“She wouldn’t have the burden of being my guardian nonstop.”
“What makes you think it’s a burden?” He commenced walking again.
“Because I’m always there. When people are cooped up together too long they get—”
This wasn’t going so well. What was it about Lachicotte that made me choke up when I was trying to say something important? “I mean, even back with Mom, we sometimes got on each other’s nerves. And Mom was out at work most of the time. But Aunt Charlotte’s always in the house with me. And now she’s going to be in the house more than ever.”
“So you’re saying if you weren’t there she’d have her solitude back. How else would it be an advantage to her, not having you around?”
“I don’t mean right now. I know I can be useful right now while she’s in her casts and has a hard time, well, you know, filling her days without being able to paint. But I think …” Here came the choking-up danger again. “I think if I went away to school for most of the year it would be better in the long run.”
“What do you mean by the long run?”
“Until I’m eighteen and don’t need to have a guardian anymore. When I’m eighteen she’ll be free of me. I mean, I know she gets a stipend for being my guardian and all, but I really think she’d prefer going back to her old lifestyle.”
“Has it occurred to you there are ways you might be her guardian?”
I said it hadn’t.
“Well, you might want to take a little time to consider it. However, let’s look at this proposition from another angle. What would be the advantages for you if you went away to boarding school?”
“The main advantage is I wouldn’t wear out my welcome with Aunt Charlotte. The disadvantage would be that at a boarding school they might be more curious about genealogy and that kind of thing. Whereas at the local school, they’d know who I was now. The thing is, I don’t know much about my father’s side. What I mean is, I don’t know anything, not even who he was. Mom was going to tell me when I was old enough to understand.”
We walked on in silence. Lachicotte appeared to have sunk into one of his pondering states and I had time to wonder whether my disclosure had been more than Lachicotte wanted to hear.
“You know, Marcus, I was delighted when your Aunt Charlotte discovered she could paint. It was just what was needed. Nothing better in the world could have showed up in her life at that time. And now I’ll tell you something else. The day you and I met, when I came to the house that morning (maw’nin)—it took me only a few hours in your company to feel the same delight again. Nothing better in the world could have showed up in her life. You were just what was needed.”
XIX.
Aunt Charlotte’s mood underwent a further change as she began her extended convalescence. Strangely enough, she had been more annoyed and despondent when she had believed she was facing only a matter of weeks with her arm in a soft cast and then a return to painting. Now she seemed to have entered a state of passive indifference, spending hours in a chair on the screened porch gazing out to sea, her right arm in a more serious cast resting on the chair arm, her left foot in its cast propped on a stool. I had felt more at home with her old combative self.
In this new phase she spent less time shut away in her studio/bedroom. For a while I was required to uncork fewer bottles of red wine. She was in pain after the surgery and condescended to take the Percocet the doctor had prescribed. That may have decreased her desire to drink, or maybe she was simply taking seriously the dire warnings on the bottle about mixing opioids with alcohol. She had expressed a horror of “turning into a dope fiend” and made me keep the bottle hidden in my room and dole out the pills as needed.
Lachicotte’s suggestion that I was also her guardian had sunk in, and I swung between pride in this responsibility and resentment at some of the restraints it imposed.
The worst restraint was the sacrifice of my late afternoon bike ride to the north end of the island. Aunt Charlotte seemed to appreciate my company particularly in the late afternoon. Of course, I continued to go faithfully to Grief Cottage every morning, via the road or the beach, depending on the tides, while she was still asleep, but those morning visits had become sterile. There was no longer the sense that he was somewhere just behind me. He might be inside the cottage but he was no longer available to me, even as an unseen listener. I felt I was being punished for dividing my attentions. Now whenever I spoke aloud with my back to the door, I was more than ever the crazy boy talking to himself on the top step of a ruined cottage.
After I got my own card, I had biked over to the library a few times. In my saddlebags I brought home promising books that either fulfilled my hopes or didn’t. I tried The Count of Monte Cristo, which I had started back in Jewel, but then had to return to the school library because someone else was waiting. Now even opening the book made me sad and a little queasy and I returned it on my next trip. I took out Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and read it straight through. Bradbury always reminded me of Wheezer, who had introduced me to him. I had hopes for a horror writer’s thick omnibus of his “favorite scary stories,” but found I had read many of them already.
On one trip I hauled home three art books for Aunt Charlotte. I picked a heavy book of English landscape paintings, making sure Constable was included. Mrs. Daniels, the librarian, had recommended my other choice: a slip-cased two-volume collection of Paul Klee’s drawings and paintings. “Your aunt Charlotte might find him an inspiration while she’s recovering. He can be playful and quite philosophical. And it has his notes about what he’s doing. These volumes aren’t really supposed to go out of the library, but since it’s your aunt …” Aunt Charlotte was touched when I showed her the books. She made me lug them off to her studio. What she did with them after that, I didn’t ask. It would be like asking someone if they were enjoying your gift. When it was time to return the books, she remarked how thoughtful I always was; she said Klee could be a hoot and it was nice to see all her English friends together in one book.