Finality

The 'Y' OF IT

 

Why do I do this to myself? My heart aches. It quivers. It thumps wildy in my chest. I drop my still closed umbrella on the hall floor and walk absent-mindedly outside into the teeming rain. Uncle Morris,  my mother's brother, became my custodian and has been that for the past nine years after my parents were killed in a hood to hood car crash on the Baltimore Beltway. I was only ten years old when he forced me to look at the photos in both daily newspapers. To this day nightmares find their way into my sleep.

 

Uncle Morris is a busy man, too busy for me, for friendship, closeness. His fruitful business is handled from his basement office, where three computers, two printers, stacks of un-or wrongly filed snail mail send  him into raging snits. Many Saturday mornings he knocks on my bed- room door, and with the sweetest voice he can manage, he lets me know  there's work for me to do.

 

I remember the first few years with him where he took me for an ice cream cone or even to a movie now and then. If I did a good job shredding his papers, dusting the tops of his printers, bringing him a cold glass of Pepsi, I was rewarded and could have my choice of orange pop or a cherry coke. Once, when I was twelve, I dropped his pop drink on the basement stairs. It broke to a zillion pieces making the step sticky. He brought me a bucket of water, told me to be careful not to cut myself, and left me to clean up the mess. Oh, lord, how I hated him then.

 

Love, or what he thought was love, was just barely a 'like'. It came to him unexpectedly when he met Melody at the UPS store. She was in a frazzle as to how to ship a package to her parents and how much insurance she should charge to cover a possible loss. Uncle Morris evidently could overhear the discussion, felt the young woman was being wangled into a higher cost than necessary, stepped in and helped the customer get a better deal.The young woman was grateful.. Because he was confident, she was grateful. That was secondary once he noticed her gorgeous azure blue eyes, long blonde lashes, he didn't hesitate asking her to lunch. With her dazzling pearly white smile lighting up the room, she replied, 'How nice of you, Sir. My name is Melody. What's yours?'
Love, or what he thought was love, was barely 'like'. It hit him. It came on  to him hard. He told me later that he had smelled fresh cut lilacs when her eyes lashes fluttered. He knew his life was about to change. And it did–as mine did.

 

The break  was hers, the disappointment was mine. Uncle Morris cut down his working hours, piled more crooked piles of papers for me to straighten, file. Fortunately, he took Melody to dinner twice a week for the first few weeks so I could fix things for myself that he didn't like. I broiled meat balls and cooked the spaghetti until it was just right, al dente. Heinz ketchup straight from the bottle was sheer silent joy. It was spicy and easy and I could stuff my mouth without being reprimanded. I made Aunt Jemima pancakes with fresh blueberries without having him watch me while he counted the number of berries I ate.

 

And then, then, I saw there was trouble. My happier uncle was melting away. His face returned to its normal grimace. He ordered me around as if I were an obedient imbecile. We just slipped back, almost gradually, to my early youth. I could feel his eyes burning through me, his wish to punish me for living with him so many years, being an albatross forever.

 

I hid. I cowered. I straightened my backbone at last. While he was deciding which chore to give me next, I went to my room, considered setting the house on fire, stabbing Uncle Morris until no more blood flowed. Rubbing my hands together, enjoying the moment, my mother, in a grey shroud, clearly spoke to me. 'Go, go now, while Morris cries in front of his computer. Go!' She let me see at last that it was I who cringed, let myself be a semi-slave. 'No more. No more, she whispered as she faded into the wall. Why Uncle Morris kept an empty suitcase in his closet, I never knew but realized it might have been there for him to escape from me. That seemed logical and proper. I jammed all sorts of clothes, personal items, my check book with $1000 in the battered case  and let it thump step by step to the front door.

 

There was a great stillness from the basement. It sounded like all of the computers, printers had died at once. From the silence I heard, for the last time, 'GOOD BYE, RHODA.'

 

I only whispered, 'Goodbye Uncle Morris' and with that, we both were free.