She didn’t have to call so late, of course, but it was easier that way. Easier on her rather than Jake. After all, she did all the work.
It was funny how their regular conversations had begun. They’d been talking to each other so consistently over the years that Jake could almost call her. It was much simpler for her to make the call and for him just to wait, however. She didn’t have as much trouble making the connection that way, she’d explained to him.
The first time she’d called him he hadn’t known it was her. He hadn’t even known what it was, much less who. There’d been only a mindless, wordless wailing inside his head. He spent hours scouring the house for the source, thinking that maybe one of the neighborhood kids had gotten stuck somewhere—in the narrow crawl space that ran beneath the floorboards, maybe, or on the slope that ran down into the dump.
This had gone on for days running into weeks before Jake had decided maybe it was time for him to go down to the Senior Citizens Center in Riverside and see a doctor. The doctor had given him some pills and some advice, neither of which had done any good.
It was only later, after the wailing became crude words, that Jake learned he was hearing his grandniece Amanda Rae. That first desperate, wailing call had come to him from her parent’s house in Port Lavaca, Texas, more than sixteen years ago. He’d talked about it with Amanda lots of times. It took a while for them both to figure out that he’d been hearing her call out from inside her mother, because that first wail had reached him two months before she’d been born.
VI
So as Jake snuggled back into the pillows and waited for his grandniece to call it made no difference that there was no telephone in the bedroom. He and Amanda Rae didn’t need one. They had something better, much better. Jake didn’t pretend to understand it, but Amanda thought she did. He was so proud of his grandniece. She was smart, downright brilliant her teachers had called her. It was all those books she read.
Jake knew that Amanda Rae was a lot smarter than he was, but it didn’t intimidate him. You couldn’t be intimidated by someone you were so close to. In their strange, secret fashion Jake and Amanda were much closer to each other than uncle and grandniece. They were more like brother and sister.
It was strange, but Amanda couldn’t call anyone else. Only her Uncle Jake. They often speculated about that, to no avail. If it was true telep—Jake stumbled over the word—true telepathy, it was awfully limited. She couldn’t talk that way to her mother or father or anyone else. Only Uncle Jake.
It became their special secret. Her parents didn’t know about it, nor did her doctors, of which she had many. There was no reason for anyone to suspect it, because there was no evidence of it.
Jake smiled to himself as he lay there against the pillows. It sure saved on long-distance bills. This way he could keep up with Amanda’s family; with his niece Wendy, with her hard-working husband Arri and with Amanda herself. And he could do more than just take, he could give. Maybe he wasn’t book-smart, but he was sure world-smart. His commonsense advice had been of good use to Amanda on many occasions. It’s important for a youngster to have an older person to talk to who’s not immediate family. Jake made a sympathetic and safe, long-range father confessor.
Then he was there. In Port Lavaca. It was much more than just a silent two-way exchange of thoughts. Ideas could be exchanged as well, and sounds, and sometimes even smells. It was as though part of Jake’s mind was suddenly shunted halfway across the country to sit behind strange eyes.
There was a dim, misty picture of Lavaca Bay. From the angle Jake knew Amanda Rae was staring out her bedroom window in the direction of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. For an instant they were one person, the tired old man and the immobile young girl.
It was a fair trade-off. Through her Uncle Jake, Amanda was still able to experience the sensation of walking, a lovely motile daydream. It kept the memory of what walking was like alive within her, and made her a little less bitter.
“Hi, Uncle Jake,” a whispery voice said inside his own head.
“Hello, Mandy.” He smiled with his mind. “The Bay looks awful pretty tonight.”
“It is. Hot and sticky, though.”
“That’s no surprise. I wish I could feel it.”
“I wish you could, too, Uncle Jake. I wish there was more moon, though. The moon is always so pretty on the water. You can see the fish jump.”
“Haven’t done any fishing in a while. I wish I could come and see them jump myself.”
“You are seeing them jump, only through myself.” She laughed inside his mind, vox telepathica.
“You know what I mean,” he said, chiding her gently. “I haven’t seen you in years. It’d be awfully nice to go out there for a real visit. In person. But I don’t have the money.”
Amanda was too polite, too understanding to suggest that her Uncle Jake might consider giving up his color television and spend the money he’d put away on a trip to Texas instead. She did go so far as to say, “You know mom and dad would love to see you.”
“Not anymore than I’d love to see them, Mandy. Maybe I can manage it in a few months.”
“Sure, Uncle Jake.” It was a persistent fiction they both worked at maintaining. “Maybe in a few months. How’s your heart? Any troubles?”
“Not lately,” he assured her. “In fact, I feel better than I did this time last year. I haven’t had a really bad spell since January, and then only briefly. Been taking pretty good care of myself.” He chuckled at her. “Maybe I’m getting better, huh?”
“You never know, Uncle Jake.” Amanda knew from her studies that several heart attacks had damaged her uncle’s heart beyond possibility of improvement. He’d been fighting a holding action for the past five years and he’d continue doing so for the rest of his life. She worked very hard at not thinking about that.
“I’ve been walking a lot,” he told her, “playing with the local kids. Having a pretty good time. Did you hear about the mine explosion in Bolivia yesterday?”
“Sure did. It’s terrible what they do to those poor people down there, working them like animals year in and year out just for a little tin and silver.”
“No wonder cocaine running’s so popular, Mandy. It’s a lot easier to work than tin ore. I really can’t blame them. It’s been that way all through history.”
“I know, Uncle Jake. It’ll probably be that way all through the future, too. How are your neighbors?”
He ran through the list of names that Amanda had become familiar with. “Oh yeah,” he said, “I had a visitor the other day.”
“That’s nice. Who was he?”
“Nice fella. Well dressed. About your dad’s age. He was with that outfit that wanted to give me that job guarding some empty building in San Diego.”
“The one with the subsidized adult housing?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“I thought that sounded kind of nice, Uncle Jake,” she said noncommittally. “You turned him down again?”
“Sure I did, and you know why, too. I couldn’t leave this place. What for? For a few years of lying around listening to a bunch of old people? I don’t need the money, either.”
“If you had more money,” she said, “you could come visit us more often.”
“That’s true. I thought of that. But I couldn’t leave this house, Mandy. Mom and pop died here and—”
