“What the hell kind of thing is that to ask, Sylvie?”
The Churchill speech should have inspired me to offer some eloquent response, but I felt stumped. Rose pressed the remote and the room went dark. Silent too, except for the ticking clock. I figured she’d given up waiting for an answer, because she told me she was too tired to go up to bed and that she’d just rest on the couch for a while. I picked up my things and walked to the stairs, glancing down at the mail and wondering if a letter from Howie might be in the stack. The moment I put my foot on the bottom step, I heard Rose’s voice behind me. She sounded softer, a little like our mother for a change, when she said, “I’m your sister. Isn’t that reason enough for you to love me?”
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I told her she was right. Then I kept going up to my room, where I took out that small violet book and sat on my bed. Inside, I made a new list of “Little Things,” a list that looked like this:
#1. My sister knows Dereck, and Dereck seems nice.
#2. My sister is giving me the chance to make money so I can buy Boshoff a present.
#3. My sister is my sister. She thinks that’s reason enough for me to love her. And I guess I do too.
Chapter 10
The Light
When we left the Lynches in the parking lot of the convention center, I figured it was the last we would see of them. Or, more likely, I didn’t think about it at all. I was too busy following my mother back to the greenroom and replaying the things I’d witnessed over and over in my mind: the way she knelt before those bushes, the way she hummed that pattering song, the way she grew silent before reaching her hand into the shadows.
Inside the building once more, my mother asked me to sit quietly with Jane Eyre while she returned to the auditorium to finish the last of the evening’s talk with my father. There must not have been much left of their presentation, or perhaps my uncle’s disruption and my mother’s disappearance from the stage had caused people to lose interest. Whatever the reason, a short while later I looked up to see them standing in the doorway. The same security guard who chased Howie out escorted us through a maze of hallways and through the rear exit to where our Datsun was parked. As we climbed inside, he stood watch, making sure none of my parents’ detractors appeared unexpectedly to confront us.
After my father started the engine, I apologized for failing to keep my promise. His dark eyes glanced at me in the rearview mirror. He told me that he was sure I’d done my best, so I should not feel bad. But he wanted to know how Rose went from sitting in the greenroom to joyriding around town with his brother. As we rolled along the Ocala roads, strewn with palm leaves and debris from the storm, I filled them in on everything that happened. Since I’d already disappointed them once that evening, I left out the detail about sneaking into the auditorium with my sister and instead said we’d wandered outside to check on the storm when we saw him there in his truck.
“Uncle Howie looks different,” I finished.
We were passing a commercial strip, and I watched my parents turn their heads in search of that old pickup with the squashed side.
“Don’t you think he looked different?” I asked, not letting it go.
“That’s Howie,” my father said. “A human slot machine. You never know what you’re going to get when you pull the lever.”
“Why do—” I started in on another question then thought better of it.
“Why do what?”
“I was going to ask why do you and Uncle Howie hate each other?”
My mother kept quiet, staring out the window still, though we were passing nothing but woods by then.
“Hate is a strong word, Sylvie. He’s my brother and my blood. I suppose some part of me loves the man, despite our differences. I let him know we were coming to Florida, because I thought we could have a nice visit for a change. But clearly, we’re better off keeping a distance between us. The stunt he pulled tonight proves once again how little respect he has for me and my work and my wife and my chil—”
“Sylvester,” my mother said. “You don’t need to go into all that with Sylvie.”
So rarely did she challenge him that my father fell quiet. Never once had I heard them argue, but things were tense enough inside our car that it made me wonder if it might happen. After a pause, though, he told her she was right, that there was little point in rehashing it all. “The last thing I’ll say on the topic, Sylvie, is that someday, when Rose gets her head straight, I hope the two of you can be close. Even though it’s not the case with your uncle and me, it can be a very special thing to have someone who’s a part of you in this world. Someone who knows how you think and feel.”