"I heard you singing in Mac's class the other day." he said, sliding himself onto the chair across from me. "You have a nice voice. It has timbre."
"Timbre?"
"Yeah. When you want to, you can bellow it aut. Your voice has a thickness, a resonance. It's deep and rich." he continued like a professional music critic. "I like the way you hit the law notes and then lift the melody when you have to and get into the high ones. You've got the range someone needs to make it out there," he added.
I simply stared at him. He raised his eyebrows at my silence and at the way I glared. Then he tucked in the corners of his mouth and began to rise.
"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to poke my nose in your life."
"No!" I cried when he turned to walk off.
"No?"
"I mean, you're not poking your nose into my life. I mean, you are, but that's okay. I appreciate it. Thank you. Poke all you want."
His annoyed expression flew off and a smile of amusement settled in to replace it. He glanced back at my girlfriends, who were all looking our way with interest, and then he slipped back into the chair across from me.
"So, what's up? Why are you ostracized from the henhouse today?"
"I'm not ostracized. I'm just... just not in the mood for their silly talk."
"Who ever is?" he said. "What happened to put you out of the mood-- or is that me sticking too much nose into your life?"
"It's complicated," I said. "What isn't?" he retorted.
I glanced up at him. When he spoke, he had an accent that suggested his Haitian mother's influence. There was a unique sort of cadence and melody. He had an intelligence in his eyes, a look that reflected something more mature than most of the boys I knew, and all that was reflected in the confident way he held himself. walked, and talked to people.
"My mother gave birth yesterday." I said. "I have a new brother. His name is Claude. He's named after my mother's father."
"Any other brothers or sisters?"
"I have twin half brothers, my father's sans, but they would deny they're related to me in any way if you asked them."
He sat back. "Is your mother your real mother?"
"Yes. I know what you're thinking, and that's part of what makes everything so complicated."
"What am I thinking?"
"Why did my mother wait so long to have another child?"
"Did your mother just get remarried or something?"
"No. She's been remarried about sixteen years."
"Okay, I'll bite, Why did she wait so long?"
She didn't want to interrupt her career. I guess." And now she does?"
"I don't know." I said with more annoyance than I had intended, but I did hate answering the questions. "Like I said, it's complicated."
"So, make it simple." he said, standing again.
"How?"
"Do what I did." he replied, picking up his books,
"Start thinking more about yourself. Stop worrying about everyone else, and especially," he added, glancing at the girls again. "what they think."
He walked away. My eyes followed him until he was gone, and then I looked at my girlfriends. They were all chattering at once.
It made me laugh.
They did look like hens in a henhouse.
I saw Heyden a few more times in the afternoon between classes. He smiled, but he didn't stop to talk to me. I couldn't help being disappointed, and that just added weight to the burden of heavy emotions I was lugging about all day. When the school day ended. I was looking forward to going to see my uncle Linden. His home, his world never seemed more appropriate. I felt like moving in with him.
Neither Mommy nor Miguel really knew how often I visited my uncle Linden. Whenever I was able to get Mommy's car, it was the first place I thought I would visit. It was an easy ride, only a mile and a half off 1-95. Nothing about the house Uncle Linden was in suggested it was a supervised residency. It was a big, front-gabled house with a two-tiered porch. The flat jigsaw-cut upper balustrade and the gable trim were all in a fresh-looking linen white. The rest of the building, except for the shutters, was in a dark chocolate wood cladding.
Stuart and Elizabeth Robinson, who owned and operated the residency, were a very pleasant couple in their fifties. There were only four clients, as they were known, presently living in the house. They had supervised as many as six since I had been visiting Uncle Linden, but two were now gone, one to live with her family, and the other, an elderly man, had become very ill and passed away in the hospital.
Uncle Linden was barely two years older than Mommy, but he looked more like twenty. years older. I once asked Mommy about that, and she said it was probably a result of years of medication and depression.
"The mind has more influence on the body than most people think. Hannah." she told me. "Stress, emotional turmoil, worry, and depression all take a great toll."
To be sure. Uncle Linden was still a rather good-looking man. Although he had some premature graying in his temples, his hair was thick and an interesting shade of blond, more like a light olivebrown. He had dark brown eyes that he directed with such apparent intensity at whoever spoke to him or he spoke to that the person always thought Uncle Linden was concentrating hard on what he or she was saying. Actually, he often turned his brain inside out but left his eyes fixed like that, just the way someone might direct a flashlight on something and walk off. It took me a while to realize it when I was younger, but he could and often did drift away on the shoulders of some thought or some memory. It was my way of knowing my visit had came to an end. My kiss goodbye on his cheek would flutter his eyelids and bring the trace of a smile to his lips, but not much more.
Lately, though, I found him doing this less and less, especially with me, and either Stuart or Elizabeth had told me on more than one occasion how much my uncle looked forward to my visits.
"When he's not absorbed by his painting, he often sits on the porch and watches the highway. hoping. I'm sure, to see you drive up. Hannah." Stuart told me. Then he added in practically a whisper. "He has this fear in his face that he missed you or that somehow you were there and he hadn't paid enough attention to you. I know. He's said as much," Stuart said. He patted my hand and added. "He needs reassurance, lots of reassurance. I'm not a psychiatrist and I don't have a degree, but experience has taught me that people who are in his state of mind are constantly afraid of abandonment."
"I'll never abandon him." I said, sounding furious at the very suggestion. "If anything, as soon as I am able to. I'll take him out of here to live with me."
"That's very nice," Stuart said. "He's lucky to have a loving niece like you."
I knew that smile was a smile meant to humor a young girl who fantasized, but he didn't know me. He didn't know how determined I could be and how loyal I was, especially now. Uncle Linden was all the family I had, real family, other than Mommy. Daddy was in a class by himself along with his children. I stopped trying to figure out where I would fit in his view of things.
As lean as he was in the pictures we had of him when he was much younger, Uncle Linden still ware his hair long and dressed casually, favoring a windbreaker I had bought him for his birthday two years ago. Most of the time he wore jeans and a pair of sandals. One of the things I did do with him occasionally was go for a walk along the street, passing the gates of home developments with their security guards peering out of glass booths at us with what looked like paranoid eyes, expecting us to rush the entrance way and crash into their precious housing development. People knew that the residency was just down the street, and that drew up terrifying scenarios and nightmares for them. I was sure. The Robinsons told me that there had been a number of challenges to their existence over the years, attempts to use zoning ordinances to stop them from housing what was politely referred to as the mentally disabled. It was another in a growing list of reasons why I wanted us to bring Uncle Linden home, He and the other residents had problems, but that didn't mean they couldn't sense being persona n
on grata.
When I drove up to the home this time. I was pleased to see Uncle Linden sitting on the front porch. He recognized Mommy's vehicle and stopped rocking. As soon as I stepped out of the car, he rose and came to the railing to call out, only he called out. "Willow." instead of Hannah.
"It's me. Uncle Linden," I replied.
He stood there strangely gazing past me as if he was really a blind man tying to hear or somehow sense what he was supposed to see.
"It's Hannah." I said, hurrying to the steps.
"Oh. Hannah. Hannah," he said. nodding. He smiled and I rushed up to embrace him.
"How are you today?"
"Good," he said, nodding and looking thoughtful about it. "Good." he concluded. "Where's your mother?"
"She's still in the hospital. She might be coming home tomorrow morning. It all depends on Claude."
"Hospital?" He sat in the rocker, his face turning ashen with concern. "-What's wrong with her?"
It simply hadn't occurred to me that neither Mother nor Miguel had called the residency to tell Uncle Linden about little Claude's birth. I knew from previous visits and one visit, nearly seven months ago with Mommy, that Uncle Linden knew she was pregnant. She didn't spend very much time talking about it, and I remember he seemed unimpressed, even though she had gone so long without becoming pregnant.
Maybe they were planning on telling him today. They didn't know I was coming to see him. but Mommy hadn't told me to wait for her to tell him or anything like that. However, she always made it seem like I should tiptoe around Uncle Linden and never volunteer any more information about our family life than he actually asked about.
"I know it's hard, maybe even impossible for you to realize how ill he was and still is," she instructed. "so please especially try to avoid talking about the past. If he brings anything up from our past, just say you don't know anything and you're not comfortable talking about it. He'll understand and stop.
"I'm not saying you can make him sicker or anything like that. Hannah," she added when she saw the expression on my face. "I just don't want you to feel any sort of pressure."
"I never do," I said.
"No. I'm sure you don't. and I am happy about that. I do know he enjoys seeing you very much, so spend your time talking about yourself, your school, your music lessons, things like that.
He has no other way of learning about that sort of thing, you know, Okay? You understand?" she asked. and I nodded even though I didn't understand. Why was our family past filled with so many minefields? I knew so little detail about everything anyway. What was she afraid I would say? It did make me nervous.
And so whenever Uncle Linden did begin to drift off, to talk about life before me. I interrupted and mentioned something that had just happened. Sometimes he would bite and ask me about it, and sometimes he would simply clam up and take on that far-off look, and I knew he was hearing another voice, seeing another face. That was my clue to end my visit.
In the beginning when I started to visit Uncle Linden by myself. Mommy questioned me in detail about each occasion, wanting to know what was said, what sort of things Uncle Linden wanted to talk about, and how he reacted to the things I told him. I assumed she had a purely professional interest in it, but the time before last, when Uncle Linden mentioned his desire to do a painting of me, she became very agitated and concerned, so much so. that I was frightened,
"No!" she cried almost before I was able to get the news through my lips. "Absolutely out of the question. Don't you even think of it."
But why not? What harm could that do to him?" I asked. disappointed. I was actually looking forward to posing and having the picture. I couldn't help but be curious as to what he would see in me and how he would portray me. He had done one other portrait while he was at the residency, as far as I knew, and that was of another resident, a woman who was at least twenty years older than he was, and yet she looked twenty years younger. and I thought there were resemblances to Mommy.
"He's always talking about how much you and I look alike," I told Mommy. "I guess he just wants to paint that."
"I forbid you to do it. Hannah. If you don't listen to me. I'll have to tell the Robinsons not to permit you to visit Uncle Linden without my being present, too." she threatened.
I felt hot tears come up under my eyelids, "I don't see what's so terrible," I muttered.
"It's complicated psychological business." she explained. "His doing a portrait of you or me or anyone so close to him is a catalyst bringing on deeper emotional issues. You won't understand if I go into great detail. You will have to trust my judgment. Hannah. I don't mean to say or do anything that is painful or unpleasant. You have to believe me that what I am telling you is best for Uncle Linden. okay? Will you promise? Will you?"
"Okay," I replied in a small voice of
disappointment. "I promise."
I didn't bring it up again, but it left me feeling so tentative and uncertain whenever I visited him now. I hated lying to him and when he asked me again to pose for him. I had to tell him I couldn't spend that much time there. I had this or that to do for school or something at home. I could see he was so
disappointed it made him sulk. and I hated myself for doing that to him, but what else could I do?
"You remember that Mommy was pregnant, Uncle Linden." I told him. "She gave birth to a boy and she named him after her father. Claude. He was born under-weight, actually premature, and so they are keeping him under observation for a week, but the doctors believe he will be fine. I'm sorry no one has called to tell you everything, but I'm sure Mommy and Miguel just didn't want you to worry. They have been very occupied. too."
He looked at me and nodded,
"I told her what to do," he said. "I told her what to take and what to eat and I told her not to depend so much on doctors. You can become just another number, a statistic. I explained all that to her. I gave her things to read. too."
Read? What things did he give her to read? I never saw anything. And where would he get such material?
"But she didn't listen, did she?" he continued, more vehemently.
"Now, as I feared, there is a problem. Thatcher." he said, practically spitting out my father's name. "Thatcher Eaton."
"What does he have to do with it. Uncle Linden?"
He looked at me and twisted the corner of his mouth up into his cheek for a moment and then shook his head,
"Nothing," he said. "He has absolutely nothing to do with it."
He sat back in the rocker and gazed up at the clouds that spiraled in the wind toward the horizon. The breeze had picked up, and the American flag the Robinsons had on their front lawn snapped briskly, sounding like the striking of a wooden match. The sound seemed mesmerizing for Uncle Linden.
"I'm working on a new song for the next school variety show, Uncle Linden." I said, deciding to quickly change the topic. I could see I was already losing him. and I had just arrived. I had never seen him this bad. It frightened me and turned my heart into a tin drum. It put some panic in my voice. "You told me once that it was your mother's favorite, and I'm singing it in French. La Vie en Rose. You'll come to the show, won't you? You said you would."
He rocked slowly, nodding at his own thoughts now, his lips firmly pressing against each other, his eyelids blinking rapidly. He was no longer hearing me
"Uncle Linden?"
The front screen door opened. and Elizabeth Robinson stepped out, smiling as soon as she saw me.
"Hannah, how nice to see you. I was just coming out to see how Linden was doing. How are you? How's your mother?"
She gave birth two days ago, nearly a month too early."
"Oh, is she all right?"
"Yes."
"And the baby?"
"Yes, although he's small."
"Well. I'm sure everything will be fine. As I recall, you all already knew it was to be a boy, right?"
"Yes. They named him Claude, after her father."
I spoke quickly, so quickly
someone would think the words and the facts were fermenting poison in my brain.
"Good. Well, please, give your mother our congratulations. And your stepfather. too. Did you hear all about that. Linden?" she said, turning to him. "You're an uncle again. You have a little nephew."
He continued to rock and stare.
"Oh." Elizabeth said, realizing he was in one of his deep trances. "How long have you been here, honey?" she asked me.
"I just got here. I just told him about Mommy and little Claude."
"Urn," she said. She stared at him a moment. "Well, don't let this upset you. He's doing real well, you know. He's been working regularly and eating well. too."
She put her hand on his shoulder. "Linden, aren't you happy to hear the good news? You have a new little nephew," she repeated, hoping to get a response and bring him back from whatever thought or memory had seized his brain.
He continued to stare blankly,
"He gets quiet like this sometimes. It's not usually good to force him to listen. He'll come around when he's ready. I'm sure you'll have a better visit next time." she told me and turned back to him. "Hannah's leaving now. Linden.'
"I wasn't going to leave." I said.
She smiled and squinted. "I'll get him to go in and rest a while before dinner. That always works best." she said. "Linden, would you like to come inside and rest up far a while?" He lowered his head slowly and then nodded.
"Yes. I'm tired." he said. "I'm very tired."
"Sure you are," Elizabeth told him. He was working all morning on a new painting. He was at it intensely. Weren't you. Linden?"
"Yes," he said.
With her urging, he stood.
"Tell Hannah you'll see her another time. Linden," Elizabeth suggested.
He looked at me as if he had completely forgotten I was there. It put a cold chill in my heart.
"Tell Willow to come with you next time." he said. "I haven't seen her for a long time. We have things to talk about. She's not taking proper care of herself for a pregnant woman," he said and turned with Elizabeth toward the door.
She looked back at me and mouthed. "Don't worry. He'll be fine."