Silent to the Bone (13 page)

“I was there.” He said it without apology, without explanation. He simply said, “I was there.” My first reaction was to say something sarcastic.
Had a brain transplant to improve your memory?
Maybe I was too startled to say something like that. Maybe I didn't really think of something that smart until later. And maybe I was learning that sometimes saying nothing is a very good choice.

“I didn't see what happened,” he said. “I was in Vivi's room when I heard the kid yell.”

“Do you remember what he yelled?”

Morris didn't answer immediately. He took a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and tapped the bottom so that one of them flipped up. He started to take it out but didn't. He tapped it back down and slipped the pack into his inside jacket pocket. “Yeah, I do,” he said. “I remember. He yelled, ‘Vivi, come here. It's Nikki.' ”

“What did Vivian do?”

“She popped off the bed and ran through the bathroom—the one that connects the two bedrooms—and started yelling at Branwell. I heard her say, ‘Here, take her,' just before she rushed back to her bedroom to put on the rest of her clothes.” He glanced at me for only a second before his eyes skittered away.

“Were you . . . ?”

Looking down, addressing the sidewalk under our feet, he said, “Yeah, we were.” He lifted his head and let out so deep a breath that a white plume stayed suspended from his mouth. I almost expected it to fill with words like one of those balloons on the comic pages.

“Was Nikki awake when you arrived?”

“No. We waited until it was time for Nikki to take her nap.”

Morris JJ's Pizza looked across the street—not at me—and addressed the yellow bricks of the Behavioral Center. “Vivi and I got dressed about as fast as we ever have. Luckily we haven't had time to get altogether undressed. Vivi, she races back through the bathroom to the nursery. I follow. I see Branwell with the baby on the floor. He's giving her mouth-to-mouth. Vivi takes the baby from him and tells him to call 911. I see the kid dial. Then he looks up and sees me coming through the bathroom. I ask, ‘What happened?' I repeat, ‘What happened?' Vivi shoos me out of there. ‘Go! Go!' she says. And I go.” He reached for his cigarettes again. “Like I said, I didn't see what happened.”

“Do you know how long it was between the time Branwell came in and the time he called for Vivi?”

He stabbed at the pack of cigarettes, took one out of the pack, and didn't answer until he lit it. “No,” he said, extending his lower lip and blowing the smoke upward. “But like I told you, it wasn't time enough for us to get undressed. I didn't hear nothing until I heard him call.”

“You did hear him yell, ‘Vivi, come here. It's Nikki.' ”

Holding the cigarette between his first two fingers,
he pointed with it. “That's what I heard.”

“So the baby was breathing funny when Branwell came home from school.”

“Now, I didn't say that. ‘Vivi, come here. It's Nikki' don't mean that. Like maybe the baby was breathing normal when the kid comes home from school, and the kid was the one who did it. He could've been the one to make her breathe funny. I didn't know he was even there. He could've pounded her head on the floor like the bathroom floor or he could've had her to hit her head against the bathtub, for all I seen.” He was facing the yellow brick wall across the street, but then he looked at me out of the corner of his eye. When he saw me watching him, he focused on the yellow brick wall. “Vivi, she's real worried.”

“Is she worried that Branwell will be able to speak and tell the agency that Nikki was breathing funny when he found her?”

“Nah. Vivi's not worried about anything Branwell might say.”

“So what is she worried about?”

“Her career.”

“What career?”

“As an au pair. She says that the agency won't place her if they find out.”

“Find out what?”

He looked directly at me. “Someone might tell them that she's started in smoking again.” He smiled and took a long drag on his cigarette. “She don't look it, but she's real high-strung, and with all that's happened, she's back to smoking to soothe her nerves.”

“Morris?”

“What?”

“Are you in love with Vivi?”

“Dunno 'bout me. But I'm sure about him.”

“Branwell?”

“Yeah, Branwell,” he said. “Brannie thinks she hung the moon.” He took another long drag on his cigarette and let it drop to the ground. He danced around it for a minute, studying it, then he stamped it out. “Gotta go,” he said.

“Morris?”

“What?”

“Will you tell me your last name?”

“Sure. It's Ditmer. Morris Ditmer. Spelled the way it sounds.”

He pulled his
motorbike
keys out of his pocket with one hand and waved good-bye with the other.

I crossed the street to the Behavioral Center, so lost in thought that I was startled when Margaret approached and said, “Penny for those thoughts.”

“Oh! Hi, Margaret,” I said. “I just had a conversation with Morris.”

“What did he have to say?”

I took a long look at my sister. I realized that she had been waiting, watching us from across the street. She probably suspected that Morris wanted to meet me when he asked what time I got out of school, but she had not come over, had not interrupted at all. She just watched. Probably the whole time we had been there. She didn't trust Morris, but she trusted me. Trusted me enough to allow me to find things out on my own. I said, “Thanks,” and she knew what it was for.

“Blue peter,” she said.

“His name is Morris Ditmer. He was there on the day it happened. But he didn't see what happened. He didn't see Branwell drop the baby. Didn't even hear him come in. He was in Vivian's room and, as they say, otherwise engaged. He says that the first thing he heard was Branwell's yelling, ‘Vivi, come here. It's Nikki.' But he emphasized that for all he knew, Branwell could have been the one that made it happen.”

Suddenly Margaret asked, “Do you have your pack of cards with you?”

I reached into my backpack and pulled them out. Margaret hesitated, then asked me to tell her again
what Branwell's reaction had been when I had teased him about Vivian. I told her how he had blushed at first but then he had gotten angry and had jumped up so fast that he overturned his chair and was ready to walk out on me. I had never before seen him look the way he had looked then.

“I think you should write
Jack-and-Jill bathroom
on one of those cards.”

I figured that I would be telling Bran about my conversation with Morris and how Morris had admitted that Branwell had seen him in the bathroom that day. I found the card that had Margaret's name on it, crossed it out, and wrote BATHROOM.

“Good,” Margaret said. “I don't think Branwell is ready to spell out exactly what happened, but—”

“Spell out? Are you making a pun?”

Margaret smiled. “Not intentionally.”

After Margaret left, I went into the Behavioral Center, but I didn't sign in. The woman behind the desk knew me by now and called to me and said, “There's no one up there now, Connor. You can go up if you want to.” I told her that I needed to straighten something out first. I sat down on one of those orange plastic chairs they have in the waiting area off to one side
of the lobby. What I wanted to straighten out was my thoughts.

Something—something that lay as deep as my friendship with Branwell—was telling me that I should not have a card with the word BATHROOM written on it. Maybe I started thinking that because all of my other cards were things that Bran and I had between us. Maybe that is what started my thinking that BATHROOM didn't belong.

I sat there, trying to figure out what to do about the BATHROOM. I couldn't help but think about Branwell's reaction the day I had teased him about Vivian. I had never seen him act that way before. Something strong was driving him.

I sat there on the orange plastic chair and I thought and thought and thought. I don't even know if I could call what I was doing
thinking.

This is what I know: In fourth grade, we learned about the Greek goddess Athena and how she was sprung—full-grown—from the forehead of Zeus. And that's the best way I can explain how the word
shame
sprang from me. I suddenly understood that shame was making Branwell silent. Something happened in that bathroom. Something that made Branwell ashamed.

The opposite of shame is respect, and Margaret had shown me a lot of respect. She always had. Like today, she had shown me a lot of respect by not interfering with my talk with Morris. When a person loses respect—self-respect or the respect of others—that's when he feels shame.

I had almost known that BATHROOM did not belong in my set of cards the moment Margaret had made the suggestion, but it wasn't until
shame
sprang full-grown from my head that I knew that I absolutely should not use it.

Maybe I wouldn't find out what happened that day of the 911 call unless Morris Ditmer told me, and maybe Morris Ditmer didn't really know. But that was a chance I had to take. Things change. Just yesterday, Morris Ditmer had said that he didn't even know Branwell Zamborska.

He knew something. And, sooner or later, he was going to tell. Otherwise, why would he have told me his last name?

Margaret had trusted me to handle Morris Ditmer without her. I knew she would understand why I decided not to show Branwell a card that said BATHROOM. I took the pack of cards from my backpack and, with a heavy black marker, I crossed it out.

I returned to the registration desk. As the woman examined the contents of my backpack, she said, “So you decided to go up anyway.”

I smiled and nodded, glad I didn't have to explain.

Branwell had been waiting for me. I don't know how I knew. I just knew. So had the guard. I could tell that, too. I didn't take the cards out of my backpack at all, and that surprised them, too.

I told Branwell that I had seen Morris, that I knew his last name. I told him that Morris said to be sure to tell him that he didn't see what happened, but that he did hear him yell for Vivian and that he didn't know what time he had come in or what time Branwell had called. I left out the part about Morris's saying that for all he knew, Branwell could have been the one that made Nikki breathe funny. Then I said, “You'll never guess what he says Vivian is worried about.” Branwell looked puzzled. “He says that she's worried that someone might tell the agency that she's started smoking again. I guess it's a rule that au pairs have to promise not to smoke.”

Branwell looked agitated and started moving his hands in a pantomime of shuffling cards.

I got the cards out of my backpack. The one with the blacked-out BATHROOM was on top, so I slipped it
off and let it fall into the backpack. I spread the cards out on the table. Branwell looked them all over and then made a flipping motion with his hand. I knew he wanted me to turn them over, so I did. He wanted the alphabet. He looked them over again, and, of course, the letters that were on the backside of the X'd-out MARGARET/blacked-out BATHROOM card were missing. I pulled the card out my backpack, allowing only the letter side—M and N—to show.

Now all the letters were laid out, and I started searching in my pockets for a piece of paper. Without saying a word, the guard put a notepad in front of me, and I thanked him by nodding and smiling in his direction. It was as if Branwell's silence had become contagious. I started pointing with my pencil. Branwell did not blink until I got to XYZ. He blinked twice at Y. Then O, then at L . . . and I needed no more letters to finish writing YOLANDA. Branwell blinked twice. I gathered up the cards. “I'll talk to her,” I said.

Then Branwell opened his mouth as if to say something in reply, but nothing came out. I had the strange feeling that his silence had changed. It was strained. Whereas in the days past, Branwell had seemed to accept the fact that he could not speak, now he didn't. The change must have registered on my face, for
Branwell stood, quickly turned around, and nodded to the guard that he was ready to be returned to his room.

As I was taking the elevator down, I felt about as uneasy as I had felt going up, but for a different reason. Now I had a mission. I had to find Yolanda.

Yolanda is the day worker who takes care of Mrs. Farkas who has multiple sclerosis and who lives across the street from the Zamborskas on Tower Hill Road. Yolanda works for Mr. and Mrs. Farkas every weekday afternoon from 1:30 to 5:30. In the mornings she helps some of the other families who live on our street. She cleans house for my mother on Friday mornings, and she goes to the Zamborskas' on Thursdays. After Nikki was born, Tina asked her to come on Monday mornings, too, to help with the laundry. Whether she was working for my mother or Tina, Yolanda always arrived on the 8:30
A.M.
bus and worked until 12:30. Then she walked across the street, where she made lunch for Mrs. Farkas and herself.
She helped Mrs. Farkas bathe, took care of the house, and prepared the evening meal before she left in time to catch the 5:35 city bus back downtown. She left the Farkas house at 5:30 and walked down to the bus stop, which is right across the street from my house at 184. That was her routine Mondays through Fridays.

I looked at my watch. It was five o'clock. I called my mother and told her that I'd be home late. She wanted to know how late, and I did a quick calculation. I could catch the city bus across the street from the Behavioral Center, at the stop where Morris and I had had our talk. I could ride the route all the way up to Tower Hill Road, where it would pick up Yolanda and then ride back down with her. If the bus left here at 5:15 and got to Yolanda's stop at 5:35, that meant twenty minutes up, twenty minutes back, and then twenty minutes to get back home again. “An hour,” I told my mother.