she died in another explosion, victim of a bomb planted by Brady Hartsfield and meant for Bill himself.
“It’s not Janey, Uncle Henry.” Still with that artificial brightness, the kind usually saved for cocktail parties. “It’s Holly.”
There’s another of those blank pauses as rusty relays go about business they used to do lickety-split. Then he nods. “Sure. It’s my eyes, I guess. From looking at the TV too long.”
His eyes, Holly thinks, are hardly the point. Janey is years in her grave. That’s the point.
“Come here, girl, and give me a hug.”
She does so, as briefly as possible. When she pulls back, he’s staring at Jerome. “Who’s this . . .” For a terrible moment she thinks he’s going to finish by saying this black boy or maybe even this jigaboo, but he doesn’t. “This guy? I thought you were seeing that cop.”
This time she doesn’t bother to correct him about who she is. “It’s Jerome. Jerome Robinson. You’ve met him before.”
“Have I? Mind must be going.” He says it not even as a joke, just as a kind of conversational placeholder, without realizing that’s exactly the case.
Jerome shakes his hand. “How you doing, sir?”
“Not bad for an old fella,” Uncle Henry says, and before he can say more, Charlotte calls—practically shrieks—from the kitchen that lunch is on.
“His master’s voice,” Henry says good-humoredly, and when he stands up, his pants fall down. He doesn’t seem to realize.
Jerome gives Holly a tiny jerk of the head toward the kitchen. She gives him a doubtful look in return, but goes.
“Let me just help you with those,” Jerome says. Uncle Henry doesn’t reply but only stares at the TV with his hands dangling at his sides while Jerome pulls up his pants. “There you go. Ready to eat?”
Uncle Henry looks at Jerome, startled, as if just registering his presence. Which is probably true. “I don’t know about you, son,” he says.
“Don’t know what about me, sir?” Jerome asks, taking Uncle Henry by the shoulder and getting him turned toward the kitchen.
“The cop was too old for Janey, but you look too young.” He shakes his head. “I just don’t know.”
5
They get through lunch, with Charlotte scolding Uncle Henry along and sometimes helping him with his food. Twice she leaves the table and comes back wiping her eyes. Through analysis and therapy, Holly has come to realize that her mother is almost as terrified of life as Holly herself used to be, and that her most unpleasant characteristics—her need to criticize, her need to control situations—arise from that fear. Here is a situation she can’t control.
And she loves him, Holly thinks. That, too. He’s her brother, she loves him, and now he’s leaving. In more ways than one.
When lunch is finished, Charlotte banishes the men to the living room (“Watch your game, boys,” she tells them) while she and Holly do up the few dishes. As soon as they are alone, Charlotte tells Holly to have her friend move her car so they can get Henry’s out of the garage. “His things are in the trunk, all packed and ready to go.” She’s speaking out of the corner of her mouth like an actress in a bad spy movie.
“He thinks I’m Janey,” Holly says.
“Of course he does, Janey was always his favorite,” Charlotte says, and Holly feels another of those glass daggers go in.
6
Charlotte Gibney might not have been pleased to see Holly’s friend turn up with her daughter, but she’s more than willing to allow Jerome to pilot Uncle Henry’s big old boat of a Buick (125,000 miles on the clock) to the Rolling Hills Elder Care Center, where a room has been waiting since the first of December. Charlotte was hoping her brother could remain at home through Christmas, but now he’s begun to wet the bed, which is bad, and to wander the neighborhood, sometimes in his bedroom slippers, which is worse.
When they arrive, Holly doesn’t see a single rolling hill in the vicinity, just a Wawa store and a decrepit bowling alley across the street. A man and a woman in blue Care Center jackets are leading a line of six or eight golden oldies back from the bowling alley, the man holding up his hands to stop traffic until the group is safely across. The inmates (not the right word, but it’s the one that occurs to her) are holding hands, making them look like prematurely aged children on a field trip.
“Is this the movies?” Uncle Henry asks as Jerome