Early Spring 01 Broken Flower (29 page)

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.

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..