“Yes, yes. That’s enough, stop.”
Dena gave a low whistle through her open mouth, something I didn’t know she could do.
“Well,” she said, “I could use someone to split the driving.”
“Great,” Katie chirped. “I’ll go pack my stuff.”
My place being a hovel, she went to a corner, while Dena and I continued, in lowered voices.
“I found out who saw your father,” I said, “who scared him to death. And who came after me.”
“Really? Is he—”
“Yes,” I lied. “Now he’s, you know, he’s in custody.”
“Wow. This … this is all so impressive, Roy.” Dena looked at me with a new expression on her face. I think it was respect, but I hadn’t ever seen it enough to know.
“But I guess we’ll never know why your dad called me in the first place.”
Dena didn’t answer. Katie joined her at the door, a canvas bag slung over her shoulder.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m good to go.”
“Here,” Dena said to her, going in her own bag. “Wear this kerchief. At least until we get out of town.”
Katie happily covered her head in a do-rag way. That, plus her freckles, made her look like a tomboy character in an old comic strip. I still liked her, I couldn’t help it. So I glanced away.
Then Dena gave me something, too.
“Well, I know why my father called you,” she said.
It was her father’s tape. The one Dena had sent me. The one Katie brought back from Graus to me.
“And once you watch this, Roy,” she added, “you’ll know that I’m not leaving because I don’t love you.”
“What? But—”
The two women were out the door before I could finish.
“Bye, Roy!” I heard Katie say, faintly, from the stairs. “Thanks for everything!”
Slowly, I closed the door. The place was quiet then. I heard only the drip of my broken bathroom faucet. I expelled a long sigh of exhaustion.
Standing there alone, I had a strange inkling that I would never see Katie again. But I would see Dena. What had she meant?
I took the tape over to my VCR.
AUNT RUBY WAS RELIEVED THAT I HAD COME.
She didn’t say it, of course. Far be it from her to evince a sentimental emotion. I could feel it in the way she hugged me when I walked in the door.
It was a week later. My childhood home was filled with boxes. The place had been put on the market; there was a lot of packing and cleaning to do.
“There’s nothing to drink, except water,” Ruby said, ever the nurse. “But that’s all anybody ever really needs, anyway.”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
My mother wasn’t dead. The medical bills had grown so great that her house was the victim. My mother was going to stay with her sister until she could move into assisted living. She’d be a quiet guest; she still had yet to say a word.
Aunt Ruby would have held me responsible for this disaster. But when I called, I’d given her hope that I had found a remedy. And hope had, surprisingly, given her a new vulnerability.
“So, Roy,” she said, her voice quivering a little, “what’s the good word?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I answered. “But it’ll help if you give me a little … space.”
I had a small window of opportunity in which to exploit Aunt Ruby’s trust, and I used it. Nodding, obediently, she backed off. I knew she’d return to form soon—with downbeat wisdom and new demands—so I had to work fast.
I walked up the stairs, to my mother’s room.
As I climbed, I thought about the tape I’d watched in my apartment. With Dena and Katie gone, I’d wavered for a while, afraid to put it in the VCR. Then I thought: Why avoid watching Dena’s father’s secret movies of her as a kid? What was there to fear? So I popped it in.
It wasn’t footage of Dena.
It was another abandoned movie.
It starred me.
It was footage of me as a child, taken from a safe and timid distance, just as Dena’s had been. It was the truth that Ted Savitch had wanted to tell me when I showed up at his flophouse. He had lured me with Clown, knowing that I’d respond.
