Help for the Haunted(82)

“Did your uncle say,” Heekin asked as he walked along the row, tugging on the tarnished handles and finding every door locked, “where exactly we should meet him?”

I shook my head, glancing up at those letters on the marquee again as if they might rearrange themselves and offer an answer.

“He did want you to come, didn’t he?”

Confused, not angry—that’s how Heekin seemed, though I wondered how long until that changed. If he had not just shared those stories about his time with my mother, reminding me of her good and honest nature, perhaps I’d have been able to keep the lie going. But considering the larger untruth I’d been nurturing for so many months, there seemed no room for more.

I turned away. Looked down the block at a bodega, a jumble of faded flags over the door, a redbrick church just beyond. “He didn’t want me to come. Not exactly anyway.” If I turned around, I knew what I’d see behind me: that look on my father’s face in the arcade, that look on Detective Rummel’s face in the interview room when I confessed my uncertainty. It was the look of a person realizing you were not who they thought you were—or more specifically, not who they needed you to be. It seemed to me I had a lifetime of those looks ahead; the world felt that full of endless opportunities to let people down, to break their hearts in little ways, in big ways too, each and every day.

“But you said—” Heekin began.

“I know what I said. And I’m sorry. But he wanted to wait. Down the road—that’s the phrase he kept using. We should see each other down the road.”

“But I don’t understand. Why did you make me drive us all the way here if you weren’t c-c-certain?”

Other than that brief encounter in the grocery store years before—a meeting I did not recall until he spoke of it in the car—it was the first I’d heard him stutter. Standing on that sidewalk before the lifeless theater, something about his faltering voice made me feel all the more guilty for leading us there. Turning back to him at last, I explained that I’d told my uncle we were going to leave the second I hung up the phone. “Since he knew we were on the way, my hope was that he’d feel obligated to be here when we arrived. But I should’ve known better. My father used to warn me about him. My sister too. Anyway, sorry for wasting your time.”

“It wasn’t a waste, Sylvie,” Heekin told me, that stutter vanishing once more. “We got to spend time together at least. I think your mother might have liked that.”

I wasn’t certain that was true, but it made me feel a little better to know he wasn’t upset with me. Heekin suggested we give it one last try and took to knocking on the row of glass doors. I did the same. For a long while, we stood waiting for someone to answer, though nobody did. At last he suggested that we may as well get back on the road to Dundalk before Rose began to worry.

“We can go,” I told him. “She isn’t going to worry, though.”

“Sylvie, she’s your sister. I can only imagine she would.”

“Well, Howie is my uncle and look what difference that made.”

Heekin paused, considering, until finally saying, “You’re right. Just because people are related doesn’t always make the difference it should. In your case, however, Rose also happens to be your legal guardian. If she’s not taking that role seriously, you need to say something. There must be a social services office monitoring your situation.”

I thought of Cora with her dolphin or shark tattoo. I thought of Norman who had failed his real-estate exam, but planned on taking it again come spring. I thought of poor Boshoff with his poems and questions and ailing wife beside him in bed at night. “Rose does okay. I just mean she won’t worry, since she thinks I’m at the library studying.”

If he believed me, I couldn’t be sure. Either way, Heekin let the conversation go. Before heading back to his car, he suggested I take a good look at the place, since it might be the last time I’d get to see it. “The city has wanted the building demolished for some time. But who knows? Now that I see those work permits on the door, maybe there’s another plan.”

I looked at the building—its peeling gray exterior, the alley that snaked off into the shadows on one side—doing my best to form a description to put in my journal later so as not to forget. When I was done, we walked across the street. Inside his car, he started the engine, but rather than it stalling, this time he twisted the key and turned it off.

“What’s wrong?” I asked into the quiet.

Heekin pressed his palms against that rubbery face of his. The way he shoved his skin around, he seemed capable of shifting entire features into new positions, his nose nudging toward his left cheek, his left cheek scrunching into his left eye, that eye vanishing altogether. But the moment he stopped rubbing, things fell back into place. “A good reporter wouldn’t give up so easily. Not after coming all this way. And like I told you, that’s something I’ve always wanted to be. More than that, after letting your mother down, it would mean a lot to me if I could help you, Sylvie. Let’s at least stick around awhile in case he returns. If your sister isn’t going to worry, an extra hour won’t hurt.”

His suggestion seemed worth a try, and yet, I was beginning to think that if my uncle made that much of an effort not to see me, it might be smarter—safer even—simply to stay away. My parents never trusted the man. In the end, neither did Rose. Why should I?