April Shadows by V. C. Andrews Page B

Daddy's bedside. Brenda brought the one chair in the room to her, and Mama sat, taking Daddy's hand in hers. I stood there looking down at him. Brenda moved to the window and gazed out, her body still very tight. I noticed her hands were clenched into fists that she kept at her side.
"Oh, Matt." Mama began, rubbing his hand softly. "This was so wrong, so wrong. I know what you hoped to do, but you didn't protect us by doing this. I believed in my vows, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. We love you. Matt. It's not and never has been a one-way street when it comes to that. We should have been at your side all the time, throughout this ordeal."
I looked at Mama. She was lazing at Daddy and talking to him as if she believed he could hear every word, as if they were having one of their normal conversations at dinner. Brenda listened but didn't turn to look. She kept her shoulders high, her head slightly back, as though she were experiencing a whipping.
"Now you're in this horrible cold place with people who never saw you as we did. Why?" Mama asked, her voice cracking. "Oh why, my love?"
She lowered her head until her forehead could rest against his hand. I tried to breathe, but my chest had hardened into cement. When I looked at Daddy. I thought he appeared just as he would in any deep sleep, without Death slipping in beside him and entering his body to claim it.
Why did Death want to claim it? Why couldn't he leave us alone until Mama and Daddy were old and gray and tired of struggling against maladies of age, like so many other elderly people? Why couldn't he let Daddy live to see Brenda and me marry and have children of our own? What had he done to deserve this? I felt the need to shout, but I swallowed it all back.
The heart monitor continued its slow but regular beep.
Brenda finally turned and looked at Mama. "Look at her. We shouldn't stay here more than a half hour, anyway," she whispered to me. "It's too much for her.'
From where did she get the strength? I wondered, Was it that she never stopped being a competitor? She could even compete against Death? Or did she really mean, It's too much for me, for us?
She walked around to Mama's side and put her hand on Mama's shoulder. Mama slowly raised her head and looked at her and then at Daddy.
"He's so peaceful." she said. "Maybe this was the best way."
"Not for us." Brenda insisted.
I knew what she meant. We all knew now Daddy's purpose for what he had done, but what he hadn't anticipated was how much we would hate ourselves for how we had reacted to it. We now knew the sickness had turned him into the monster. We now knew that the man both Brenda and I had called Daddy and Mama had called her husband had died long before he had begun this attempt to stop us from mourning his death so bitterly.
Mama took a deep breath and nodded. She rose, leaned over to kiss Daddy's cheek, and then turned sadly away. I was next. His cheek was still warm and soft to me. I wanted to whisper something. What? What could I say to him now? It came to me in a flash that began somewhere deep in my heart and my memory.
"Good-bye, Mr. Panda," I whispered.
Brenda heard it. I saw her eves flinch and saw the way she raised them quickly toward the ceiling.
"Let's go," she forced herself to say.
Wasn't she going to kiss him? Couldn't she find it in her heart to forgive him?
I waited. Mama started for the door. Brenda stood there. Staring down, and then she went to his side, took his hand in hers, and lowered herself to whisper. too. I didn't hear what she said, but as we left the room. I asked her what it was.
"I told him he was doing this just to prevent getting his ass kicked on the driveway basketball court," she said.
I looked up in surprise. Was that it? Were those all her possibly last words to him?
"And then I told him I loved him," she added.
Ms. Luther was waiting for us in the hallway and hurried to escort us out.
"Where will you be?" she asked, showing some sort of remorse and