“Amy burned down Ronan’s house,” I said. “You know that. Everyone knows it. But you’ve never said anything. And if she burned it down, and if she and I were always together, wouldn’t you think that maybe I had helped her? Isn’t that a question you might have asked?”
He shook his head, his eyes drilling holes into a large spinach and mushroom.
“You were here that night, with me,” he said. “You couldn’t have done it.”
“You’re right—I didn’t. Alex Clyde did. She asked me, but I wouldn’t do it. I didn’t believe her—I thought Mr. Ronan was innocent. Had I helped her, she never would have married Clyde, I’m sure of that. But like you said, I was here that night, with you, making pizza.”
“Look, I knew she was a troubled girl,” he said. “But I didn’t know she started that fire. I thought it was some wanna-be vigilante, some redneck asshole. This town had no shortage of them. Still doesn’t. Hey, if I was supposed to talk to you about it, I’m sorry. Nobody ever gave me a field manual. I did the best I could.”
A customer, some young corporate type in a shirt and tie, good old Dad on his way home from the office, approached the counter, Uncle Dan rushing forward to help him as if sprung from jail. I followed, waving my hand as I told Shirt-and-Tie we were closed.
“There’s a pizzeria three blocks over on Sandpiper and Beach.” I pulled a twenty from my wallet and handed it to him. “It’s on me.”
“Hey, thanks!”
He shoved the twenty into his pocket and hustled out the door.
Uncle Dan grabbed his chest. “You sent him to Tony’s? What’s wrong with you?”
“Pretty much everything.”
“Fuck it,” he said, his voice rising.
Hanging over the register was a TV on mute; he grabbed the remote and raised the volume, then pulled me toward the storeroom, his hand cold against my bare skin. Uncle Dan rarely lost his temper, and for a moment his intensity scared me. Back in the storage room he slammed the door and again we were back in our cocoon.
“Look, I know you loved her, and probably still do, so I shouldn’t say anything,” he said, “but what she did to that man was a crime. You don’t accuse someone of abducting a child. Even after the cops cleared him, guys would come in here bragging about how they’d cut off his balls if they ever saw him again. I know she was messed up over what happened, and she drank too much, and God knows what else, but what she did to him—that was wrong. But I kept my mouth shut because I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“She had a reason,” I said.
He threw up his hands. “You said it yourself—that guy had nothing to do with Sarah Carpenter.”
“He didn’t. But there were other things.”
He stepped back, his elbow banging into the steel handle of the fridge. He cupped his funny bone with his palm, his eyes turning toward the floor.
“What do you mean?”
My hands began to shake.
“Ronan did things. Not to Sarah, to Amy.”
Uncle Dan froze, as if the stage directions had been erased and he wasn’t sure how to act. I felt my heart beating through my ears.
“Why am I talking like a five-year-old? He didn’t do ‘things.’ He raped her. I was there, asleep, like always. I just found out. Amy’s avoiding me, won’t return my calls.” My throat felt like I’d swallowed a thousand pins. “All these years…I never knew.”
The muscles in his face grew slack as his shoulders dropped, his hands reaching for the table.
The sound from the television seeped into the room, the YES Network with some nonsense about the Yankees bullpen. I was grateful for the noise as I waited for Uncle Dan to respond. All my life I had never seen him vulnerable, but this was something he couldn’t change by strapping on an apron and working.
He turned toward the counter as if he were still in the jungles outside of DaNang and picked up a jar of homemade marinara. I braced myself, waiting for him to smash it, but he just stared into the jar, Hamlet contemplating Yorick’s skull, then brought it to his chest and cradled it, a stage direction so unexpected I could never have envisioned it, my uncle holding a jar of marinara sauce like a baby, the jar’s oval glass bottom pressed against his heart.
“You didn’t know,” he said, his voice a whisper. “It’s not your fault.”
There was a knock at the door, and Jill poked in. “Hey, there’s a bunch…” She stopped, seeing our dead faces, Uncle Dan slumped near the counter caressing a jar of marinara. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
“Yep, I’m fine.”
Uncle Dan winced.
“Um, sorry.” Jill backed away from the door. “There’s a bunch of customers waiting outside. I’d thought you’d want to know.”
“Tell them we’ll be right out,” I said.
She turned, shutting the door. Uncle Dan cleared his throat, swallowing hard.
“Go hang the ‘Closed’ sign and tell them to get lost,” he mumbled.
“You want to close?” This was heresy. The Jaybird never closed early.
“I’m leaving,” he told me. He set down the sauce jar, untied his apron, and let it drop to the floor. He reached into his pocket and tossed me the keys. “Lock up. Or don’t.”
“Where are you going?” I asked, but like a ghost he walked past me, turned the deadbolt, and headed out the door.
I counted the seconds, waiting for him to return, the minute hand on the old clock jerking its way around the numbers. I opened the back door, expecting to see him on the other side, getting himself together so he could help me—at the very least there were pizzas to make—but the alley behind the Jaybird stood empty except for a single crow perched on the dumpster eyeing his next snack. Closing the door,
