Chapter 9

Erica lay in bed. She wasn’t sleepy and, for once, she wasn’t horny. She had gotten up and just left her brother. His last word: “Please!“ rang in her head.

Her mind had calmed, while she lay there, unable to sleep, still in her robe. Her anger had faded to a dull ache that, while she didn’t realize it, was associated with her general wish that things hadn’t happened the way they had.

It wasn’t just her brother. She wished her parents hadn’t died. She wished Billy - Will, she reminded herself - hadn’t been disfigured. She wished she had been able to make it work in Chicago. For all her high-minded ideals, she had little to show for them. Her father had helped her with all the projects she had won ribbons for. Men had helped her learn the skills to teach.

The thing that seemed to shout her defeat, as a woman, was that her own little brother had thought sexual things as he spied on her. But she was also acutely aware that he wasn’t proud of what he’d done. He didn’t boast about it or make fun of her. The pain in his voice had had nothing to do with his broken body. He knew he had hurt her by admitting the truth.

Why had he done that? She thought about that for a while. He hadn’t had to admit that. He had risked, at least as far as he was concerned, being thrown out of her house. That was ridiculous. It wasn’t her house. It was their house. They were family. They were all that were left of the Bradfords.

Her mind jarred to a stop. That was true! All their other relatives were from her mother’s side. When Will died ... there would be no more men ... or women ... who called themselves by that name.

Now she glimpsed the pain and longing she had heard when he talked about that too. It wasn’t that strong in her, but she began to understand it. He had lost everything when the war had taken his body. He had life left, but nothing to look forward to. Not in terms of children ... and carrying on the family name.

She realized, for the first time, that his physical injury was the least of his problems. Without dreams ... plans ... how could any human being, man or woman, look forward to life? She had walked out on him ... left him there alone.

She got up without thinking. The lights were off, but she didn’t need them. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand, and the glowing dial with the short hand just past the three and the long hand at the five. It didn’t matter. She had to do this now. She could never sleep if she didn’t.

She went to his room and opened the door, not trying to be quiet.

“Will?” she said, her voice almost at a normal pitch.

“Yes?” He was still awake too. His voice sounded dull.

She went to the bed and sat down on the edge again. He was under the covers now, but his head and shoulders were above them. She leaned, to place one hand on the smooth, soft skin of his right shoulder, and the other on the hard ruined skin of his left. She put her face right in front of his, and in her mind’s eye she saw the line that separated the two halves of his face.

“I love you,” she whispered. “We’re family. That’s all that matters.”

His sob almost broke her heart and she hugged him. Her face came down on the ruined neck, but she didn’t recoil. That was part of him too, now. The ruined lump that had been his left ear was still his left ear and she kissed it. Then she turned his head and kissed his good cheek as his relief found exit from his body through sobs.

“I’ll try to stop,” he moaned, as his right hand came to her hair and stroked it.

“You don’t have to,” she said. “It’s okay. It’s not hurting anything.”

She had to hold him for fifteen more minutes before he could stop crying. Then, and only then, did she feel like she could go back to her room.

When you enter a phase where you examine your life and reevaluate your goals, there can be a number of outcomes. You can decide that you’ve been a failure, and that it’s no use trying any longer. You can decide that you haven’t done as well as you wished, and try harder. You can decide that things haven’t gone like you wanted them to, and alter your goals, to see if new ones might be reachable. You can decide that it’s someone else’s fault that you aren’t where you wanted to be. You can celebrate your successes, and ignore your failures. There are many other possible outcomes, but you get the idea. It’s complicated.

It is the complicated nature of human beings, though, that makes them so interesting. Any given wild animal can be watched, and very little happens that will surprise the experienced observer. But no matter how long you study humans, you never quite know what to expect.

For Erica Bradford, as she went to school the next day, it was as if her life was a closed box that had been turned upside down and shaken. It still had all the parts and pieces in it ... they were just rearranged a bit. Thankfully, nothing had been broken, though some things were a little the worse for the wear.

Though it didn’t show on the surface - not right away, at least - there had been changes in the way she thought about things. Her brother was an example. After leaving him, and knowing that he was no longer afraid, she had more or less decided that if she loved him - and she did - then she would just accept him as he was. That meant she didn’t have to worry about what he did in his dark room any more. It didn’t matter what he did. She loved him. Period.

Not worrying about something frees the soul, somehow. That part did show as Erica walked into the school. There was a smile on her face, and when a teacher nodded at her, she said “Good morning, George.” It was a simple thing, really, but it was a simple thing George Turner had never seen this woman do before. She didn’t flirt, or look back at him, as men sometimes hope a beautiful woman will do, and he instinctively understood she was just being friendly. His image of this woman underwent a subtle shift from, “Ice queen bitch, with a cob stuck up her ass,” to ... well something a little softer.

That improved attitude interested her students as well, which led them to actually listen to her, at least for a few more sentences than they usually did.

When she sat down next to Ted Brandywine at lunch, he still stiffened. Then, trying to be polite, he said, “I saw Bobby, the other day. He said something about your brother coming to live with you.”

“Yes,” said Erica. “It’s sad, really, but we’re going to try to make it better.”

“Sad?” Ted looked confused.

“About his physical condition,” said Erica.

“I’m sorry,” said Ted, regretting saying anything at all. “Bobby didn’t say anything about there being anything wrong.”

“Oh,” said Erica, her eyebrows rising. “He was badly injured in the war. Very badly.”

“That’s too bad,” said Ted. “Do you need anything ... any help, I mean?” He almost groaned. Offering to help this woman was an invitation for a lecture on how women didn’t need a man to make things work.

“Bobby’s building us a wheelchair ramp,” said Erica, looking at her plate like she was trying to figure out what the food items actually were. “I think we’ll be okay after that. I need to think of some way to give him something to do, though. Right now he’s just sitting at home. I’d be bored to death.”

“Yeah,” said Ted, amazed that she was acting just like anybody else. “I’ll think about that,” he hazarded.

“Good,” she said. “By the way, thanks for talking to Bobby about the sets. He’s been very helpful.”

“You’re welcome,” said Ted weakly. He’d watched the Twilight Zone on TV just last night, and was wondering if maybe he had entered it.

That feeling persisted as lunch continued without a single lecture.

Erica’s thoughts about Bobby Dalton were not quite as cut and dried as they were when it came to her brother. Bobby was not her brother, and she didn’t love him. He was a problem, insofar as he plagued her dreams, and she couldn’t get him out of her mind when she lay down in bed. Well, except for last night, anyway. It hadn’t been a problem then.

So when, after school, she saw him in the auditorium, already working with two girls on one of the double sided sets, her feelings were somewhat complicated. Part of what complicated them was that there were four boys there too. But they were watching, while the girls wielded hammers. Bobby wasn’t doing the work. He was supervising the girls. As she approached, she saw that Melody Murcheson was trying to pound a nail, but it kept bending. Bobby patiently showed her now to use the claws on the hammer to straighten it, and then told her why the nail was bending, and how to hit it so it wouldn’t bend.

“I can’t do this,” Melody complained.

“Sure you can,” said Bobby. “Look at Carla. She’s doing fine.”

Melody frowned and then tried again. The nail went home firmly.

“I did it!” she said excitedly.

“Now do five more,” said Bobby, pulling a pencil from his pocket. “Right here...” He drew an X on the wood. “And here ... and here...” He drew four more Xs.

“Okay,” said Melody happily.

Bobby turned around and saw Erica.

“If you don’t need me here, I’m almost done with the ramp. I might be able to get it done tonight.”

With a peculiar feeling, Erica said: “There’s no hurry. I don’t know where I’d take him anyway.”

Bobby looked surprised, but not for long.

“I have an idea about that too ... if you’re interested.”

She waited for him to go on.

“I have a friend, also in a wheelchair, not quite as bad as Will, but similar. I thought the two of them might have enough in common to ... I don’t know ... socialize, I guess?”

“And what am I supposed to do while they ... socialize?” she asked.

“Jake is married,” said Bobby. “Tilly, his wife, is about your age. She’s a nice woman, and you need to get out and meet people anyway.”

“And why is that?” she asked archly.

“Because nobody I mention you to knows you,” he said. “And Will needs to get out too. If he’s going to live here, he needs to know folks.”

“He’s not going to want to meet people, Bobby. You know that.”

“People are going to find out about him sooner or later,” said Bobby. “Sure, they’ll be all weird when they first meet him, but they’ll get used to it eventually. He can’t just hide in the house for the rest of his life.”

“I’ll talk to him about it,” said Erica.

Nashville, Tennessee is just like any other town a week into December. There were decorations up everywhere, and Christmas music playing. Commerce flew along as people shopped for just the right presents. Everybody was excited.

Everybody, that is, except one up-and-coming music star.

Misty Compton sat on the toilet, staring at the shower curtain. She didn’t know what to do. She was officially two weeks late. Late wasn’t the right word any more, really. She had skipped a period. She stared at the packet of pills in her hand. She’d taken them religiously, had started them as soon as Bobby had said he’d come to Nashville for the awards ceremony.

She couldn’t be pregnant. She was on the pill!

She didn’t need this. If she was pregnant, her mother would be furious with her. People would talk. They might quit coming to hear her sing. And this was on top of that damn reporter, who had actually bought the seating chart for the awards banquet from the organizers. They’d sold it for three thousand dollars!

And on that seating chart were the words “Bobby Dalton” ... right next to the words “Misty Compton”.

It had splashed on the news, but as far as she could tell, only the TV stations in Nashville had carried it. It was only interesting on a regional basis. Part of her wanted to feel proud that anybody would even care, much less pay three thousand dollars to find out who he was.

She sighed. That was the good part. They had his name, but they didn’t know where he came from. She had weathered the initial storm when his name broke. Her answer to every shouted, “Who is Bobby Dalton?” had been “Just a friend, thank you.” Eventually they had lost interest.

That might change when her belly started to swell.

If she was actually pregnant.

December in the Bradford residence was a more sedate kind of existence. The ramp had been finished, but Erica still hadn’t taken Will anywhere. He said he wasn’t bored, though she knew he was just watching soap operas on TV, which would have driven her insane.

He had asked for a card table, and a jigsaw puzzle. The first one she got him was five hundred pieces, and he put it together while she was at school one day. She got him a thousand piece puzzle next. That one took him a couple of days, but he said he wasn’t pushing it.

Tonight she intended to shake up his world. She had mentioned his interest in puzzles in the teacher’s lounge, and Shirley Henderson had said she had a whole stack of them left over from when she and her husband had been heavily into doing them. Shirley said Erica was welcome to them. Four of them turned out to be five thousand piece puzzles. Not only that, they were hard ones. There were two seascapes, with sailboats in them, which were hard enough, at least as far as Erica was concerned. But the one of a table covered in gold coins was the one that got her excited. That one and another table piled high with various kinds and colors of dice cubes. They both looked completely impossible to Erica. She knew that Will would be intrigued.