“Where does it hurt?”
“Who says it hurts?”
I hiss in exasperation.
“Rib might be cracked,” he concedes. “Maybe a few other things.” He clicks his tongue at the tears spilling over my cheeks.
Pull it together! Old Gin needs me.I dash back into our basement to fetch clean water for his thirst and rags for his wounds. With cooled barley tea, I make a compress for his injured eye and then pick debris from his wounds. Fresh tears spill out again when I view the state of his torso. Bruises cover every bit of his skin in even patterns of four, marking each blow of Knucks’s brass knuckles. Old Gin has grown so thin, his ribs stick out like a pair of open shutters.
I apply more barley-tea compresses to his bruises, wishing we had pepper. Noemi said pepper solves a lot of problems you don’t expect it to, including bruises. He winces as I wash his bloodied knuckles. Perhaps he did manage to inflict some damage.
“Mr. Buxbaum told me about Shang. Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
He sighs, an invisible thing more felt than seen, like water. “Some burdens are too heavy for young shoulders.”
“Did he know about me?”
“No. That letter was the last he heard from your mother before she left for Savannah.” His voice has dropped to a hush. “I’m sorry for bringing you back. I wished for a bond between sisters, one that could outlast parents.”
Caroline’s shocked expression materializes before me, lit by the faintest glimmer of understanding. Old Gin’s eyes flutter closed.
“Grandfather,” I call, feeling the cold finger of fear press against my heart. “Wake up.”
He doesn’t move. I fetch blankets and pillows. Under a folded blanket tucked in one corner of his room, I discover the Balmorals. He never sold them. They are, after all, one of the few remembrances of his son. I return to his side and arrange the bedding around him. Then I hold his hand, a hand that seems to have grown smaller over the years. A hand that has patiently guided me through life.
With a gray blanket tucked around his body, he looks so frail, like an injured fruit bat. My heart floods with love for Old Gin, who did the work of two people, asking nothing in return. I was so mad at him, when he’s the one who changed my diapers and soothed me to sleep. When I caught the influenza, he scared off the devil winds, coaxing the fire within me to life with soup and his own gentle humming. He wanted me to have a sister so that when he was gone, I would still have a family.
My chest begins to hiccup and pull. Not wanting Old Gin to see me cry, I duck back into the basement and collapse onto my bed in a sweaty, grimy heap. I take in huge gulps of air and sob and try to think of a plan. How will I get him back into the basement? Trying to lower him down the metal rungs without injuring him further will be as difficult as climbing down a ladder with a barrel of water. I need to find him medical attention. But how? We don’t have money for a doctor, even if I could find one that would treat a Chinese man.
He will die in the abandoned barn, of cold or infection or exposure, when he should be resting on the finest feather mattress, with clean sheets and cooling ice for his bruises. I willneed to find his boot. The thought of it lying abandoned and alone in the streets somehow makes me cry even harder.
I mop my face on my quilt. My eyes stick on the wordgrievous, “shockingly cruel or brutal,” written when Mrs. Bell told Nathan that the combination of whatever he had thrown on was grievous to her eyes.
Grievousis the word that fits our predicament, but I am not grieving yet. There is work to be done. I will bring a warm brick to Old Gin, and then find help. Creakily, I get to my feet, when another sound freezes me in place.
Awoof.
Thirty-Five
A giant snowball of fur bounces up to me, and I fall back against the bed. “B-B-Bear?”
Woof!Out rolls the pink herald of her tongue.
“H-how did you—?” My eyes fly to the listening tube. In my haste to leave the basement, I forgot to plug it.
I reach for the wool stopper, but Nathan’s voice drifts down to me. “Where is she? Must’ve gone out the window again. It’s that new cat across the street, I bet.”
I stuff in the plug before Bear woofs again. She looks from the speaking tube to me, and her ears lift, as if she is waiting for an explanation.
“Oh, Bear,” I say, my voice shaking. She puts her head on my lap, and I swear that creature knows exactly what I need. I fling my arms around her, and she doesn’t move away until my sob is spent.
“Thank you,” I tell her at last. “But I must get help. And Nathan will be worried for you. Come.”
Old Gin has not moved an inch. Bear circles him, then sits by his feet, and when I make for the exit, she does not follow.
“Bear, come!” I slap my thigh twice the way I’ve seen Nathan do.
She looks from me to Old Gin.
