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In My Time of Dying

Chapter 7

Daniel stayed true to his word. During the next few weeks, whenever it got to be too much, he called home to get a ride or told someone where he was going. He didn't want to scare his family by disappearing again. The calls home weren't very frequent, as he was trying to stick it out whenever he could.

He had some amends to make to his family, and making them worry over him was counterproductive to getting back in their good graces. Daniel knew Adam, and probably the others as well, were let down by him. No one said anything to Daniel indicating that, but Daniel just knew that's how they all felt. That morning he'd woken up in the hospital was etched in his mind. He had heard Adam tell Crane he was ashamed and disappointed in Daniel. It had felt as if a knife were stabbing him when he heard Adam say that. Ever since then it kept replaying in his head. It hurt almost as much as losing Ellie, to think that his family was dishonored because of him. He had to try and fix that. It was the only thing he could fix. If he did everything right, was the perfect brother to them, maybe they would forgive him someday for the scandal he'd wrought on their family. He would try as hard as he could to make his brothers be, well, not proud of him - that was impossible now, but at least maybe someday they wouldn't hate him. Surely they did now, after he had dragged their reputation through the mud with his. Adam may have been the one to voice it aloud, but he was sure the others all felt the same thing.

They were all disappointed and ashamed of him.

Evan and Ford had taken to walking with him between each class and before and after school. They didn't say why they were doing it, but Daniel knew they didn't trust him to stay out of trouble on his own. He thought Adam had probably told them to keep an eye on him while he was away from home. He knew his family didn't trust him anymore, so he didn't say a word about his little brothers following him everywhere. Not wanting any trouble, Daniel just tried to stay away from everyone else; even to the point of ignoring the shoves and jabs he got from angry classmates or friends of Ellie's. He was afraid if he lashed out at them, he'd lose his temper and fight with them. And he couldn't let that happen. He had to be perfect now. He could make no mistakes.

He missed Ellie terribly, so bad that is was all he could think about. She haunted his every waking moment and even his sleep. Sometimes he found himself picking up the phone to call her, only to realize at the last second. Once he even dialed her number and didn't come to his senses until her mother picked up. He had dropped the phone as if it was on fire and ran off to his room to hide until his heart stopped thudding in his chest. He would have loved to be able to talk with Adam or Crane or even Brian about her, but he couldn't. They didn't need to be burdened with this, too. No, it was best to keep it to himself and dealt with it on his own. Someday the pain would lessen enough for him to breathe again.

To deal with it, he kept busy. At home he worked in the barn tirelessly, doing his chores and more. Anything that needed done was already done by Daniel before the others could even make a plan to get around to it. The barn had never looked cleaner, the yard better groomed or his room neater. He'd even taken to doing laundry and dishes when it wasn't his turn. After all the chores, the rest of the night was spent studying. His grades had to be perfect.

He had to be perfect.

7b47b

"Hey Brian," Evan greeted him, coming into the barn after school. It was his job to muck out the stalls today, and then he wanted to take Diablo out for a run.

"Hey yourself." Brian acknowledged him with a bob of the chin.

Evan grabbed a pitchfork and headed for Diablo's stall. "Hi there, buddy." He gave the horse's nose an affectionate rub. Looking past the horse, he exclaimed, "What the-" The stall was spotless.

"What?" Brian came over to Evan.

"Look, someone cleaned Diablo's stall for me."

"Daniel."

"When? We just got home."

"This morning, before his shower. He was out here for awhile; I guess that's what he was doing."

Evan sighed, exasperated, sagging down on a nearby hay bale. "Brian, what are we going to do about Daniel? He's going to drive himself to exhaustion, doing his chores and everyone else's. That's all he does anymore, ya know? Work, work, work. Either here at the ranch or schoolwork. When's the last time you heard him play his guitar? Or join us in a game of football or checkers?"

Brian leaned on the support post, next to Evan. "Well, I'm guessing Daniel doesn't much feel like playing music or games right now. He'll come around. I think it helps him to throw himself into his work, so he doesn't have to think about things as much. He did the same thing after Tally, you know?"

"Yeah, but Tally didn't die, Brian."

"I know." He nodded. "It's harder then when Tally left. But that's how he dealt with her leaving and he's doing the same thing now."

"It's just hard. You know at school yesterday, Ford saw him get slugged by Tim Mullins, and he never even defended himself. Ford almost killed Tim and you know how hard it is to get Ford swinging. Me and Ford have been walking him to all his classes, just to keep the other kids from picking on him." Evan shook his head. "I don't know, Brian. I've never seen him like this. When have you known Daniel to let someone push him around?"

Brian had to agree. That was defiantly out of character for their scrappy younger brother. "We just have to give him time, Evan, just be patient with him. " He gave Evan's neck an affectionate squeeze and went back to work.

7b47b

That night the family gathered for dinner like always. On this night they were all there. No one had practice for anything or a date for once, so it was the usual McFadden chaos. Rolls were being thrown, insults hurled, stories told. It was loud, rowdy and full of love at their table. Daniel was glad for the noise and distractions. It was easier to hide the fact that he wasn't interested in eating tonight. Actually he was hardly ever hungry anymore, but he would force himself to eat for his family's benefit.

Daniel had become an expert at hiding how little he ate. He would push food around on his plate, take a bite now and then when someone was looking, deflect them with conversation or insults, and get up first to clean up the dishes, scraping his leftovers in the trash before anyone else was up to see. He just had no appetite and could only force down so much dinner, but if Adam or Hannah noticed, they'd be troubled. He couldn't cause anyone more bother. So he got good at hiding it.

He'd gotten good at hiding a lot of things lately.

Yesterday, on the way to History, Tim Mullins, who had been hurling verbal insults at him for the last week, had actually taken a swing at him.

As Daniel had headed down the hallway, his eyes had been on his shoes, like always. He found if he kept his eyes downcast, it discouraged people from asking him questions-like how are you doing? Or, are you okay? So his eyes where down that day, and he was looking at his shoes.

He'd noticed lately that he needed a new pair of sneakers. There was a hole working its way into the toe of the right one. Not that he was going to tell anyone. They didn't need to spend any money on him. They could save the shoe money for Guthrie's next pair. The kid was growing like a weed.

Tim Mullins had been coming down the hall from the other way, not that Daniel had noticed him with his head down. He did, however, hear the insults Tim and his buddies were mumbling to each other about Daniel, just loud enough for him to hear. Then, as they passed each other, Tim struck out and landed a punch solidly in Daniel's gut. Daniel's breathe had shot out of him in an oomph and he doubled over. His books scattered across the floor.

"Daniel! You okay?" Ford's voice was suddenly there and his arms were around Daniel, pulling him back upright.

"Yeah, Ford." He managed to get out.

Ford had looked up then and spying Tim, had made a beeline for him. Ford grabbed Tim and started swinging. No one was going to take a cheap shot on his brother. Evan had come around the corner just then and seeing Ford in the middle of a fight, he had immediately jumped in, pulling Tim's buddies away and then breaking apart the fighters. Daniel had joined him by then, too, pulling people away from Ford. With everyone jumping in to break up the fighters, it was under control pretty quickly. Ford yelled out one last threat to Tim as Tim's buddies led him away.

"Get him out of here." Evan commanded over his shoulder, as he led Ford to the side of the hallway. Daniel leaned back against the lockers, bent over slightly, holding his belly. Ford was rubbing his cheek where Tim had gotten in a good shot.

"Are you okay?" Evan asked Ford first, pulling Ford's hand away and gently touching his face.

"Yeah." Ford shrugged Evan off.

Evan nodded in agreement. Ford would have one heck of a bruise, but he'd be okay. He turned then to Daniel, noticing for the first time that he was kind of slumped over.

"What about you? You okay?"

Daniel made himself straighten up, "Yeah. I'm okay. It was a cheap shot." He absently rubbed his belly.

Evan looked doubtful about Daniel being okay, but he knew better than to push it. Daniel was resistant to coddling. Instead, spying the books on the floor, he bent to gather them up. Then, herding his brothers in front of him, Evan led them down the hall.

Daniel had said nothing more about the incident, shaking his head when Evan tired to bring it up on the bus on the way home. "I'm fine, Ev. Just drop it." And then he'd buried his nose in a book. Evan noticed though, that the whole thirty minute ride home, Daniel only turned the page twice. Obviously his mind was elsewhere. Evan just wished he knew where.

Evan hadn't asked him about the fight again and Daniel hadn't volunteered any more information on what started it. Ford and Evan had talked about it though, and Ford had told Evan what he'd seen. The two of them decided to redouble their efforts to glue themselves to Daniel's side between classes. They'd enlist Marc's help, now that he was off his crutches, for the times when they couldn't be with Daniel.

7b47b

That night, after dinner, Daniel buried himself in his books. He hoped to the others it would appear he was just diligent and working hard on good grades. That way they wouldn't worry about his grades dropping. In reality, it was another way to hide things from them. With his nose in a book, they didn't notice his mind wandering, thinking about Ellie. He was always thinking about her. It was as if he was incapable of shutting off his thoughts. The flashing images were always present in his mind. Sometimes he could shut them out, but more often he couldn't. If they got too bad, he'd just joke about the noise and how he needed to study in quiet. Then he'd go upstairs. That way, when the images got to the bad part, the last image of her in the car, he'd be alone.

Tonight, he'd been on the couch in the living room, reading – well pretending to read- his science book. It was almost impossible to concentrate, with the ruckus going on in the living room and the disturbances in his own head.

Ellie. Long hair flowing all around.

Guthrie was studying spelling with Crane and having a hard time of it. Hannah was in the middle of an argument with Adam over which of them left the milk out that morning and made it go sour. They were getting pretty heated. Ford made no effort to hide the fact that he was watching the Adam and Hannah show. Brian was changing a string on one of their guitars and Evan was on the chair next to Daniel, working his way through a school project on their family ancestors.

"Hey, Crane, what was dad's dad's name again? I forget."

"Josiah." He yelled back, not looking up from Guthrie's list. "Spell discourteous."

"What the heck does that mean? This list is stupid."

Ellie. Riding horses on her grandparents' ranch.

Twang! Went Brian's guitar string.

"Ha! Discourteous is what you are being right now."

"Hey, who knows mom's grandma's name?"

Ellie. In his arms.

"I'm not being discourty-whatever! What's it mean anyhow?"

"Georgia! Now Hannah, I know I told you the milk was still out. I had to hurry out to check on that new calf. Are you telling me you didn't see it sitting there all day?!"

Oh Ellie! Getting in Marc's mustang.

"No Adam, I didn't because I was too busy doing laundry, hanging it out to dry, folding it, putting it away, chopping wood, getting groceries and everything else I had to do today!"

"Discourteous means rude. Now spell it."

Twang! "Ouch, damn string!"

Ellie, oh Ellie girl. The car flipping over on its roof. No, not this part, not now!

Daniel jumped up, "Gotta use the john." He mumbled to Evan or whoever happened to hear as he hurried, as nonchalantly as possible, for the stairs. No one would follow him, he knew. Dimly in the background he heard them continue the various conversations.

Ellie, blood everywhere, a blank look on her face, screaming, screaming echoing in his ears, his screams, other screams outside the car, the feeling of horror engulfing him all over again…

Daniel looked around frantically. He needed a place to hide. Somewhere they wouldn't find him. They couldn't see him like this. He shoved his body into the narrow space between his nightstand and bed, sinking to the floor. He grabbed his head in his hands and rocked back and forth, tears streaming down his cheeks. There he sat, hiding in the dark, hiding from his family.

He couldn't worry them. They couldn't see him like this.

7b47b

That night, like most, he couldn't sleep. He had come up to bed before Crane and lay awake, feigning some shut eye. He'd gotten really good at that lately. Once Crane had fallen asleep, Daniel crawled out of bed, and on silent stocking feet, crept downstairs. Now that he was past his most vigilant brothers-Crane and Adam- he knew he could get past Brain and Guthrie. Those two slept so deeply, they'd probably doze through a tornado.

He slipped out the front door, onto the porch. Sitting on the top step, he wrapped his arms around his torso, trying to block out the chill. Daniel gazed into the sky, happy to see the view was full of stars. On nights like this he could sit out here for hours, watching the stars. And he often did.

It was easy tonight. No nightmares. Insomnia, while frustrating and irritating, was easier to hide then the nightmares. When he had those, he had to be careful around Crane. Crane'd worry himself silly if he knew. Luckily, Daniel wasn't a screamer. He usually woke up, drenched in sweat, heart pounding, and terror coursing through him, but not screaming. Crane did wake a few times, but Daniel was able to convince him he was fine and Crane usually fell back to sleep. On the rare occasion that he came fully awake, Daniel just told him he was on the way to the bathroom.

He had to hide everything; the not sleeping, his missing appetite, the way the other kids were picking on him, and especially his visions of Ellie. He just couldn't tell his family all he was going through, he couldn't burden them with that, he couldn't worry them. He had to be perfect; he had to erase all the wrongs he'd done.

He leaned his head against the porch post. He was tired, so tired, tired of all the hiding, all the deceptions, all the agony. He wondered if things would ever feel right again. A tear trickled down his cheek.

7b47b

Adam had succeeded in burying his feelings of anger and disappointment toward Daniel deep inside. He hadn't spoken of them since that day at the hospital. His concern over Daniel overrode everything else. If he didn't acknowledge them, he thought maybe the feelings would just fade away, remaining hidden and unspoken for all time. He couldn't bear to talk to Daniel about it. It would rip his brother to shreds. He was ashamed, too, of his own feelings. How could a brother feel this way towards his sibling? What was wrong with him? After all Daniel had been through, how could Adam feel like this? It was all just so confusing.

Adam pushed the troubling thoughts away and went back to his breakfast.

He watched Daniel from across the table. He looked tired, but was eating his eggs, and talking with Evan about the school project. Adam had noticed Daniel throwing himself into his books lately. He was relieved to see that he was keeping himself busy with something constructive. He'd been worried that Daniel would have trouble dealing with his grief over Ellie, but he seemed to have avoided any real problems so far. He was doing fine, better than Adam had expected, actually. Maybe after he'd run off the night of the funeral, and had broken down out there in the woods, he'd gotten the worst of it out of his system. Adam hoped so.

Daniel looked healthier, too. The bruises and cuts were nearly gone, just a few that had faded to yellow still remained. He no longer wore the sling, but his arm would hurt when he banged it into something, so he had to be careful for awhile yet. Adam thought Daniel looked a little thinner, but since he seemed to be eating and wasn't sick, Adam didn't think much about that. Crane hadn't mentioned any issues with Daniel having sleep problems either, so Adam figured he had those things under control.

He had been working on the ranch or his schoolwork in every spare moment that he had. While Adam knew it was a distraction from Ellie that had him working so hard, he thought it might be good for him. It would keep him occupied and out of trouble until this all settled down. It also kept him close to home, where they could all keep an eye on him. Besides, Daniel knew he could come to them if he needed to. Any of them would be there to talk to him.

But despite all that, Adam still sensed something not quite right; he just couldn't put his finger on what it was. Daniel hadn't touched his guitar since the day of the crash, but Adam imagined he just didn't feel like playing right now. He could understand that. It had been a long time after his parents died until he felt like playing anything other than a dirge. Daniel would come around in time. And in the meanwhile, the others had all agreed to lay off the rowdy songs they usually played. It just didn't seem quite appropriate now. Soon, Adam hoped, they could be back to their nightly square dance or jam sessions. It would be good for Daniel to get back into enjoying his music. But of course, Adam would let that come whenever Daniel was ready.

He put a lid on his wandering mind and shoveled in the remainder of his breakfast. Daniel was coming along fine, so there was no need for Adam to stir things up. He'd let well enough alone.

He had things to get done today and it was best he get started.

Things really get hopping in the next chapter. I hope you are all sticking with it and still enjoying it. Please review! I really appreciate it.