“Uncle wanna go to the kinda doctor help him remembah how to think,” Robyn said.
She was wearing her charcoal-gray dress with the high hemline and black hose under that. Sporting a hint of makeup, she carried a small red purse that was too small for her fighting knife.
“Your nephew came to see me a few months ago,” the social worker said. “He told me that you were having trouble with your memory and communication skills.”
“Reggie’s dead.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
The tone of Church’s voice jabbed at Ptolemy’s mind like the cut of a rusty chisel. It made him want to sneer and spit. He wanted to tell that man that he was an idiot, a stupid fool.
“Are you still having trouble thinking?” Church asked.
“No. I think just fine,” Ptolemy said. “It’s just that I got some trouble rememberin’ things I used to know. I mean, I know you got them gloves on ’cause you think there’s a germ in here. I know that this girl here is my granddaughter. But I don’t remembah where I put things a long time ago, an’ I cain’t, I cain’t . . . things I need to find.”
There was so much he couldn’t do. Sometimes he’d stand over the toilet for five minutes waiting to urinate. Sometimes when the phone would ring he’d go to the door and ask, “Who is it?” and when Robyn told him that it was the phone he’d get so embarrassed that he’d go into the bedroom just so he wouldn’t have to see her feeling sorry for him.
“Well,” Antoine Church said, smiling. “The reason I dropped by your house and left that card was because I found out about a man who might have just what you’re looking for.”
“What you laughin’ at, boy?” Ptolemy asked.
“I’m not laughing,” the grinning man said.
“Yes you are. Are you laughin’ at me?”
“No,” Church said, managing to approximate a sober look.
“You gonna be old too,” Ptolemy told him. “You gonna be sittin’ in this chair and a young man gonna be tellin’ you sumpin’. I got a family needs me and I cain’t walk down the street wit’out this child here to he’p me. I’m just askin’ for that, for that. That, that thing.”
Church scribbled in tiny script on a small slip of paper, which he handed to Robyn.
“Call this doctor and tell him that I referred you,” the prissy man said. “And if you have any problems you can call me. Maybe we can work together to help your uncle.”
“Thank you, Mr. Church,” Robyn said, smiling.
Mothahfuckah,” she whispered when she and Ptolemy were a few steps down the hall.
Dr. Ruben, who answered his own phone, said that he didn’t have a free appointment for three weeks.
“I’m traveling to India,” he said, “to Mumbai for a conference, but I’d be happy to see Mr. Grey when I return.”
Robyn didn’t argue with him. She made the appointment and then sat in the lawn chair that Ptolemy wouldn’t let her throw out.
“Do you want me to move back to Aunt Niecie’s house now that yo’ place is clean?” she asked her
“Do you wanna go back?”
“I wanna have a place with a bed up off’a the floor and a chest’a drawers.”
“I could buy you all that.”
“Honey, you only get two hundred and eleven dollahs a week,” she said. “That’s more than you need to live but it ain’t enough for no new bed and chest’a drawers.”
A door opened in Ptolemy’s mind and he smiled, then grinned.
“Wha?” Robyn said.
“Go in the closet an’ pull out that brown suitcase I made you leave in there.”
“That big heavy thing?”
“That’s it.”
The girl went in and dug under the mounds of picture albums and books and shoe boxes filled with letters, small tools, and what Ptolemy called “his remembrances.”
She dragged the heavy leather bag out to the center of the living room.
“Now bring me that jar with all the keys we found in it,” the old man commanded.
“Yes, Uncle.”
As the days had gone by, Ptolemy had gotten more and more bossy. He’d tell Robyn how to cook his eggs and where he wanted his books, even what clothes he’d like her to wear.
Instead of getting angry, the child almost always acquiesced to his demands. In his heart he knew that she was the one who made the important decisions, and she knew that he wanted in the worst way to be in charge.
“Here you go, Uncle,” Robyn said. She was wearing tight red jeans and a pink T-shirt. Her tennis shoes were pink too.
