I handed the picture to Henry, who turned it over to see if anything was written on the back. His eyes widened at what he read. He leaned in close to show me what it said.
For the longest time the best thing about never knowing my daddy was that I could picture him how I liked. I could imagine he was funny, handsome, or kind. I could dream he was the sort of man who found his little girl in a dark wood and carried her home. I could kid myself that only something real important kept him from tucking me in at night or tending me when I was sick, and that he lost sleep over the thought of all he was missing by being away from me. Stupid, I know, but all evidence to the contrary, I’d dreamed it just the same. Till now.
I read the spidery handwriting four times before the meaning sank in, and twice more after that to be sure—though what it said made perfect sense when I thought about it. I looked up at Henry, who flipped the picture back to the front side to know for the first time the face of his brother, Owen, while I gazed for the first time on my real daddy and the daddy of my brother, Wil, who was this minute following in our father’s footsteps, taking flight. Henry put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close. I wrapped mine around him and did the same.
Mr. and Mrs. Owen Royster, read the woman’s delicate handwriting, on ther weddin day.
The boy left the house before dawn. He and the cat regarded each other—the boy standing for a time on the porch, so that the cat noticed, for the first time, how much he resembled the man.
The boy did not hurry. There was something lonesome and adrift about him, and the cat followed as he climbed the path to the cabin. There, the boy walked to the dogwood where his mother was buried and stood for a while. After that, he rolled the two-wheeled machine off the cabin porch and poured an acrid-smelling liquid into its stomach. He climbed on its back and brought it briefly to sputtering life, then silenced it. He pushed it quietly through the woods, back to the man’s house. He glanced up at the girl’s window, turned to nod at the cat, and then pushed the machine down the dark drive.
The boy’s leaving unsettled the cat, disquieted the very trees. The girl wouldn’t be up for hours. The cat headed off beyond the stone garden to the steepled house to hunt rats.
When he got there, a terrible racket resounded from the building’s insides. Bright light streamed from the high windows into the near yard. Behind them, heavy objects crashed to the floor, glass and pottery shattered, metal rattled and clanged. Whatever was trapped inside bounded from one end of the building to the other, one minute thrashing in front, the next galloping to the back, the next climbing high, toward the steeple, as if it were learning to fly.
At dawn, a truck drove up. The man’s helper guided the old man with the cane to the building’s arched front doors. They unlocked the doors and opened them. The white deer bounded out, wild-eyed, knocking both men on their rears, and vaulted into the far trees.
20
Henry’s New Year’s Eve opening in New York was a big success, even by Lillian’s standards. Lillian was put out that there were only “fourteen legitimate Roysters,” as she put it, Henry and I having included our Crazy Deflector Wild Thing at the last minute; but when it sold first, she shut up and took the check. When Henry said that the money was mine to add to my rubber-banded bankroll, I nearly died. After deducting Lillian’s piggy fifty percent, I still got four thousand five hundred dollars—or will, when Lillian gets around to forking it over.
“Congratulations,” Henry said. “You’ve sold your first work of art.”
By the end of the night, nearly every sculpture had sold and everybody was saying how it was Henry’s best work ever. Henry behaved himself, mostly, except when Lillian told him that one of her best clients wanted to buy one of the big pieces, but only if Henry would paint it hot pink. I smiled to hear Henry hollering across the crowded room, “If she wants it pink, she can buy a flipping can of Rust-Oleum and paint it herself.”
I thought: That’s my uncle Henry.
I hated to admit it, but it was a good party. Those snooty people’s rich and famous brains were swimming in high-dollar alcohol, the extra expense not making them one bit brighter than any other drunk. Half the women flirted with Henry, but I didn’t blame them. When the band churned up around eleven to play something we could move to, Henry scooped me up and set me on the bar and we danced along it and back, people laughing and moving out of the way and cheering us on. I told Henry he moved pretty well for an old man, and he said I shook it all right for a girl with no hips. Franklin cut in then and Henry danced with Helen, who had hips aplenty. Knowing Bessie was in the hospital back home didn’t let any of us take anything too seriously.
I’d read to her from my journals every day over Christmas and after, right up until the day we
