Glory Girl by Betsy Byars Page B

watching her family on the stage. For this, their first performance since the accident, everything was new—new white outfits, new drums, new guitar. It did seem like a beginning.
    There was a new feeling from the audience too. They had bought albums tonight even before the performance started. That had never happened before. Anna had already collected a hundred and twenty-eight dollars.
    Anna glanced over her shoulder. Behind her the entrance was empty. Only the large white plaster statue of George Washington stood in the shadows.
    In the two months since the Glorys’ accident, Anna had been looking for Uncle Newt everywhere. She never went out of the house without searching for him, and she had not seen him once. It was as if he had disappeared from the earth.
    “Where do you think Uncle Newt is?” she had asked her mother.
    “He could be anywhere, Anna. He could be in Nome, Alaska, for all I know. Once he got his pardon, he was free to go anywhere.”
    “It looks like he would have called at least. Maybe something happened to him.”
    “I don’t understand that man. I never have. I am as grateful to Newt as I’ve ever been to anybody in my life. We would all be dead if it wasn’t for Newt. I said to your father, ‘When I see that man I’m going to throw my arms around his neck and hug him to pieces.’ Your father felt the same, in his own way. He told me he wanted Newt to sing with us, be one of the Glorys. Your father said, ‘From now on, I’m treating Newt like a brother.’ Only how are we going to do these things with him gone?”
    “I guess you can’t.”
    “Anybody else would want to be thanked. I just don’t understand what gets into that man. It seems like he deliberately won’t let people do what’ll make them feel better. If I wasn’t so grateful, I’d be downright mad.”
    “Now, Mom.”
    “I’m not mad,” Mrs. Glory added quickly, remembering her promise. “It’s just that when you owe somebody, you don’t feel right until you’ve thanked them.”
    “It’s like it’s unfinished,” Anna said.
    “Exactly.”
    The fact that Anna had not seen her uncle since that moment in the recovery room did leave everything unfinished. Had that been his farewell, she wondered, that lifted hand in the doorway of the emergency room? It wasn’t enough.
    Angel had told her, “Quit looking for him. You’re going to wear out your neck turning around so much.”
    “I can’t help it, Angel,” Anna had answered. “He’s the only person I ever felt really close to.”
    Angel had looked at her with her pale eyes. “He’s the only person you ever wanted to feel close to.”
    On the stage Mr. Glory was saying, “Thank you,” to the audience. He adjusted the mike. “And now Angel is going to sing one of the songs her grandaddy wrote. This was the last song Grandaddy Glory wrote before he died, and the first time it was sung was at his funeral. ‘I’m Almost over the Mountain, Going Home.’ Angel.”
    Anna shifted in her seat. She watched as Angel, white flowers in her hair, came forward. The music began.
    Audiences always got quieter when Angel sang, and tonight there was not a sound in the auditorium. As she listened, Anna thought that her family was better than before the accident. They were actually singing better.
    Anna had noticed it for the first time in the hospital when they had sung in the hall for the patients one afternoon. They had stood around Mr. Glory’s wheelchair, singing hymns together, and for the first time Anna had been proud of them without being bitter that she wasn’t part of them.
    Tonight her mother looked happier at the piano. Her father’s looks had softened. The twins looked the same, and yet maybe they weren’t after each other quite as hard as before.
    Suddenly Anna felt a cool breeze on the back of her neck. Someone had opened the door in the entrance hall.
    Anna wanted to turn around at once, but she stopped herself. It might be Uncle Newt, she thought,