sunshineâ"would you go up and give him some sips of ginger ale?"
Nathaniel and I nodded.
"Don't let him cry."
We nodded again. It seemed a crazy injunction,
not to let Noah cry. Noah never cried. He made Nathaniel cry. He had made
me
cry. But Noah never cried.
"I'll be right back," she said, and disappeared.
"Let's have a duck race across the wading pool," I said, after she had gone.
We put the ducks in one at a time, again and again, holding bread to them from the opposite side of the pool and timing their brief swims. The timing was erratic; we had no stopwatch, not even an ordinary wristwatch. We called out numbers from one to ten as they swam. Each of us cheated, speeding the count for our own duck.
Upstairs, Noah began to cry. We could hear the sound through the open window, through the heat-laden air of the yard.
I concentrated on the duck race, whispering instructions to Donaldâ
my
duck, Donaldâas he quacked resdessly beside me, waiting for his turn. It occurred to me in some corner of my consciousness that the crying did not sound like Noah.
Noah's voice had always been deep, uncommonly so for a small boy. Now, his cry was a high, fearful wail, ending in sobs before it took itself upward again to that curious high pitch unlike his voice. It was mingled with unintelligible words: choked, wet, and
panicky, that came at the end of the sobs. It was a sequence, a litany: wail, sob, words, and then the wail again.
"Noah's crying," said Nathaniel nervously. He put his duck, out of turn, into the pool, and began to count loudly, "ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE" as the pink-splotched creature swam to the opposite side.
"Watch mine," I insisted, and thrust my duck into the water. "ONE TWO THREE..."
We put our ducks in out of order, forgetting, ignoring all the rules we had made, put them both in together, tearing off scraps of bread, racing back and forth between the low sides of the pool, capturing the ducks, flinging them back in, counting, counting, so that we were reciting the numbers together, louder and louder; and it didn't matter who won, who lost, as long as we didn't hear the sound that came from the window of Noah's room.
It's not
my
brother, I found myself thinking.
And: I hate Noah anyway.
In the end, Nathaniel and I lay laughing, exhausted from the frenzied counting, on the damp grass, with the ducks fluttering their feathers fastidiously to dry them, and we declared them both winners; and upstairs the crying had stopped.
It was the next day that Noah died. By then he
was in the hospital, taken there during the night. Frightened, I hid in the shadows of Grandfather's house and listened to the grownups talking.
"The doctor told Margaret Hoffman that nothing could have saved him, he knew that from the night he was delirious and saw the faces on the ceiling," my mother said in a low voice to my grandparents.
"A tragedy," said Grandfather from the blue wing chair.
"Dreadful," said Grandmother. "But we must remember, too, that he was a dreadful child."
Yes, I thought. Noah was a dreadful child. But I was filled with dread myself.
***
"What happens," I asked nonchalantly at dinner, as Tatie was removing the soup bowls before she served the roast veal, "if you do something very bad and don't ever get caught?" Nervously I reached down with one hand, pulled a scab painfully from my knee, and dropped it to the rug.
No one answered me.
"You'll have to be more explicit, Elizabeth," said Grandfather finally. "We don't know what you mean."
"Well, sometimes there are bad things that people do, but they're not against the law, so they don't have to go to jail. Sometimes nobody even knows that they
have done it." By now I was sorry that I had brought the subject up.
"In that case," said my mother, "I think the best thing to do is to go and tell the person they've done it
to
that they're sorry."
"What if the person isn't around?" I rubbed my thumb in the bloody spot on my knee. "I mean, maybe
Nathaniel and I nodded.
"Don't let him cry."
We nodded again. It seemed a crazy injunction,
not to let Noah cry. Noah never cried. He made Nathaniel cry. He had made
me
cry. But Noah never cried.
"I'll be right back," she said, and disappeared.
"Let's have a duck race across the wading pool," I said, after she had gone.
We put the ducks in one at a time, again and again, holding bread to them from the opposite side of the pool and timing their brief swims. The timing was erratic; we had no stopwatch, not even an ordinary wristwatch. We called out numbers from one to ten as they swam. Each of us cheated, speeding the count for our own duck.
Upstairs, Noah began to cry. We could hear the sound through the open window, through the heat-laden air of the yard.
I concentrated on the duck race, whispering instructions to Donaldâ
my
duck, Donaldâas he quacked resdessly beside me, waiting for his turn. It occurred to me in some corner of my consciousness that the crying did not sound like Noah.
Noah's voice had always been deep, uncommonly so for a small boy. Now, his cry was a high, fearful wail, ending in sobs before it took itself upward again to that curious high pitch unlike his voice. It was mingled with unintelligible words: choked, wet, and
panicky, that came at the end of the sobs. It was a sequence, a litany: wail, sob, words, and then the wail again.
"Noah's crying," said Nathaniel nervously. He put his duck, out of turn, into the pool, and began to count loudly, "ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE" as the pink-splotched creature swam to the opposite side.
"Watch mine," I insisted, and thrust my duck into the water. "ONE TWO THREE..."
We put our ducks in out of order, forgetting, ignoring all the rules we had made, put them both in together, tearing off scraps of bread, racing back and forth between the low sides of the pool, capturing the ducks, flinging them back in, counting, counting, so that we were reciting the numbers together, louder and louder; and it didn't matter who won, who lost, as long as we didn't hear the sound that came from the window of Noah's room.
It's not
my
brother, I found myself thinking.
And: I hate Noah anyway.
In the end, Nathaniel and I lay laughing, exhausted from the frenzied counting, on the damp grass, with the ducks fluttering their feathers fastidiously to dry them, and we declared them both winners; and upstairs the crying had stopped.
It was the next day that Noah died. By then he
was in the hospital, taken there during the night. Frightened, I hid in the shadows of Grandfather's house and listened to the grownups talking.
"The doctor told Margaret Hoffman that nothing could have saved him, he knew that from the night he was delirious and saw the faces on the ceiling," my mother said in a low voice to my grandparents.
"A tragedy," said Grandfather from the blue wing chair.
"Dreadful," said Grandmother. "But we must remember, too, that he was a dreadful child."
Yes, I thought. Noah was a dreadful child. But I was filled with dread myself.
***
"What happens," I asked nonchalantly at dinner, as Tatie was removing the soup bowls before she served the roast veal, "if you do something very bad and don't ever get caught?" Nervously I reached down with one hand, pulled a scab painfully from my knee, and dropped it to the rug.
No one answered me.
"You'll have to be more explicit, Elizabeth," said Grandfather finally. "We don't know what you mean."
"Well, sometimes there are bad things that people do, but they're not against the law, so they don't have to go to jail. Sometimes nobody even knows that they
have done it." By now I was sorry that I had brought the subject up.
"In that case," said my mother, "I think the best thing to do is to go and tell the person they've done it
to
that they're sorry."
"What if the person isn't around?" I rubbed my thumb in the bloody spot on my knee. "I mean, maybe
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