“She’s in shock, boy, just like you. I’m gone take you inside now. Nothing else you can do out here. They’ll take care of your mama.”
Queenie guided him inside. He kept turning his head, looking to see if they were going to take his mother away, too. Norwood was trying to put Fannie’s arm around his neck so he could lift her up. He finally grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her up over his shoulder. One of the medics followed him inside.
“Watch out, Queenie,” Norwood said as they carried Fannie up the steps and into the house.
Graham didn’t know which way to turn. He wanted to run toward his brother in the ambulance to say one last goodbye. He wanted to run to his mother to make sure she was all right.
And part of him wanted to run away and never come back.
When they got in the house, Graham could hear shuffling sounds coming from his parents’ room. Then the door shut, and his father and one of the medics came back down the stairs.
Norwood leaned down and spoke to Graham. “Listen, son. I have to go to the hospital and take care of the paperwork for Balfour. They’ve sedated your mother. She should sleep all night, so don’t disturb her, you hear?”
“Yes, sir,” Graham said.
Norwood stood up and looked at Queenie. “Can you stay here tonight?”
“Yes sir, Mr. Norwood, sir. I’ll tend to Graham. Don’t you worry none.”
Graham didn’t remember anything about the rest of that night, but in the morning when he woke up, he heard banging on the third floor. He stood at the bottom of the steps, afraid to go up. He went downstairs instead and out to the front yard, where he could see Crow up on a ladder boarding up the windows to the attic room and the turret. Crow acknowledged Graham with a tilt of his head. Graham did the same. When he looked down, he noticed there was still blood on the path where Balfour had fallen. He stooped down to touch it. It had soaked into the soft brick. He tried to scrape it off with his shoe, but no matter how much he scraped, the bloodstain still showed. He rubbed harder and harder, trying to make the stain go away. Harder and harder, until his foot wouldn’t go any faster.
“Master Graham, what are you doing?” Queenie picked him up and carried him over her shoulder into the house. She set him down just inside the door, then bent over, speaking softly. “Now listen, Master Graham, you feeling mighty lost right now, but we can’t take back the way things are no matter how much we try, understand? We got to go on. You got to be strong for your mother. There ain’t nothing gone bring Master Balfour back, you hear me?”
If only I had grabbed his hand, climbed out onto the gutter, maybe I could have saved him, Graham thought.
Queenie turned his chin toward her. “Master Graham, are you listening to me?”
He cut loose and started running up the stairs toward his mother’s room. When he tried the handle, it was locked. He turned and yelled down at Queenie, “Let me in!”
She shook her head. “No, baby. Doctor says your mama needs her rest. We ain’t to disturb her.”
“Where’s my father?”
“He’s at the hospital. He went back early this morning to make arrangements. Now come on down here so I can make you some breakfast.”
A week went by. They buried Balfour out at the Metairie Cemetery on a bitter cold day when the rain was spitting down on them. Fannie came out of her room to go to the funeral. She didn’t speak a word the whole time. Not to Norwood. Not to Graham. Not even to Balfour as they buried him. It was as if she’d died herself. After the service, Norwood escorted Fannie back to her room. Graham waited for him outside the door.
“Is she ever going to say anything again?” Graham asked his father.
“I hope so, son,” Norwood said. Then he stooped down and hugged Graham. He could hear his father crying softly.
Christmas came and went. Queenie took the tree down the day after New Year’s and put the unopened presents in the hall closet.
When it came time for school to start again, his father came to Graham’s room to speak to him.
“Son, I need to talk to you about something.”
Graham was on his bed reading a comic book. He put it down and sat up. “Is it about Mother?”
“In part.” Norwood smoothed back Graham’s dark hair. “You need a haircut.”
“I know, but everybody’s been busy.”
“I know, son. That’s the problem. I feel bad. I’m sorry I haven’t been a very good father lately.”
“It’s okay.”
Norwood kissed him on the forehead. “Listen.”
Graham tensed up. Every time someone said listen, something bad usually came after it.
“The doctors told me this morning that your mother is going to have to go away for a little while.”
“What’s a little while?” Graham asked.
“They don’t know for sure. Until she gets better.”
“Can I see her before she goes?”
Norwood reached over and took Graham’s hand in his. “They’ve already come to get her, while you were asleep.”