The Swan House Read Online Free PDF Page B

all except, “Thank you for coming.” We sat in the fancy living room with the high ceiling and the sculpted cornices and the oil paintings and Oriental rugs, the Hardmans and Trixie and Grandmom and Granddad and me, with Ella Mae looking on, until Dean Hardman insisted she take a seat too. I stared down at my hands, which I kept twisting around in my lap, occasionally lifting one to wipe my nose. We must have sat there like that in absolute silence for fifteen minutes. And somehow that seemed the right thing to do.
    Then Dean Hardman cleared his throat awkwardly and said, “There will be a memorial service at St. Philip’s on Tuesday morning for all those who perished.” He stood up, shook my hand again, and I swear I thought this middle-aged man was going to start bawling like a baby in front of me. His eyes were all misty, and Mrs. Hardman blotted her eyes with a white-laced handkerchief. I started crying again, and she hugged me tight and I let her.
    When the people called from the newspaper to ask for information about Mama, I guess it was Grandmom who answered all the questions. I was back upstairs with Jimmy, who was lying listlessly on his bed. The next phone call was Daddy again.
    Grandmom answered the phone and burst into tears when she heard his voice and kept repeating, “Oh, Johnny, thank the Lord. Johnny, I’m so sorry.”
    We were all crowded around the phone, and I heard him tell Grandmom, “I’ll be home as soon as I can. Can you and Dad hold things together?”
    â€œOf course, Johnny. We’ll take care of the children.”
    But then Jimmy grabbed the phone. “Please come home, Daddy,” he wailed. “It’s the worst thing in the whole world. Please come home.”
    I don’t know how many times Jimmy and I went up and down, up and down that winding staircase that afternoon, but we did it together, and somehow I felt a bitter-sweetness at putting my skinny arm around Jimmy’s even skinnier shoulders and being a real big sister to him.
    The telegram arrived at three-thirty. It came from the officials of Air France, and I guess everybody who was related to someone on the plane got one. I took it out of Ella Mae’s hand and screwed my face up to read it. I’d never received a telegram before: In this time of sorrow I convey to you on behalf of Air France our sincerest condolences. Please also know that I am at your disposition for any assistance we can render. It was signed Henri Lesieur, General Manager in North America for the airline.
    I gave the telegram back to Ella Mae and said, “There’s not a thing they can do to help, and they know it.” Jimmy just sniffed and nodded.
    Late that afternoon Trixie went downtown to buy copies of an “extra” edition of the Atlanta Journal —the first “extra” published by the newspaper on a local story since Margaret Mitchell was fatally injured in a street accident thirteen years earlier. Trixie was gone for over three hours, so long that we were afraid there’d been another accident. When she finally got back to our house, she was crying again.
    â€œAll the streets going downtown near the Atlanta Journal Constitution building at Forsyth Street are jammed with traffic. You can’t believe it. You just can’t believe it. Nobody can. Not a soul can believe it.” Her hands were trembling as she held out five copies of the special edition, and Grandmom and Granddad and Ella Mae and Jimmy and I each took one. I sank to the floor right there in the entrance hall, staring at the picture on the front page. In the foreground were a bunch of firemen with their hard hats on, and behind them was the tail of the plane all broken and sticking up toward the sky. The caption read, “Charred section of tail only recognizable part of plane.”
    â€œOh my gosh,” Jimmy mumbled.
    On the right-hand side of the front page there was a long, long list of