“Excuse me,” Leda said, but she was no sooner off the couch than a leathery wisp of a man wheeled himself into the room. This had to be Horace DeMont. He was closely followed by his great-granddaughter, who had her arms folded and a mulish look on her face.
You could have put three of him into that chair, and still had elbow room. He was wearing a bathrobe and pajamas, his head looked too big for his neck, and most of his hair had abandoned his mottled pate. You might not have thought he had any fire left in him until you looked at his face. There was so much anger burning there, it would probably keep Horace DeMont around long enough to get another look at Halley’s Comet.
“My father,” Leda said, having recovered her poise. She moved toward the back of the wheelchair.
“Who’s this?” he barked. There was nothing wrong with his ability to speak, but a minute earlier I had already heard more than enough to know that.
“None of your business,” she said, giving me a warning glance as she grabbed the handles of the wheelchair. “Why are you out here, Daddy?”
“I want apple juice, and that damned girl won’t get me any,” he said, taking his hands off the wheels, content to be pushed now that he had the attention of his daughter.
“We’re out of apple juice,” she said, guiding the chair back to the hallway.
Another string of expletives preceded them as they went down the hall, but they lacked the passion of the earlier performance.
“Poor Grandmother,” Laurie said, pushing a stray hair out of her eyes. “She has to put up with that all the time.”
“She must be very grateful for your help.”
She shrugged. “Somebody has to help her. Uncle Bobby’s too spaced out, fooling around with his inventions.”
“He’s an inventor?”
“Not really. To be an inventor, you have to make things that work, don’t you?”
I laughed. “I don’t know. I guess lots of inventors fail more often than they succeed while they’re working on their ideas.”
“Yes,” she said, “but they usually learn something from their mistakes, right?”
I left that one alone. “Do you visit him while you’re here?”
“Well, since his car problems, Grandmother has been making things for him to eat, and I bring them over to him. I hate it. He always wants to show me some new thingamajig that doesn’t work, or to be like his guinea pig or something. Nothing that would hurt me or anything, but it’s so weird. And then he says, ”No, wait! Wait! Just let me adjust this…‘ and that never works, either, so finally I just have to say, “Bye, Uncle Bobby, have a nice time!”“
“It sounds like your Grandmother has her hands full. Like I said, she must appreciate your help.”
She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about maybe becoming one of those people who take care of old people, you know, maybe have a business doing that. It’s going to be a big business, you know. Because of all the people who are, you know, your age. The Baby Boomers. You’re all getting older.”
I laughed. “Not all of us, but for now, at least, I’d rather be in the group that is.”
She smiled. “Yeah.”
Within a few minutes, Leda came back out, looking weary. “Your great-grandfather is a mean old son of a bitch, Laurie.”
“No kidding,” Laurie said, apparently used to such proclamations.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Kelly, but I have a brother to feed and a nasty old man to calm down. I would talk to you more, but Laurie and I will be busy for a while now.”
“Please don’t apologize,” I said. “You’ve been very helpful. And I’ll tell my cousin what you said.”
“And avoid Mr. Richmond,” she added.
“Yes, I will. I wondered-since I’m on my way out anyway, would you like me to take your brother’s meal to him?”
Laurie and Leda exchanged a look that clearly said they had found a pigeon ripe for the plucking, and just weren’t sure if they had the heart to grab my feathers. “Oh, I couldn’t-” Leda began.
“Nonsense. Believe me, this is the least I can do for you after taking up your time today.”
“I’ll get it ready for you,” Laurie said, hurrying off to the kitchen before her grandmother could refuse a second time.
Leda smiled after her.
“You must be very proud of her,” I said.
“I am. She’s a good-hearted girl.” She looked up at me. “And your uncle is a good-hearted man. He deserves your forgiveness.”
“Yes,” I said, “I’m beginning to see that perhaps he does.”
“You know,” she said, “I didn’t get a chance to finish what I was saying before my father interrupted us. My dad provided a perfect example of what I was going to tell you, though.”
“I hope you weren’t about to tell me that,” I said, and she laughed.
“No, no. I meant, his situation is a good example. Until a few years ago, my father was strong and active. People always guessed him to be twenty years younger than he was. Then about five years ago, his health began to fail-and to fail quickly. It was as if those years caught up to him all at once. He hates being sick. He hates being dependent on me. He thinks of me as his jailer, not his helper. But I hate it, too. And I’m as much his prisoner as he is mine.”
Her face was set in angry lines as she said this. She looked away from me, and stared out the windows, toward her brother’s house. Gradually, her face softened, and her voice was quiet when she spoke again. “You might say, ”Just put him in a home, then.“ Maybe someday it will come to that. But right now, while I can still care for him, I can’t think of setting him aside, or leaving him to strangers-well,” she added with a smile, “not on most days.”
“No one could blame you.”
“And I can’t blame Arthur. Until you’ve been there-it’s hard to understand. But I think Gwen’s dependence on Arthur became like that. I think it made him feel confined. His business gave him his first taste of freedom. And Gwen learned to be a little more self-reliant, although if he left her alone too long, Bobby or Daddy came by looking for a handout.” She shook her head. “His so-called secret family-your aunt and your cousin-they gave him his real life, a more balanced life. I was so sorry that they didn’t stay together after Gwen was killed, although I can see why it would have been almost impossible. I’m sure your aunt felt very hurt and betrayed.”
“She did, but-things change,” I said faltering for a way to say more without admitting how many lies of one kind or another I had racked up in the last hour. “Leda, there’s so much I’d like to tell you, but I think I’ll wait until I can bring my cousin with me-if that would be all right with you? Perhaps we can come at a time when your father is sleeping or won’t be disturbed by us?”
She smiled. “That would be wonderful. I’ve never had a chance to meet Arthur’s son.”
Laurie arrived with a grocery sack but hesitated before handing it to me. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” I took it from her, said good-bye, and made my way across the street. About halfway across I had a sensation of being watched, and looked over my shoulder. I couldn’t see anyone looking out the tinted-glass windows, but I could have sworn that somewhere on the other side of that glass, Horace DeMont was boring holes in my back with his angry stare.
“Come in!” a voice called from a speaker near the front door of Robert DeMont’s home. I hesitated only for a moment before trying the door; it was unlocked. But as I opened it, I couldn’t see anyone waiting for me in the room beyond. That didn’t mean he wasn’t there-the room was not one that could be taken in at a glance. I had been able to guess the decor of Leda’s home, but even looking at the interior of Robert’s place, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. Except for the spaces taken up by windows, the walls were lined with bookcases. Not all of these bookcases held books; many of the shelves were crowded with gadgets and tools. Apparently the books that had once occupied the shelves were stacked on the floor-not much of the floor was visible. A maze of worktables was covered with drawings, metal parts, gears, bottles of adhesives, soldering irons, magnifiers, cardboard boxes, clamps, more tools and a host of unidentifiable objects. The tables each had their own chairs; most were metal folding chairs, a few looked like used office chairs.