helped me figure out how to keep anyone from ever seeing the ink.
I realized I’d gone silent. Aubrey was looking over at me.
‘Eric was always swooping in just when everything was about to get out of control,’ I said. ‘Putting in the cooling rods.’
‘Yeah,’ Aubrey said. ‘That sounds like him.’
Aubrey smiled at the highway. It seemed he wasn’t thinking about it, so the smile looked real. I could see why Eric would have gone for him. Short, curly hair the color of honey. Broad shoulders. What my mother would have called a kind mouth. I hoped that he’d made Eric happy.
‘I just want you to know,’ I said, ‘it’s okay with me that he was gay.’
Aubrey started.
‘He was gay?’
‘Um,’ I said. ‘He wasn’t?’
‘He never told me.’
‘Oh,’ I said, mentally recalculating. ‘Maybe he wasn’t. I assumed … I mean, I just thought since my dad wouldn’t talk about him … my dad’s kind of old-school. Where school means testament. He never really got into that love-thy-neighbor-as-thyself part.’
‘I know the type,’ he said. The smile was actually pointed at me now, and it seemed genuine.
‘There was this big falling-out about three years ago,’ I said. ‘Uncle Eric had called the house, which he almost never did. Dad went out around dinnertime and came back looking deeply pissed off. After that … things were weird. I just assumed …’
I didn’t tell Aubrey that Dad had gathered us all in the living room—me, Mom, my older brother Jay, and Curtis the young one—and said that we weren’t to have anything to do with Uncle Eric anymore. Not any of us. Not ever. He was a pervert and an abomination before God.
Mom had gone sheet-white. The boys just nodded and looked grave. I’d wanted to stand up for him, to say that Uncle Eric was family, and that Dad was being totally unfair and hypocritical. I didn’t, though. It wasn’t a fight I could win.
But Aubrey knew him well enough to have a set of spare keys, and he didn’t think Eric was gay. Maybe Dad had meant something else. I tried to think what exactly had made me think it was that, but I couldn’t come up with anything solid.
Aubrey pulled his minivan off the highway, then through a maze of twisty little streets. One-story bungalows with neatly kept yards snuggled up against each other. About half the picture windows had open curtains; it was like driving past museum dioramas of the American Family. Here was one with an old couple sitting under a cut glass chandelier. One with the backs of two sofa-bound heads and a wall-size Bruce Willis looking troubled and heroic. One with two early-teenage boys, twins to look at them, chasing each other. And then we made a quick dogleg and pulled into a carport beside a brick house. Same lawn, same architecture. No lights, no one in the windows.
‘Thanks,’ I said, reaching around in the seat to grab my bag.
‘Do you want … I mean, I can show you around a little. If you want.’
‘I think I’m just going to grab a shower and order in a pizza or something,’ I said. ‘Decompress. You know.’
‘Okay,’ he said, fishing in his pocket. He came out with a leather fob with two keys and passed it over to me. I took it. The leather was soft and warm. ‘If you need anything, you have my number?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Thanks for the lift.’
‘If there’s anything I can do …’
I popped open the door. The dome light came on.
‘I’ll let you know,’ I said. ‘Promise.’
‘Your uncle,’ Aubrey said. Then, ‘Your uncle was a very special man.’
‘I know,’ I said.
He seemed like he wanted to say something else, but instead he just made me promise again that I’d call him if I needed help.
There wasn’t much mail in the box—ads and a water bill. I tucked it under my arm while I struggled with the lock. When I finally got the door open, I stumbled in, my bag bumping behind me.
A dim atrium. A darker living room before me. The kitchen door to my left, ajar. A hall to my right, heading back to bedrooms and bathrooms and closets.
‘Hey,’ I said to nothing and no one. ‘I’m home.’
I never would have said it to anyone, but my uncle had been killed at the perfect time. I hated myself for even thinking that, but it was true. If I hadn’t gotten the call from his lawyer, if I hadn’t been able to come here, I would have been reduced to couch surfing with people I knew peripherally from college. I wasn’t welcome at home right now. I hadn’t registered for the next semester at ASU, which technically made me a college dropout.
I didn’t have a job or a boyfriend. I had a storage unit in Phoenix and a bag, and I didn’t have the money to keep the storage unit for more than another month. With any luck at all, I’d be able to stay here in the house until Uncle Eric’s estate was all squared away. There might even be enough money in his will that I could manage first and last on a place of my own. He was swooping in one last time to pull me out of the fire. The idea made me sad, and grateful, and a little bit ashamed.
They’d found him in an alley somewhere on the north side of the city. There was, the lawyer had told me, an open investigation. Apparently he’d been seen at a bar some-where talking to someone. Or it might have just been a mugging that got out of hand. One way or another, his friend Aubrey had identified the body. Eric had left instructions in his will for funeral arrangements, already taken care of. It was all very neat. Very tidy.
The house was just as tidy. He hadn’t owned very much, and it gave the place a simplicity. The bed was neatly made. Shirts, jackets, slacks all hung in the bedroom closet, some still in the plastic from the dry cleaner’s. There were towels in the bathroom, a safety razor beside the sink with a little bit of soap scum and stubble still on the blade.
I found a closet with general household items, including a spare toothbrush. The food in the fridge was mostly spoiled, but I scrounged up a can of beef soup that I nuked in a plain black bowl, sopping up the last with bread that wasn’t too stale. The television was in the living room, and I spooled through channels and channels of bright, shining crap. I didn’t feel right putting my feet on the couch.
When I turned on the laptop, I found there was a wireless network. I guessed the encryption key on my third try. It was the landline phone number. I checked mail and had nothing waiting for me. I pulled up my messenger program. A few names appeared, including my most recent ex-boyfriend. The worst thing I could have done just then was talk with him. The last thing I needed was another reminder of how alone I was. I started typing.
Jayneheller: Hey. You there?
A few seconds later, the icon showed he was on the other end, typing.
Caryonandon: I’m not really here. About to go out.
Jayneheller: OK. Is there a time we can talk?
Caryonandon: Maybe. Not now.
His name vanished from the list. I played a freeware word search game while I conducted imaginary conversations with him in which I always came out on top, then went to bed feeling sick to my stomach.
I called the lawyer in the morning, and by noon, she was at the door. Midfifties, gray suit, floral perfume with something earthy under it, and a smile bright as a brand-new hatchet. I pulled my hair back when she came in and wished I’d put on something more formal than blue jeans and a Pink Martini T-shirt.
‘Jayne,’ she said, as if we were old acquaintances. She pronounced it Jane too. I didn’t correct her. ‘This must be so hard for you. I’m so sorry for your loss.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘You want to come into the kitchen? I think there’s some tea I could make.’
‘That would be lovely,’ she said.
I fired up the kettle and dug through the shelves. There wasn’t any tea, but I found some fresh peppermint and one of those little metal balls, so I brewed that. The lawyer sat at the kitchen table, her briefcase open, small piles of paper falling into ranks like soldiers on parade. I brought over two plain black mugs, careful not to spill on
