost from the moment he'd regained consciousness, and it had become more so during the weeks that followed. He was less able to read and concentrate, and he seemed far more troubled, as if some dark music were forever playing in his brain.

But even worse was the air of suspicion that seemed continually to surround him, blotting out the peace he'd once known, the delight he'd been able to take in small things, and finally that sense of trust he'd extended so generously in the past. It was as if all of that had been flung out of him as the car spun round and round, leaving him still whirling in its aftermath.

And so it didn't surprise me one evening only a few days before he was set to return to Port Alma that he suddenly decided he wanted to leave the hospital immediately. ”I want to go home, Cal,” he insisted. ”I don't like being kept here.”

”I don't think that's a very good idea,” I told him. ”I mean, you can barely get out of bed, much less...”

”Someone will help me.”

”I'll help you, but I think--”

”No,” he said sharply, a tone he'd come to use increasingly during his time in the hospital. ”I want to go home.”

”All right,” I said. ”You can stay with me until you--”

”Stay with you, why?”

”So I can--”

”Keep an eye on me? Why is that important to you, Cal?”

”Keeping an eye on you is not important to me at all. I'm just trying to think of what would be best.”

”Best for me?”

”Of course.”

”I want to go home. That's what would be best for me. My own house. Not a strange place.”

”My place would hardly be strange.”

He shook his head with exaggerated force. ”No.”

For an instant, he looked like our mother, no less determined to take his own course, live where he pleased, as he pleased, no less confident that he knew his own mind, could chart his own course. I knew I would be no more successful in persuading him than I had ever been in persuading her.

”All right,” I told him. ”If that's what you want.”

And so, a week later, my father and I bundled him up, took him out into a light rain, and drove him back to his house in Port Alma. On the way, he stared vacantly at the road, save for the curve where he'd lost control of his car almost a month before. ”Right there,” he said as we went around it. ”Right there's where it happened.”

There was no sign of where he'd gone off the side of the road, the rain having long ago washed away the tracks of his skid, but in his mind, Billy seemed to see the accident play out again. His whole body grew rigid as we approached the curve.

”It broke, you know,” he said once we'd rounded it.

”What broke?” I asked.

”The part that guides the car.”

”The steering cable?”

”That's right.”

”How do you know that?”

”The policeman told me. The one who came to the accident.” He looked at me intently. ”He said it was strange. The way it broke. For no reason.”

My father and I exchanged glances.

”Sometimes things just happen, Billy,” I said.

My father leaned forward. ”William, you need to relax,” he said, patting him gently on the shoulder. ”Just relax and let your mind settle down.”

Billy's face remained troubled, but he said no more about the accident. Instead he asked, ”Why didn't Dora come with you?”

”She's getting the house ready,” my father told him.

”Why? Did something happen to the house?”

I glanced into the rearview mirror, saw the worried look on my father's face. ”No,” I told Billy, ”it's just that you've been away for so long.”

”It got dusty,” my father said. ”It needed to be cleaned.”

Billy fixed his eyes on the road, his features drawn, concentrated, as if he were deciding on some grave issue. ”Is Mother all right?”

”She's fine.”

”I'll need to visit her.”

”Of course,” I said. ”As soon as you get settled in.”

Dora was standing on the porch when we arrived, one hand clutching the other, like a woman in waiting. She seemed at home in the role, as if she had been long schooled in service. Billy waved to her, but I saw no pleasure in his eyes.

”Steady now,” I said as I tucked the crutches beneath his arms.

He took hold of the hand grips, his eyes fixed upon Dora as she made her way toward us, her blond hair falling to her shoulders, a vision that struck me so powerfully at that moment that I briefly lost control.

”She's beautiful,” I said.

Billy's eyes shot over to me, a simmering alertness in his mind, so that I felt like a shadow beyond the fire line, another creature stalking his terrain.

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