If that’s true of Uncle Carl, is it true of Patrick?
**Observation #790: Grief
Disappearing into apartments.
Disappearing to another country.
Disappearing into silo sheds.
Disappearing with bad boyfriends.
Disappearing under your blankets.
Disappearing inside clothes that itch.
Disappearing into a notebook.
What else does grief look like?
CHAPTER 18 A SMALL WOODEN THING
It’s been almost a week since the Quesadilla Ship fire and still no Uncle Carl. And now it’s Saturday. Balloon day. Today should have been the day Uncle Carl proposed up in a hot-air balloon and Rosie said yes.
But instead, there will be two empty spots in the balloon basket. A total waste.
I look through three books of Elizabeth Bishop poetry searching for something to recite for the project. Krysten said we should definitely open with a poem and I feel like she’s the kind of person who knows what she’s talking about when it comes to an effective presentation.
But I’ve been looking for two hours and there isn’t one poem that I really care about. It’s hard to care about any of it.
The house phone rings and Patrick answers it and then calls my name.
“Janet’s on the phone,” he says when I come downstairs. Then he goes back outside to the garden, which he’s been slowly putting back together. He hasn’t asked Birdie or me to help.
On the phone, Janet talks quickly. “Jacko, I only have a minute because I’m finishing up my break at Snip ’n’ Shine, and Cherylene’s glaring at me already, but I wanted to tell you that I went to Carl’s and he’s not doing great. He didn’t answer the door, but I know he’s in there because he called me a menace and said he’d call the authorities if I didn’t stop pounding on his door.”
“When was this?”
“Just a few minutes ago. I told him he was an idiot and not because of the fire. I said the fire was an accident and he’s an idiot because he’s left you and Birdie in Patrick’s prison and how could he be so selfish. And then I said that hiding away wasn’t going to solve anything and that him and Patrick need to get their problems sorted because this situation wasn’t helping anyone, and that until someone discovered a way to a dimension where everything was made of Honey Bunny Buns, he needed to figure out how to live and be a real uncle.”
“You said all that?”
“More or less. I tried to lay the guilt on pretty thick.”
“Janet, you are a menace. An awesome menace.”
“I know. I was in my element. But I really have to go now because Cherylene’s tapping her nails on the wall and that usually means I’m not moving fast enough and she’s about to put me back on sweeping duty.”
I tell her thanks and when we hang up, my whole body is on the roller coaster and I immediately go outside and tell Patrick that Birdie and me really need to see Uncle Carl.
But he just sighs and pulls his bandanna out of his pocket and wipes his face. “Jack. I don’t know how many times I have to say it: You can’t see him right now.”
“But you can’t keep us from him forever.”
“Carl isn’t in a state to be contacted.”
“I know that, but we have to help him, don’t we?”
He puffs his cheeks out. “No, we don’t.”
“But he’s fifty percent of the family we have!”
Patrick takes his gloves off and picks up a mesh sack of tulip bulbs and starts walking to the side of the house. “I’m not discussing Carl right now.”
I follow him as he takes huge strides to the front yard.
“You never want to discuss him!”
“Not now, Jack.”
He goes to the silo shed and starts fiddling with the lock and I stand next to him. “But you can’t keep avoiding him. He needs us. You can’t keep buying Birdie and me hot chocolate and pizza and donuts and then just expect us to forget about Uncle Carl. He’s our uncle. He’s your brother. How can you just disappear on him?”
Patrick drops the shed lock. He turns around to face me. “Enough!” he says in a loud voice.
I stomp inside the house, up the stairs, and into Birdie’s room. He’s sitting in his window seat with the Alexander McQueen book and his Book of Fabulous and I go straight to the drawer where he keeps his mad cap.
“I need this!” I say, grabbing it without asking. Birdie just watches me as I pull it hard onto my head and then go into the other room. I pace around a few times and punch my pillow. Then I jump onto the bed and look out the window.
Patrick is in the silo shed. Again.
Twenty minutes later, when Birdie comes in the room with peanut butter and jelly rolled up in tortillas, I don’t say anything but I move over so he can sit on my bed.
He knows I don’t want the stupid leftover pizza from last night’s dinner.
“Patrick’s fixing the garden,” Birdie says. “But he didn’t fix the hole in the back fence, so that wild animal is just going to come back and destroy everything again.”
I take a rolled tortilla.
There’s the lightest line of purple nail polish on Birdie’s pinkie fingernail.
“I hate that stupid silo shed,” I say.
“Me too,” says Birdie.
We finish eating the peanut butter and jelly and I’m about to open the last Honey Bunny Bun for us to share, when there’s a screech, a smash of metal, and then yelling from the front yard. Through the blinds, I see Uncle Carl detangling himself from his crashed bicycle.
“These bushes!” Uncle Carl yells. He stumbles across the yard. “What you did ain’t right, brother! I should have told you earlier, I should have told you decades ago, but I’m a coward.” His words slur a little. “I’m a coward . . . but so are you! You come
