I wet paper towels and put them on her forehead, put water in a bottle and gave her a little and then a little more and called, crying now, “Aunt Loretta? Where are you? What happened? Where ARE you?” and then I couldn’t take it, so I picked up Ellie and the water bottle and went through every room looking for her, and was about to go down into the cellar when Ellie threw the water up all over me. I started crying even harder and was running back to the kitchen to call someone, my mother or Beale, when a car door slammed outside and I heard my mother’s rubber flip-flops slapping and scraping an uneven, stumbling tattoo across the sidewalk and up the wooden porch steps.
I flung open the door, Ellie crying in my arms, and my mother, in the middle of opening the screen door, reared back in surprise. “What the hell?”
“I can’t find Aunt Loretta,” I sobbed, catching a gust of alcohol in her exhale and too upset to care. “I came home and Ellie was upstairs all alone and she’s still wearing her pajamas from last night and I yelled and looked everywhere but she’s gone—”
“Let me see that baby,” my mother snapped and plucked Ellie, still screaming, from my arms. “Jesus Christ, look at her. Move, Sayre.” She swept in past me and headed straight for the kitchen. “Are you sure Loretta isn’t here? Did she leave a note or anything?”
“No,” I said, hiccupping and wiping my face on my arm. “The front door was closed and locked and look, Mom, look at the dishes on the table . . .” I started crying all over again. “She wouldn’t go away and leave Ellie all alone. She wouldn’t.”
“Shh, Ellie, shh,” my mother said, peeling the damp paper towel off her forehead and picking up the baby bottle. “God, she looks dehydrated. What’s in here, Sayre?”
“Water, and I only gave her a little at a time, but she threw it back up,” I said, wringing my hands.
“Water? That’s no good. Why didn’t you give her Pedialyte?” my mother asked, her voice sharp and rising.
“Because I don’t know where it is,” I cried, now really scared that I’d hurt my sister.
“Downstairs in the fridge. Go get it. Hurry.” My mother opened the water bottle and dumped it into the sink. “Hurry, Sayre. We might have to go to the hospital.”
Sobbing, I flicked on the light and ran down those steep, wooden stairs to the fridge. Whipped it open, and pushed aside all the juice and extra milk and eggs until I found the bottle of Pedialyte. Grabbed it, shut the fridge, and turned to go back upstairs.
And saw a foot.
Two feet in slippers, lying on the cold, hard, cement floor.
Two pale feet in Aunt Loretta’s slippers, lying over by the washing machine hidden behind the chimney.
The Pedialyte slipped from my hands. The plastic bottle hit the floor and rolled under the steps.
A small, quiet moan escaped me. No, I thought, rooted in place and unable to stop staring. No, no, no. Dimly, in the back of my stunned and bewildered mind, I knew I should go over there and see if she was alive or call to my mother or shout or do something but all I could do was stand there palsied and mute, staring at those bare ankles and the feet tucked into those slippers—
“Well? Did you find it?” my mother called impatiently from the top of the stairs, Ellie squalling in her arms. “Sayre? Come on, goddamnit, this is not a joke! This baby needs fluids! What the hell are you doing?”
My mouth opened but nothing came out.
“Sayre?”
I turned back to the steps, wanting to tell her, wanting to say, “I found her,” or “Help!” or even just “Mommy,” but before I could make myself form the words she said, “I don’t know what the hell you’re doing down there but I swear to God if anything happens to this baby . . . Goddamnit, Sayre. Do I have to do everything myself?”
And then she started down the stairs, fast and furious, rubber flip-flops flapping, my whimpering sister in her arms, and in one frozen heartbeat I saw it happen, saw her stub her toe and the other flip-flop come down too far over the edge of the step, saw her foot tip and skid forward through the front of it, snapping the T, saw her knees buckle and her free hand, the one not clutching my sister, fumble desperately for the railing, but she missed, she missed, and my hands reached out but I was too far away so I missed, too, and she pitched down through the air and hit the ground hard, hit the cement floor hard, hard on her face, she hit and Ellie hit and the sound of them hitting that floor, first Ellie and then my mother as she landed on top of her, the sound of the air bursting from their lungs and then the silence, the silence everywhere, in front of me, behind me, inside me . . .
The silence.
And then my mother twitched and I drew in a searing breath and ran for the phone.
Blur
BABBLING INTO THE PHONE TO THE 911 dispatcher.
Calling back because I’d forgotten to tell them about Aunt Loretta.
Grabbing Ellie’s empty water bottle on the way back downstairs so she could have Pedialyte and feel better.
Whimpering, being afraid to touch the two of them and watching as my mother, forehead bleeding, teeth gritted and groaning in pain, pushed herself up off my sister and somehow balanced there. Crouching beside her, sobbing and frantically patting her arm, and her gasping, “I can’t. My back. Ellie . . . Don’t move her. Go call . . .”
“I did,” I cried.
“Beale,” she finished. “Oh God, oh God, oh, Ellie . . .”
I rose and backed away, frantic because her body was crooked and twisted and she did smell like alcohol and it was bad, really bad and there was so much blood and suddenly my mind was filled with black terror because Ellie wasn’t crying and she should be crying, no, she should be screaming . . .
Calling Beale, losing it when he answered and said cheerfully, “Ha, missing me already? How are all my girls?” and not even being able to tell him if Ellie and Aunt Loretta were alive, hearing a tone in his voice I’d never heard before and realizing it was the same kind of terror I had, and wishing he wasn’t three and a half hours away but here, right now. . . .
Sirens growling closer, getting louder, screaming into the driveway and people piling out, following me in and flowing past me down those stairs and into the cellar, saying things I didn’t understand, asking me if there was anyone I could call to come stay with me and me saying I’m going with my mother over and over.
Sitting alone in the living room, holding Ellie’s little stuffed cat as they left with her in the ambulance.
The paramedics, all volunteers from Sullivan, loading my agonized mother into the second ambulance, her eyes huge and stricken, her hands lying frozen, upturned and empty.
Riding to the hospital with her, and neither one of us saying a word.
Being taken into the waiting room and the blast of chilly air that hit me when the doors opened and the paramedic ushered me in.
Telling the nurses my mother’s name and Aunt Loretta’s and Ellie’s, and answering their other questions as best as I could, trying to think, telling what had happened from the minute I stepped off the school bus, telling everything I heard and saw, except . . .
My mother’s drinking.
I said everything but that.
It seemed to take forever but finally Beale came striding into the emergency waiting room and when he saw me he came right over, picked me up, and hugged me hard, really hard, and said, “Thank God you’re all right,” and I started to cry all over again and let out an exhale I’d been holding for hours.
And then Beale took over, talking to the nurses and asking for answers, and within moments one of the emergency room doctors came out and led us to a small, private room with a table and chairs in it.
Beale held my hand the entire time the doctor spoke, and at one point, when he told us Aunt Loretta was gone and they thought the cause of death had been a stroke, Beale squeezed my hand so hard I felt the bones grind and I blubbered, “Ow.” B
eale loosened his grip but didn’t let go, just sat there listening to the doctor, his expression stunned and drawn, tears slipping unheeded and unnoticed down his face.
My mother had a concussion, stitches, bruises, and contusions from striking the floor. She had injured her back, severely, and was headed up to Radiology for additional X-rays.
“And my daughter Ellie?” Beale choked out. “How is she?”
I wiped my eyes in time to see the doctor shake his head and give Beale a very grave look, and a terrible humming, like a thousand angry hornets, filled my ears, and a shimmering wave of silver speckles washed across my vision. I made a noise, a sick-sounding noise and suddenly Beale had my chair pulled back and was bending my head down toward my knees, and I held on to him like I was drowning until I could see again.
Ellie was in critical condition.
She was dehydrated.
Her ribs and her pelvis were broken from the fall.
She had a very severe head injury.
She was unresponsive.
Her skull . . .
Barring car accidents, it was the worst he’d ever seen in an infant.
“I want to see her,” Beale said, holding my hand even tighter. “We need to see her.” His voice hitched. “She’ll be scared all alone in that crib without us. We’re a family, you see, and Ellie’s used to having all of us . . .” A sob escaped, harsh and raw, and then he let go of my hand and buried his face in his arms and cried.
I sat beside him patting his arm, and when he stopped, we got up and went to see Ellie.
The Darkest Hour
ELLIE LIVED FOR TWO DAYS AFTER the fall, and I was with her almost every second of them.
Beale was a zombie, splitting his time between Ellie, my mother, trying to make arrangements for Aunt Loretta’s funeral, and running back and forth home to feed the animals.
But not me.
I stayed with my sister who never once opened her eyes to look at me, who never once wrapped her strong, tiny fingers around one of mine or cooed or burbled, laughed, cried, ate, or drank. She had tubes running into her, huge black-and-blue bruises from the fall, and her head—from her nose up—was wrapped in bandages.
The first time I saw her I almost threw up, backed away from her little bed in panic, denial, and outrage, and thought No, that’s not her, that poor battered baby is not my sister, it can’t be, but then Beale leaned down over her, touched her arm, and started to cry and I surrendered, staying with her day and night, refusing to leave, sleeping in the chair, eating whatever Beale or the nurses brought me, praying, begging, whispering to her, trying to call her back to me, crooning my “Ellie, Ellie” song, and telling her she had to get better because we had to go home, we did, all of us together, and so please, Ellie, please get better, and the unbroken silence made my head pound and my stomach sick, and tore my heart to pieces.
I thought about Aunt Loretta, too, as I sat there, and of what the doctors said about a brain stem stroke. The headaches had been a warning that something was wrong, but the stroke had followed fast, hitting her as she was doing the laundry. I shouldn’t have listened because their words made it so vivid in my mind, and I couldn’t stop thinking of her lying there terrified and alone, paralyzed and struggling for breath, unable to scream or move or get help, knowing she was leaving us, leaving everything she loved, leaving the baby upstairs alone . . .
I whispered her name to myself, sitting alone in that chair, whispered, Come back, please. We need you so bad, and missing her more than I ever thought I could, the pain tearing another jagged hole in my already damaged heart.
I thought about my mother, too. She was on another floor, her back wrecked, and almost totally out of it on pain medication. She wouldn’t open her eyes or talk to anyone, not even Beale, and wouldn’t eat or drink, so they were hydrating her by intravenous, and calling in a grief counselor.
I didn’t care. I really didn’t.
I had smelled her breath, I knew the truth.
My baby sister, Ellie Joy Galen, died at 5:16 on Monday afternoon, with me and Beale by her side, stroking her cheeks and holding her limp little hands.
She was fifty-nine days old.
A Double Funeral
ELLIE’S CASKET WAS SMALL, AND WHITE.
Aunt Loretta’s was mahogany, carved and beautiful.
We had framed photos of them both on the tables around the room.
The funeral home was stuffed full of floral arrangements, the room where the wake was overflowed with mourners.
It was the worst tragedy Sullivan had seen since Miss Mo’s murder.
My mother was out of the hospital and at the wake, propped in a chair on one side of Beale, sitting pale, drugged and silent, as the mourners offered their condolences. She didn’t even look up when Jillian’s mother came over, dabbing at her dry, bright, inquisitive eyes with a tissue and hugging Beale so tight he grunted.
I stood on the other side of him, numb, dry eyed and hollow inside, an empty shell being hugged and released, kissed and released, fussed over and released, and hardly remembering anyone except Jillian’s mother and Reverend Ganzler, the new youth minister, because he had a bright, reddish-orange beard and brought me a paper cup of water.
Yesterday we had given the funeral director Ellie and Aunt Loretta’s burial clothes, and now all I could think about was that Ellie was lying inside that coffin wearing a T-shirt under her lambie pajamas that said SAYRE’S MY BIG SISTER because I never wanted her to forget that.
I would have been such a good big sister.
My mother didn’t make the funeral. She didn’t say why, she just wouldn’t get up no matter how Beale pleaded and, finally, losing it, said Ellie was his daughter, too, and Aunt Loretta his mother. He had twice the agony to deal with and if she didn’t get up and go, he didn’t know if he could make it through without her.
My mother didn’t say a word.
Didn’t even crack an eye.
So we went to the funeral, me clinging to his hand, and at the gravesites, when the Methodist minister had finished the solemn service, I picked up my big bouquet of Queen Anne’s lace and stepped toward the caskets that were holding the people I loved, the caskets that were going to be buried in the dirt and would stay there forever, through all the seasons, and I would never get to see or touch Aunt Loretta and Ellie again, and that’s when the numbness cracked and the tears spilled over, raining down on those lacy flowers as I set them on the caskets and, sobbing, returned to Beale.
They were gone.
And three weeks later, so were we.
The Betrayal
ACCIDENTS HAPPENED.
That’s what the grief counselor said, not without sympathy.
People made choices, some conscious, some automatic, and like pebbles dropped in a pond, the reactions from those choices expanded, uncontrolled, like ripples drifting in all directions. We could never have predicted that everything would go wrong at once.
It was no one’s fault.
It was a terrible, tragic accident. That was all.
I heard her, but all I could think of was if.
If Aunt Loretta had gotten her stroke upstairs, instead of in the cellar.
If she had gone to the doctor sooner.
If Beale hadn’t left for the auction.
If my mother hadn’t gone down to Candy’s that day.
If she hadn’t drunk. If she hadn’t worn flip-flops.
If I hadn’t just stood there mute, wracked with shock and unable to speak.
If even one of those ifs was different, then Ellie might still be alive.
And we would be happy again because now we weren’t.
Not at all.
Without Aunt Loretta, the farmhouse was an empty, cheerless place.
My mother would not get out of bed, wouldn’t talk to me, Beale, or the counselo
r, only lay in the room with the shades drawn.
Beale was miserable, his gaze still stunned and desolate. He would come into the house and stand there dazed, like he was waiting to wake up from a nightmare, waiting for Aunt Loretta to be in the kitchen and me to come barreling down the stairs saying, “Guess what we’re having for supper?” and Ellie to be waving her arms and kicking her feet and cooing at the sight of him, and my mother to come in and give him a kiss.
But there was no waking up because it was real, and everything was gone.
The fridge was full of hearty, homemade casseroles, cakes, and pies, all brought by Aunt Loretta’s friends, but somehow they were too rich and nourishing, and we couldn’t eat them, so we choked down bologna sandwiches for supper instead, and then afterward, when there was nothing to say and the silence grew deafening, Beale would rise, kiss my cheek, and go out to the barn. I followed him once, needing to be close, and discovered him sitting on a stool in the shadows, shoulders heaving, hands over his face and crying great, wrenching sobs as if his heart was broken.
I didn’t interrupt, only went back to the house, went back up to Ellie’s room and sat there in the rocking chair in the dark, too, as the wail inside me howled and howled without relief.
I heard him talking to my mother at night, heard him knock on his own bedroom door before going in, heard him bringing her food and asking how she was, telling her how lost he was, how overwhelmed, how every single thing he looked at reminded him of his mother or Ellie, and then his voice would break and he’d tell her he needed her, that he didn’t blame her for what had happened, that he didn’t blame anyone, but he couldn’t do it all himself, just couldn’t focus, didn’t care, was lonely . . .
I never heard her say a word in reply, and sooner or later, shoulders stooped and footsteps dragging, he would come out of the bedroom, slowly closing the door behind him, and plod down the hall to the guest room to sleep.