“You explain it perfectly (puh-fectly) well. After all the human noise and conflicts have stopped, the absent person has more room in your heart to spread out and be herself. My mother’s been gone ten years and I know her much better now than when we saw each other every day.”
I felt it was probably time to say something about being grateful to Aunt Charlotte for taking me in. “But I like living here at the beach. Before I came here I had never even seen the ocean. And I love my bike. And Aunt Charlotte is very good to me. She doesn’t preach or pry or interfere. She lets me do pretty much as I like and goes her own way.”
“That she does. The first time I met your aunt was at the hardware store. I was putting back some items on the shelf that I had decided not to buy and she came up and asked could I help her. ‘I’ll try my best,’ I said. She said she was laying ceramic tiles in her bathroom and was tempted to buy the more expensive brand of sand grout, but was it worth it? What did it have that the others didn’t? I read the information on the can aloud to her. It was mildew and mold resistant, but for best results you needed to finish it off with a water resistant sealer. ‘Is the sealer really necessary,’ she asked, ‘or are you just trying to sell me the extra product?’ At that point the owner, who is a friend, came over and made some jokey remarks about my fancy foreign cars. Then he turned to her and asked if he could be of service, and she realized I was not a salesman.”
“What did she do then?”
“She looked mortified. Like she’d been forced into violating some taboo. She apologized to me very formally and went her way. But I was left with the sense that she held me responsible for letting her make the mistake.”
I had no trouble imagining my prickly aunt reacting like that. “Did she buy the grout?”
“I don’t remember. I felt like an oaf. Soon after, I learned she was new to the island and was renovating an old place known as the Rascal Shack. Young bucks had used it as their drinking club for as long as anyone could remember.”
“What was she like then?”
“Much like she is now. Straightforward, laconic, a loyal friend—once she decided you were worth it. Lean as a string bean and handsome in an imperious sort of way—she still is. Her hair was dark then and she may have worn a little lipstick in those days.”
“I’m not sure I know what laconic means.”
“Sparing of words. She wasn’t like any woman I’d ever known. To a Southern boy like me, her straightforwardness was exotic. No guile, no gush. The next time we met she was working as a receptionist for the local vet and I had brought in my dog to check out a limp she had developed. All the signs indicated bone cancer, and the options were heart-sickening. I came out of the examining room shattered. When I got to the desk to settle the bill, your aunt glanced down at what the vet had written while I was digging out my credit card and hoping I could make it out of there before I broke down. ‘Mr. Hayes,’ she said, ‘why don’t you and Dinah go on home?’ She did not look at me once. ‘We have your address, we’ll send the bill.’ Then she turned her back on me real fast and looked very busy with some filing.”
“What kind of dog was Dinah?”
“Oh, she was a wonderful mix. Shorthair, the color of butterscotch, long, long legs. The vet said he thought she was part golden retriever, part German shepherd, and possibly some greyhound. When she ran on the beach, she scarcely touched the ground. She used to ride everywhere with me, sitting up straight in the passenger seat. She rode like that on our final trip to the vet, although I could tell it hurt her to sit.”
“Was my aunt there?”
“There was someone else on the desk that day. But she came by my shop soon after. She said she was sorry about Dinah and I showed her some of the automobiles in their various stages of rebuilding. She said she wished she could take a class in auto mechanics, she was sick and tired of being clueless about what went on inside her car. Did I know of any class? I said I could teach her better than any class. She wanted to know how much I would charge, and I told her it would be my pleasure. And then she offered to work for me part-time as payment.”
“But what about the vet?”
“That was a part-time job, too, but it wasn’t long until she came to me full-time. For a while we went into the taxi business as partners. She ever tell you about that?”
“It was a success. She was able to paint full-time after she got her share of the proceeds.”
“Painting was the best thing that ever happened to her. You are the next best thing.”
“But I’m not really—” To distract from the break in my voice, I veered away from him and stamped and splashed in the shallow waves until I got control of myself. “I’m not doing such a good job taking care of her. Like you said, being her guardian. That’s why I called you, but then I couldn’t think of a suitable message just to leave on someone’s voice mail.”
“Well here I am. You don’t have to leave any message.”
“She spends all day shut up in her studio. She’s working on that secret project I told you about. She said it will either amount to something or she’s just deluding herself because she can’t do real work. I’m not allowed to go in there even to change the sheets, which I’ve been doing since the accident. The thing is, I’m still in charge of uncorking her wine and the number of bottles keeps increasing. I thought about saying something to her about cutting back, but I knew she wouldn’t appreciate it. I was wondering if you ever said anything like that to her and how it went over.”
“It didn’t, other than shrinking my welcome mat to the size of a lady’s handkerchief. Usually people with harmful habits don’t want to be told about it. They have to come around to it themselves.”
“But what if they don’t come around to it until it’s too late?”
“I’m working toward that, Marcus. I’m thinking this out as I go.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“The project, as far as you know, involves painting?”
“I saw some traces of paint under her fingernails when I was cutting them the other day. Not a lot. She has this separate laundry sink in her studio where she always washes up.”