“Would you like to go out? It’s beautiful.”
I wasn’t sure Uncle Harry even knew what out was these days.
“I’ll help you up,” Mom said, and took his arm.
“No!” Uncle Harry said. Not ng, not yig, not ug, no. As clear as a bell. His eyes had gotten big and were starting to water. Then, also as clear as a bell, “Who’s that?”
“It’s Jamie. You know Jamie, Harry.”
Only he didn’t know me, not anymore, and it wasn’t me he was looking at. He was looking over my shoulder. I didn’t need to turn around to know what I was going to see there, but I did, anyway.
“What he’s got is hereditary,” Therriault said, “and it runs in the male line. You’ll be like him, Champ. You’ll be like him before you know it.”
“Jamie?” Mom asked. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I said, looking at Therriault. “I’m just fine.”
But I wasn’t, and Therriault’s grin said he knew it, too.
“Go away!” Uncle Harry said. “Go away, go away, go away!”
So we did.
All three of us.
35
I had just about decided to tell my mother everything—I needed to let it out, even if it scared her and made her unhappy—when fate, as the saying is, took a hand. This was in July of 2013, about three weeks after our trip to see Uncle Harry.
My mother got a call early one morning, while she was getting ready to go to the office. I was sitting at the kitchen table, scarfing up Cheerios with one eye open. She came out of her bedroom, zipping her skirt. “Marty Burkett had a little accident last night. Tripped over something—going to the toilet, I imagine—and strained his hip. He says he’s fine, and maybe he is, but maybe he’s just trying to be macho.”
“Yeah,” I said, mostly because it’s always safer to agree with my mom when she’s rushing around and trying to do like three different things at once. Privately I was thinking that Mr. Burkett was a little old to be a macho man, although it was amusing to think of him starring in a movie like Terminator: The Retirement Years. Waving his cane and proclaiming “I’ll be back.” I picked up my bowl and started to slurp the milk.
“Jamie, how many times have I told you not to do that?”
I couldn’t remember if she ever had, because quite a few parental edicts, especially those concerning table manners, had a tendency to slide by me. “How else am I supposed to get it all?”
She sighed. “Never mind. I made a casserole for our supper, but we could have burgers. If, that is, you could interrupt your busy schedule of watching TV and playing games on your phone long enough to take it to Marty. I can’t, full schedule. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to do that? And then call and tell me how he’s doing?”
At first I didn’t answer. I felt like I’d just been hit on the head with a hammer. Some ideas are like that. Also, I felt like a total dumbo. Why had I never thought of Mr. Burkett before?
“Jamie? Earth to Jamie.”
“Sure,” I said. “Happy to do it.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Are you sick? Do you have a fever?”
“Ha-ha,” I said. “Funny as a rubber crutch.”
She grabbed her purse. “I’ll give you cab fare—”
“Nah, just put the casserole thing in a carry-bag. I’ll walk.”
“Really?” she said again, looking surprised. “All the way to Park?”
“Sure. I can use the exercise.” Not strictly true. What I needed was time to be sure my idea was a good idea, and how to tell my story if it was.
36
At this point I’m going to start calling Mr. Burkett Professor Burkett, because he taught me that day. He taught me a lot. But before the teaching, he listened. I’ve already said I knew I had to talk to somebody, but I didn’t know what a relief it would be to unburden myself until I actually did it.
He came to the door hobbling on not just one cane, which I’d seen him use before, but two. His face lit up when he saw me, so I guess he was glad to get company. Kids are pretty self-involved (as I’m sure you know if you’ve ever been one yourself, ha-ha), and I only realized later that he must have been a lonely, lonely man in the years after Mona died. He had that daughter on the west coast, but if she came to visit, I never saw her; see statement above about kids and self-involvement.
“Jamie! You come bearing gifts!”
“Just a casserole,” I said. “I think it’s a Swedish pie.”
“You may mean shepherd’s pie. I’m sure it’s delicious. Would you be kind enough to put it in the icebox for me? I’ve got these…” He lifted the canes off the floor and for one scary moment I thought he was going to face-plant right in front of me, but he got them braced again in time.
“Sure,” I said, and went into the kitchen. I got a kick out of how he called the fridge the icebox and cars autos. He was totally old school. Oh, and he also called the telephone the telefungus. I liked that one so much I started using it myself. Still do.
Getting Mom’s casserole into the icebox was no problem, because he had almost nothing in there. He stumped in after me and asked how I was doing. I shut the icebox door, turned to him, and said, “Not so well.”
He raised his shaggy eyebrows. “No? What’s the problem?”
“It’s a pretty long story,” I said, “and you’ll probably think I’m crazy, but I have to tell somebody, and I guess you’re elected.”
“Is it about Mona’s rings?”
My mouth dropped open.
Professor Burkett smiled. “I never quite believed that your mother just happened to find them in the closet. Too fortuitous. Far too fortuitous. It crossed my mind to think she put them there herself, but every human action is predicated on motive and opportunity, and your mother had neither. Also, I was too upset to really think about it that afternoon.”
“Because you’d just lost your wife.”
“Indeed.” He raised one cane enough to touch the heel of his palm to his chest, where his heart was. That made me feel bad for him. “So what happened, Jamie? I suppose it’s all water under the bridge at this point, but as a lifetime reader of detective stories, I like to know the answers to such questions.”
“Your wife told me,” I said.
He stared at me across the kitchen.
“I see the dead,” I said.
He didn’t reply for so long I got scared. Then he said, “I think I need something with caffeine. I think we both do. Then you can tell me everything that’s on your mind. I long to hear it.”
37
Professor Burkett was so old school that he didn’t have tea bags, just loose tea in a cannister. While I waited for his hot pot to boil, he showed me where to find what he called a “tea ball” and instructed me on how much of the loose tea to put in. Brewing tea was an interesting process. I will always prefer coffee, but sometimes a pot of tea is just the thing. Making it feels formal, somehow.
Professor Burkett told me the tea had to steep for five minutes in freshly boiled water—no more and no less. He set the timer, showed me where the cups were, and then stumped into the living room. I heard his sigh of relief when he sat down in his favorite chair. Also a fart. Not a trumpet blast, more of an oboe.
I made two cups of tea and put them on a tray along with the sugar bowl and the Half and Half from the icebox (which neither of us used, probably a good thing since it was a month past its sell-by date). Professor Burkett took his black and smacked his lips over the first sip. “Kudos, Jamie. Perfect on your first try.”