August Anguish (August 1964)

“Greenfields” (The Brothers Four)

Listen to Chapter 9

“Well, Julie, Knott’s Berry Farm was great, wasn’t it?”

“Um!” Julie showed some enthusiasm for the first time in nearly a month. “And so was Bill. It sure was a ball double dating with you and Bob. You know, with burying myself in Western Civ the past few weeks, I had almost forgotten anything else existed in the world!”

Sandra was blissfully satisfied with her friend.

The August days were warm and long. Julie remained calm although everything her hopes and dreams and future had been built on during the past four years had, it seemed, crumbled and vanished. She had shed all her tears that Fourth of July night during the agony that had lasted far into the morning. Now she could even face Pastor and Mrs. Macintosh and unemotionally spend a day with them in Oak Grove.

*****

“Please come home as soon as you can, Julie.” There was a strange note of fear in Mrs. Scott’s voice. “Your grandpa—” She choked up.

“Yes, Momma, I’ll be home right away. Now don’t you worry.” Julie placed the dorm hall phone’s receiver on its hook. Julie mulled over many questions during the forty miles between La Paloma and Riverdale, and Julie was hardly aware of either the familiar passing scenery or the gas pedal.

“Hi, Julie, come on in. Daddy’s here, too.” It was her cousin Sue who greeted her. The house was strangely silent as the two girls entered. Gingerly they stepped unnoticed just inside the bedroom.

Uncle Jake, Dr. Donaldson, Momma—and Grandpa Philip—it all swirled into a blur as Julie swallowed hard. Seeing his hand outstretched to her, Julie rushed to Grandpa’s bedside, unable to say a word.

“He had the stroke Friday.” “Yes, his entire side is paralyzed.” “The ambulance will be here in about a half hour, Lora.” The ghostly voices were those of Momma, Dr. Donaldson, and Uncle Jake as their uncanny sounds came from the kitchen. Although Sue sat in the room with her, Julie saw nothing as she stroked the thin gray hair from her sleeping grandfather’s face.

Numbly, she opened her history book back in the dormitory room that night. The critical final exam would be in just two days. Professor Mackey had assured her she could raise her B+ average to an A if the final’s grade turned out to be good enough. Nearly panic-stricken, she thumbed through her scribbled class notes.

When the test was over, Julie breathed a sigh of sweet relief. Someone had just given her inside information that her score was one point higher than that of the only other A student in the class! But her smile soon faded when she saw the note that the student monitor left for her at the desk in the dorm.

“Please come to the hospital right away.”

Julie’s heart leaped to her throat. Never in her life had she seen anyone in a coma, much less someone she loved. She hardly saw Momma and Uncle Jake and cousin Sue.

“Grandpa,” she whispered, frightened. But he made no reply.

*****

Back at La Paloma, Julie packed and cleaned her dorm room. The hours drug by. She was barely aware of the night and next morning that passed. Suddenly she found herself surrounded by the sickening white of the hospital walls. Fleetingly, she thought of what Sandra had gone through with her mother a couple of years ago. “Oh, God,” she cried, “don’t let him die—please, don’t let him die!”

Through her tears, she caught glimpses of Momma’s tear-stained face and Uncle Jake’s uncharacteristically worried countenance. Julie realized just how much Grandpa meant to all of them. Wandering up and down the antiseptic green corridors and through the massive moving elevators, Julie caught occasional sight of cousin Sue or Uncle Jake or Dr. Donaldson—or Momma. As she paced in and out of Grandpa’s room, her heart throbbed with intuitive horror until she felt her whole being would explode.

“He’s gone, Julie.” Uncle Jake’s words sent a shock of incredible pain through Julie’s trembling body. She ran to the door but stopped. Momma mustn’t know just yet. The door’s hinges shrieked as a white-clad figure stepped in. At once the ceiling seemed to be under her feet and the floor above her head. She felt entangled in the tubes and instruments that didn’t know their work was no longer needed. She touched Grandpa’s lifeless hand and then broke into uncontrollable convulsions. How long she lay sobbing on his cold cheek, she did not know.

Julie’s world was a dreadfully unreal nightmare. There were all the arrangements, the flowers, the relatives and friends—even Pastor Macintosh and Allen—and the funeral. But after the cold damp earth had claimed its prey, Julie sensed the fearful torment of the listless house and the strange silent sound of death and the meaning of life’s detours. Night after night the confused girl lay awake listening to the emotional sobs of her grief-stricken mother, and morning after morning awakened in the early hours by the same unwelcome sound.

“Mrs. Scott reminds me of my Pops,” Kurt told Bob and Sandra. “He’s never been quite the same since Mother died, you know.”

“I sure know what you mean,” reassured Sandra.

Bob looked at them both. “Well, it’s a good thing for ‘little sis’,” he said, “that she has such understanding friends like you two.”

Kurt smiled understandingly.

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