“Yeah! And no medication!” Uncle Jake added. “Are you trying to shove me into the grave, Aubrey?” He palpated his hand against his chest, as though suffering from the vapors.
“Uncle Jake's heart condition,” Aubrey answered icily, “is that he's forgotten what it is to have a heart!”
“Thffffffffffffft,” Uncle Jake replied, with his lips and tongue and dentures.
“Uncle Jake, you always hurt those who try to help you.” Aubrey crossed his arms, squeezing Sweetie protectively. The little dog's eyes rolled.
“Aubrey, you're a pain. Let me sit here and enjoy the morning. I probably got fewer than a thousand of 'em left to savor. You ain't helping my mood, 'cause I didn't sleep well.”
“Sleeplessness is common in a loss like this,” Aubrey said. “Especially when one is in denial of grief. Why, if you'd just let yourself cry, Uncle Jake, you'd dream with the angels.”
“Somebody gonna be acquiring angel wings real soon,” Uncle Jake replied.
“Listen, y'all!” I demanded. They glanced at me with real surprise. “Aubrey, why don't you go get Sweetie some breakfast? I'm sure he's feeling lonely for Lolly and I know he'd respond to you paying him lots of attention.”
Aubrey mulled over this new opportunity for therapy, murmured a polite “What a wonderful suggestion, Cousin Jordan,” and retreated from the porch, the unfortunate Sweetie in tow.
“Well, ain't you a smart one,” Uncle Jake chortled. “Better that damn dog than me have to suffer Aubrey's foolishness.” He leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Oh, that plumb wore me out. I'm feeling a tad peaked. Do you think you could go fetch me some orange juice, nephew?” His voice had taken on a whine I freely admit to not caring for. But I wasn't about to deny an old man his morning pick-me-up. Even if I suspected his use of an endearment toward me was just to propel me faster toward the kitchen.
“Sure, Uncle Jake. I'll be right back.” I ducked back into the house, found Wendy hadn't started on the juice yet, fixed it myself with fresh oranges, and brought a glass back to Uncle Jake. He snatched it from me as soon as I handed it to him.
“Took you long enough,” he snapped, downing half the glass in a long swallow.
“Well, those oranges don't squeeze themselves,” I responded, a bit peeved. I don't mind doing jobs for folks, but I at least like to be appreciated. I reminded myself that Aunt Lolly had nursed Jake and that he needed watching over.
Uncle Jake watched me over the pulp-smeared rim of his glass. His eyes were a dark hazel, framed with sagging flesh. His mouth worked as he wiped the bits of orange from his teeth with his tongue. His face was gaunt and narrow; I thought he must have been loose-limbed and athletic in his youth. “You ever in the military, boy?”
“No, sir.”
“I'm a World War One vet. Whaddaya think of that, huh?”
“It's very impressive.”
“You know what it makes me, boy? Hard to kill.”
I blinked and leaned against the railing. “Excuse me?”
“I'm a tough old fart. Don't forget it.”
“I certainly won't. Is there a reason why you're assuring me of your indestructibility?”
“God. Now you sound like that clown Aubrey.”
“Sorry. I'm just trying to follow the path of your conversation.”
He snorted. “Just setting the record straight. Now that Lolly's gone, and Mutt'll be gone soon, I ain't gonna go into no dadburn nursing home. I got years ahead of me still. And I done made enough sacrifices for this family.” He glanced off toward the horizon, as though to reassure himself that Death wasn't charging forward to claim him early, having already scooped up Lolly. I shivered and he saw it, his eyes appraising me with cold calculation.
“You lived here with Lolly, is that correct?” I asked.
“Yep. For the past four years. Before that, we lived over in Corpus Christi.”
“I'm sure Mutt will want you to stay here,” I said reassuringly.
I could understand his fear. I have my own horror of nursing homes, from the time when my grandfather was forced into one. Our visits to him were painfully brief; a stench of guilt pervaded our family every time we stood and tried to make small talk in his dormitory-like room. We felt suffocated there; but what we felt could have only been a fraction of his suffering. He had loved and given and provided to us for his entire life, and the last years of it were spent rooming with a toothless crazy man from La Grange. My grandfather ate food cooked by other people; watched TV with folks he'd never seen before; spent his nights staring at the ceilings, lonesome for his own kin. Hi, you're sick and old and we don't need you anymore, so in you go to the human junkyard, Papaw. I hate those goddamn places.
“Hell. Him gone, Lolly gone, Sass and Bob Don'I stick me in a nursing home faster than you can spit.”
“There's plenty of money, Uncle Jake. Maybe they could provide you with a live-in nurse.” And why haven't they before? Why did that burden fall on Lolly when Mutt could easily hire a nurse for you? I kept my musings to myself.
“They ain't gonna do me no favors.” Uncle Jake stared out at the whitecaps dancing across Matagorda Bay. “Always thought I'd be the first to go. 'Less Lolly went and killed herself.”
“You think Lolly committed suicide?”
He shrugged. “Can't say that to Mutt-who wants to figure that their baby sister killed herself? But she was slowly going crazy, getting as nutty as a fruitcake.”
“I don't understand.”
He squinted at me in the morning brightness. “Hell, boy, were you deaf last night? Didn't you hear her lay into most of the family?”
“I thought-”
“What? That she was just meaner than eight acres of snakes?” He shook his head in silence. “Lolly never cottoned much to Deb or Gretchen, that's true. But as of late, she'd started turning on the whole family. Talking crazy, talking wild. Never made no sense. She used to kid about that dog being Charles come back to her, but I think she'd truly begun believing it.” He stared off at a bird swooping low over the bay. “That's a brown pelican-watch him dive!” The pelican suddenly swooped into the water, swallowed its catch, and flapped back into flight. Jake watched the bird with pleasure. “They nearly died off in the Sixties round 'bout here. But they're survivors, just like old me.”
I steered the conversation back toward Lolly's eccentricities. “You said she was getting less stable. Were you afraid she might take her own life?”
He watched the brown pelican soar toward the beach. “Well, Lord no, not really, else I would've said something to Mutt.” But he didn't look at me while he made this statement.
“I suppose you wouldn't have any reason to keep quiet if you were afraid for her,” I said softly.
He harrumphed. “Listen, sonny. Lolly was a right pain, but she took care of me pretty good, and she was family. I didn't want to see nothin' bad happen to her.” He coughed. “But now that she's gone, I just gotta make sure that I ain't stuck in no home. People die in those places, and wouldn't surprise me none if I got another good ten or eleven years to live. Long as Mutt takes the time and sets aside the money to make sure I'm cared for, and that none of them dadburn relations of mine can touch that money or dump me someplace I don't want to be, I'll be as fine as frog hair.” He smiled at me and there was little joy in his grin. “You're a nice boy, ain't you? Put in a good word for me with Bob Don and maybe Sass.”
“Of course.” I found myself suddenly wanting to be free from Uncle Jake's company. His tone of voice lingered between cajoling and threatening. I'm not cowed easily, but a malevolent air hung about the old man-in the devious sparkle of his eyes, the creaky grin, the discolored teeth. God, what kind of care did Lolly give him-his dentures really needed a good scrubbing. I stared back into his murky eyes and wondered if I'd caught a glimmer of thought: Get the mail I sent you, boy? I blinked. My imagination was running rampant.