When Madeline Was Young Read Free

he'd been a reader, if he'd been literary, he might have said about Madeline that the mad wife in our family had come down out of the attic and taken up residence in the playroom.
    When I look back, it seems surprising that it took Buddy to make me think I should somehow protect Madeline at the lake and at home from people who might prey upon her. Where had my brotherly chivalry been before that? Madeline seemed happy enough on the periphery of the little girls' gang, but I felt that if I were actively good I should build Lincoln Logs on the porch with her, or organize a Ping-Pong tournament for her group, none of whom could hit the ball twice in a row, the single return usually a fluke. Still, they would have been filled with self-importance and excitement. At the least I should have inserted myself into "Mother, May I?" during the adults' happy hour, staying next to Madeline as we took our no-risk baby steps. Even if Buddy leered and poked me in the ribs at dinner, I should have both shielded myself from him and shown him his suggestions meant nothing to me. I told myself, I insisted it didn't matter how or why my parents had adopted Madeline; she was my sister, a girl I hadn't paid half enough attention to over the years, a girl who was so pure of heart and silly she worshipped me. There was nothing Buddy could say, no matter how he talked, no matter how he jeered or winked, nothing at all that could make me ashamed to have someone like Madeline in my family.
    It was shortly after Buddy's little talk on the dock that Madeline became ill. Although it turned out to be a harmless flu, my mother was so concerned that I became sure my sister was near death. She had a high fever, hot flashes that drenched her sheets, chills that made her teeth chatter. My mother was a nurse, but there were limits to her knowledge and confidence. Near dusk one night, she phoned Dr. Riley, a small-town physician of an era long past, a professional who could be counted on to treat large animals if the veterinarian was overbooked. When he got out of his car and came across the lawn, using his cane, and with his battered leather bag in hand, the children silently parted the way. My mother called down to me from the window of the south bedroom to show him up, and also, while I was at it, to bring her ice.
    "Timothy," she cried, using my Christian name, something that happened so seldom I hardly recognized it. She must have realized her error because she began again. "Mac! Mac, get me a dish of ice, will you please?"
    When I came into the room, she was propping the invalid in a sitting position on the bed with herself as the leaning post. She kissed Madeline's hair as she made the adjustments. There had been plenty of times when she had been alarmed over events--it was as if the end of the world were nigh when the Russians shot down one of our reconnaissance planes, and when President Eisenhower had to send troops to Little Rock she wept--but I had never seen her frightened for one person. She didn't say anything, saving her mouth, I guessed, for those prayerful kisses, and she didn't look at me, either. She made no comment about how I was upstairs, in a place the boys were forbidden, and she didn't ask after all for the ice. I remember knowing I was there because I could see in the long mirror my knobby knees, the awful brown fawnishness of my young self, my wide brown eyes, my brown hair in need of a cut, my uncertainty.
    The doctor right away felt Madeline's lymph glands, smoothing his fingers down her neck. She had just enough energy when he di d t hat to lift her chin and slowly close her glassy eyes. She was going to die. Right there in front of us, slumped against my mother, she was going to take one last little breath. And then what would we do? Would my mother cry out, suddenly insane like one of the tragic Greek heroines? Would she shriek at anyone who threatened to take the body away? I looked hard at Dr. Riley: Say she'll five, say she'll