Alone, a Big Brother Steps Into a Bigger Role

They left the hospital together Wednesday, a boy with Down syndrome who lost his arm in a car crash, and the teenage brother who has promised to take care of him from now on.

Juan Reyes, 18, had been at his brother’s hospital bedside for three months, ever since a September car accident took the life of their mother and so severely injured 10-year-old Elfego Reyes that his left arm had to be amputated.

The news that his brother could finally go home Wednesday overwhelmed Reyes, who said the uneasiness he felt about returning to their barren Placentia apartment was compounded by the pending holiday, which his mother used to celebrate with decorations and homemade tamales.

“Everybody keeps saying ‘Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas,’ ” Reyes said of the doctors and nurses who filed into Elfego’s room at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center on Wednesday to say goodbye. “How can people say that to us? I haven’t had time to even think about Christmas.”

He is also worried that Elfego might not fully understand that their mother is gone. She had dedicated her life to caring for him.

“It’s going to be so different,” Reyes said, tying his brother’s tennis shoes as they prepared to leave. “I don’t know how he’s going to react. I don’t know how I’m going to, either. . . . We really are alone now.”

Since the accident, Reyes has been thrust into an adult world, burying his mother, securing public assistance, paying household bills and supervising his brother’s care. A high school senior, Reyes put his education on hold to deal with the crisis.

He has shied away from much of the public attention he and Elfego have received. But not because he hasn’t been grateful.

“We don’t need more stuff, really,” Reyes said. “We just need to get started on our new life.”

Before he knew when Elfego’s homecoming would be, Reyes rearranged the furniture in their apartment and threw out the couches. Home has always been synonymous with their mother, and Reyes was concerned that familiar surroundings would cause his brother to start asking for her.

“She was very close to him,” Reyes said of Micaela Reyes, 51, a single woman who was taking Elfego to church Sept. 20 when the car they were riding in went out of control and hit the wall of the family’s apartment complex. “ . . . It’s going to be hard. She took care of everything.”

Now Reyes is in charge, toting a zippered daily planner everywhere he goes and keeping it stuffed with bills and insurance statements and scores of upcoming doctor’s appointments. He has a personal list that he also carries with him, one that not only reminds him of the endless tasks before him, but of the strides he’s already made.

“Things to do,” the first list reads. “Get Elfego back in school. Clean house. Buy groceries. Get a car. Find a job.”

Below that is another list, this time under the heading, “Things I have done.”

“Buried mom,” he wrote. “Paid rent three times. . . . Stayed with Elfego every night.”

After signing the release forms and reviewing Elfego’s home-care procedures with his nurse, Reyes collected the boy’s clothes and took one last look around the room they had shared for so long.

“You want to go home?” he asked Elfego, who bounced up and down in his wheelchair and blew kisses to the nurses.

“Go home, go home,” Elfego said. “Home and home.”

“Here we go then,” Reyes replied. “Just you and me.”