“Okay, ma’am,” Ptolemy said as he stroked his wife’s hair. “You keep that money. It’s worth every dime.”
It was only then, in the empty concrete lot, that he remembered Sensie’s cousin, who lived in Riverside at that time. She must’ve seen him and called Sensie and, in doing so, saved both their lives—for a time.
“God bless you, Minna Jones,” Ptolemy whispered to himself.
“Uncle?”
Her voice was the constant refrain defining the form of his improvised last days. “Uncle?” Robyn would say, and all the words and thoughts that went before formed into sensible lines, became plain memories that no longer engulfed his mind.
“Yes, child?” he said without turning.
The woman on the bleak patio above looked down at the sound of their voices.
“Why you out here in your robe?” Robyn asked. “It’s cold.”
“Not in my skin,” Ptolemy said. “Dr. Ruben’s medicine lit a fire in me.”
The back of Robyn’s cold fingers pressed against his cheek.
“You
The woman’s eyes from above met with Ptolemy’s and locked.
“Come on inside, Uncle. Lemme get you some aspirin.”
Ptolemy wanted to do as the girl said, but he was looking into the face of the smoking black woman. He wondered what she thought up there in her perch above the concrete yard.
The woman stood up, and Ptolemy wished that she would throw something down to him: a cigarette . . . a tattered length of rope. But she turned her back and went into her home.
“Come on,” Robyn insisted.
Do you need me for anything today, Uncle Grey?”
They were sitting at the small table in the kitchen, drinking iced tea that Robyn made. She was right, the cold liquid cooled him.
“No,” he said. “I wanna go see somebody, that’s all.”
“Miss Wring?”
Ptolemy hadn’t thought about that. Robyn had given him the emerald ring and he hadn’t gotten around to thanking her.
This forgetfulness wasn’t like before, when his thoughts were faint and half forgotten. Now he forgot because he was thinking about the moment and how the present was an extension of things that transpired long, long ago.
The ring wasn’t important. It was just a trinket. It was the woman, Shirley, who occupied his mind.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ma go see Shirley. She give me her address. Did you have a good time with Beckford last night?”
Robyn clasped her hands and then unclasped them, got to her feet, and went into the living room. Ptolemy smiled, realizing that he had meant to bother her. He rose, too, barely feeling the pain in his feet and knees, and followed her into the room, the living room that she had cleared out the way the Devil’s medicine had cleared out his mind.
Robyn was sitting on the bed that was a couch at the moment. When Ptolemy came in she turned her back to him.
“You shouldn’t be embarrassed by what I say,” Ptolemy said to his keeper.
He sat beside her, placed his hand on her shoulder.
“I didn’t want you to know, Uncle,” she said.
“Why not?”
“’Cause I didn’t.”
“How can I adopt you as my daughter if you don’t tell me all about you and your life?”
Robyn turned around and peered at him cautiously, suspiciously.
“I’m too old to be adopted,” she said.
Ptolemy felt a humming in his veins like a trilling wire carrying a strong charge of electricity. Somewhere Coy was wanting to give him a lecture but he would not listen.
“No,” Ptolemy said, partly to Coy but mostly to Robyn, “you not too old. You my girl, my child. I love you and I wanna make sure that you have a life, a good life. I know that a young woman like you got to have a man. That goes without sayin’. You want a good-lookin’ man who’s strong but don’t treat you bad.”
Robyn smiled and looked down. She took one of Ptolemy’s hands in both of hers.
“I just want you to be careful, child. I don’t want you to go too fast. Maybe Beckford okay an’ maybe no. It’s hard to tell when you young and hungry.”
“Shut up, Uncle,” Robyn said with a giggle and a grin.
“Young man, all he got to do is see them legs you so proud of an’ he’ll say anything, anything you wanna hear.”
Robyn sucked a tooth and smiled again.
