Poppy Done to Death

I realized, looking up at his young face, that Phillip was exhausted. Though I hadn't been around for much of Phillip's youth, due to my father's taking him far away from me—on purpose—when Phillip was in elementary school, I was sure that Phillip had had as sheltered and middle-class an upbringing as his parents could provide in Southern California.

"Maybe they'll let you stay for a while," I said. "I sure would like that."

"I'm sorry they wouldn't come to your wedding, or your husband's funeral," Phillip said miserably. "I really liked Mr. Bartell, when I met him. I tried to make them let me come by myself, but they wouldn't listen."

"Hey, bud, that's okay," I said. Of course it hadn't been, but his parents' bad behavior wasn't Phillip's fault. Martin had uncomfortably excused his son, Barrett, who had done pretty much the same thing, but Martin had been quick to become angry with my father and Betty Jo: Of course, he could see that my father had hurt me. Martin and I had stopped in to see them when we'd taken a trip to California. The visit had been very uncomfortable; the only highlight had been seeing Phil-lip.

That had been what—a year and a half ago? I figured Phillip had grown five inches in that time.

"We need to talk a little more about your trip later, and we need to call your folks, and we need to put your clothes in the wash, and you, too. You don't have any other clothes?" I was trying to sound mature and in charge, but I'd used up a lot of whatever authority I possessed when I was dealing with my errant brother-in-law.

"Uh, I left my backpack when I got out of the truck so fast," he confessed, his eyes sliding away.

"Then we'll take care of the clothes situation."

"Uh, Roe, you dating now? Mom said there was something in a gossip column in one of the movie magazines."

"Ugh. I didn't know that. I'm sure not important enough to rate that, so it must be because of Robin Crusoe, the man I'm dating. He's a writer. I knew him a long time ago, and he came back to Lawrenceton a couple of months back and we started going out."

"I read Whimsical Death." That was Robin's nonfiction book, which had made a lot of money and spread his name everywhere. "So I can just hang somewhere else when he's staying over," Phillip told me with a man-of-the-world air.

"We'll talk about that later. It's not going to be a problem. And Robin's out of town right now anyway." But I had to call him, and right away. Robin would be hurt if I didn't tell him about Poppy as soon as possible. "Now, let me go inside and let them know I have to take the rest of the afternoon off, and we'll go over to my new house. I told you I'd moved, right?"

"Sure."

"Okay, then." I still had my purse clutched in my left hand. I dug out my car keys and pointed out the Volvo to my brother. "You go wait in there while I run in for just a second."

"Okay," he said.

I started in the back door of the library, wondering what kind of fool I was to give my car keys to a wandering teenager, and I prayed with all my heart that he would be there when I came back.

Explaining to Sam wasn't easy, but then talking to Sam was becoming increasingly difficult. Sam was getting crankier as he got older, and since he was only in his early fifties, he had a lot of room to spare. He'd lost his perfect secretary a few months before, and he hadn't replaced her. He couldn't find anyone who even gave a hint that someday she might be almost as good as the lamented Patricia. I wondered how Sam's wife was taking his prolonged grief. I didn't know her very well, but Marva had been a junior high algebra teacher a long time, and I didn't think she'd put up with much foolishness.

To my overwhelming relief, Phillip was in the car when I opened the door. Not only was he in the car but he was sound asleep. His head was tilted back on the cushion, and when I slid into the driver's seat, I noticed that Phillip had a few long hairs on his chin. I almost burst into tears, and that would have been terrible. I drove to my house as gently as anyone can drive, and when we got there, I maneuvered my little brother (now only chronologically smaller) into the kitchen from the garage, and then into the guest bedroom. He was just barely awake.

"You get into the shower, and then you climb in the bed. I'll wash your clothes while you're asleep," I said. "I'll even call your mother for you, if that's okay."

"Would you?" Phillip was transparently grateful for that. I probably should not have offered, but I couldn't let them worry a minute longer than necessary about their son, and he was clearly in no shape for an emotional confrontation.

I kept a robe hanging in the closet in the guest room. I pointed it out to Phillip, who looked at it as if he'd never seen such a garment before. I left to give him a little privacy, and in a short time I heard the shower ru

I fished out his wallet, a couple of wadded tissues, a pocketknife, some loose change, and two sealed condoms.

Okay, I was horrified. Legally, my brother couldn't even drive by himself!

I had to sit down and collect myself for a minute. I was reacting as if I were Phillip's mother—and I was old enough to be Phillip's mother—but I wasn't. I was his big sister. Phillip had a perfectly functional mother, who admittedly thought I was the devil incarnate, but other than that, she seemed to be a reasonable woman.

I realized that in all the fluster of his arrival I hadn't asked Phillip exactly why he'd turned up on my doorstep. He'd said that my dad had cheated on his mother, which was all too easy to imagine, but that just didn't seem like a motivation for hitchhiking across the country. I thought something more must have happened for Phillip to taken such drastic action... though it probably hadn't seemed as scary to Phillip as it would to me, I suddenly realized. At his age, maybe Phillip didn't appreciate the evils of the world.

On the other hand, he had discovered at the age of six that bad things could and did happen to him, and I didn't know if that was a lesson that could be forgotten, no matter how young the learner. When he'd lived in Atlanta, I'd kept him for the weekend fairly often, so my dad and Betty Jo could have some couple time. And I'd enjoyed that a lot. But one weekend, Phillip had been abducted while he'd been staying with me, and he would have been killed in a horrible way if I hadn't shown up when I did; actually, if it hadn't been for Robin, Phillip and I both would have been killed. I'd bought us a little time, and the crisis had passed, but since then, my dad and Betty Jo had acted as though I'd caused the incident. They'd maintained that seeing me would further traumatize Phillip, and by moving to California and finding jobs there, they'd made sure I'd have to keep my distance. I'd only renewed un-monitored contact with my brother when he'd gotten his own computer. The first person he'd sent an E-mail to—after about twenty of his best friends—had been me. I'd been so proud.

It was time to face the music, whatever tune might be playing today. I looked up my dad's home number and punched it in.

"Hello?" The voice was Betty Jo's, and she was strung tightly.

"It's Aurora," I said. "I have Phillip."

"Oh thank God!" Betty Jo burst into tears. "Phil, pick up the other phone. Phillip's at your daughter's!"

"Is he okay?" my father asked.

"He seems to be fine. He's asleep right now." I hesitated, then decided Phillip's adventures were his to relate. "I told him I was calling you."