Getting Near to Baby

by Audrey Couloumbis

“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ’em,” Uncle Hob says. But I can see he doesn’t mean it. So can Aunt Patty.

  “Are you out of your ever-lovin’ mind?” she asks.

  “I’m enjoying the breeze,” Uncle Hob says. “I’m enjoying the company of two lovely young ladies. I’ll be down directly ”

  Aunt Patty is not going to be jollied out of her mad. She draws in a deep breath, like she might blow us off the rooftop with whatever she is about to say. But then Mrs. Potts calls, “You-oo, Patty.” She is coming to visit.

  By rights, we all should have noticed Mrs. Potts sooner. We can see anybody coming for miles in most directions. But Aunt Patty held our full attention, right up until Mrs. Potts hollered.

  “Oh; no,” Aunt Patty moans. “I will never, never live this down.”

  “Wave,” Uncle Hob says, and raises his arm. Little Sister and I do the same, waggling our hands like Mrs. Potts is a personal friend of Santa Claus.

  “What is going on up there now?” Mrs. Potts calls out as she approaches the end of the driveway “I believe the heat must have affected all your minds.”

  “Our minds are fine,” Aunt Patty snaps.

  “Hob, tell me something so I know you’re feeling like yourself,” Mrs. Potts calls.

  Uncle Hob sits quiet for a minute. I imagine he’s thinking up the right thing to say. Like, “You always sit in the third pew, left side, Sunday mornings in church, Mrs. Potts.” But no. He says in a voice so low even I can barely make it out, “You girls sit still as statues, hear?”

  He gets up, steps up higher on the roof, a way behind Little Sister and me, and bows deeply from the waist. His short shirtsleeves flutter gently in the breeze. Down below, Aunt Patty makes a squawky sound. Mrs. Potts gasps. There is even a breathy squeak from Little Sister.

  The roof tiles are so hot I cannot set my leg against them for long, turned as I am to watch Uncle Hob. They are only bearable where we have been sitting directly on them. I cannot imagine how Uncle Hob’s pale bare feet can stand on them.

  Uncle Hob straightens, his arms swing gracefully away from his body, and he starts to dance in this funny, old-fashioned way of bent knees and shuffling feet. His arms are held out to his sides a little. His tie flaps gently in the breeze. He is humming to himself, “Bum . . . bum bum bum, bum,” as he bobs and weaves. Little Sister’s had a tight grip on my arm since Uncle Hob got to his feet, but now her hand loosens and falls away.

  “Bum, bum ba bop bum. Bum de bum bop bum ...” The tune is not familiar but it occurs to me that there ought to be the sound of foot-tappings or shoe-slidings, at the very least. Maybe an orchestra. He looks so fine in his Sunday best. Uncle Hob is a good dancer.

  He shuffles one way, then the other, then turns in a slow circle that draws a kind of sigh from Aunt Patty. Uncle Hob bows once more, differently. Like he is king of the roof. He straightens and says, “I have never felt more like myself, Mrs. Potts.”

  When I look down to see how Aunt Patty is taking this, she is looking at Uncle Hob in the funniest way. Partly as if she has never seen him before. Partly as if he is the finest of tea sets and he is hers, all hers. Even as I catch sight of it, however, it is a look that is disappearing behind her awareness of Mrs. Potts, who is still beside her.

  “Your mother should never have sent you to that college up north, Hobart Hobson,” Mrs. Potts says.

  “It wouldn’t have made a bit of difference,” Aunt Patty says. Aunt Patty glances at me and almost smiles. Almost. There is a look in her eyes that I like.

  Mrs. Potts puts both fists on her hips like she is prepared to argue the point. But Mrs. Biddle’s door opens and she steps out on her porch to call out, “Doris.” Mrs. Potts turns to look in that direction.

  “Why don’t you all come on over for a glass of cool tea?”

  Mrs. Potts looks torn.

  “We have pound cake,” Mrs. Teasley calls from inside the screen door.

  “I’m coming,” Mrs. Potts calls back.

  As the screen door closes, the spring makes a sound like a birdcall. Brrrrillll.

  Not one word is spoken as Mrs. Potts makes her way down the driveway to get around the fence. We watch her cross Mrs. Biddle’s yard where she climbs the steps to the door. There, she knocks politely. The screen door opens and she is sucked in.

  “Patty,” Uncle Hob says quietly.

  “I’m going to sell the house,” is Aunt Patty’s reply.

  “Now, dumplin’.”

  “Don’t you ‘now, dumplin’ me,” Aunt Patty says. “I’m moving to Venezuela.”

  “Why Venezuela, in particular?” Uncle Hob asks.

  “Because nobody there will know me. They will have heard of you and Willa Jo, of course. But they won’t guess I’m related. I’ll use an assumed name.”

  Inside the house, the phone rings. We hear it as distant but urgent. Aunt Patty stamps off to answer it, saying, “Probably want to sell me a newspaper.” The screen door slams.

  “The front door is seeing plenty of use today,” I say, struck with wonder over this entire turn of events. Uncle Hob sighs and seats himself on the other side of Little Sister. He looks a little tired.

  “Aunt Patty thought you dance beautifully,” I tell him.

  His face brightens. “Do you really think so?”

  24

  Aunt Patty Sees the Light

  When we hear Aunt Patty’s voice again, none of us are sure where it is coming from.

  “Hob?” she calls again.

  We all turn to see her peering out the dormer window Peering, because she must be standing on tiptoe and about the best she can do is see over the edge. She looks like a small animal in its burrow.

  “Hob? Are you ever coming back inside here?”

  There is something in her voice, something very unlike the Aunt Patty I know. Not sweet, exactly. A little scared, maybe.

  “I thought I’d wait till the girls are ready to come in, dumplin’,” Uncle Hob says.

  “That was their mother,” Aunt Patty says, now with a real quaver in her voice. “Noreen called and says she wants to see them.”

  Uncle Hob doesn’t look as if that could be too alarming. “What did you tell her?”

  “I can hardly see you,” Aunt Patty says, dropping out of sight entirely. “Do you think this rickety old chair will hold me?” she asks. She is already climbing up.

  “Don’t risk it,” Uncle Hob says. He is up in a flash, hot-footing it over the roof tiles. Heat is rising from them in waves that look like ripples on a pond.

  Little Sister and I are right behind him. Not that any one of us can do a thing for Aunt Patty. We can only stand there, shifting from one foot to the other, waiting to see what happens. Uncle Hob’s eyes are huge behind his glasses as Aunt Patty huffs and puffs her way off that rickety chair to balance on the rafters. Little Sister and I cling to each other like a big wind is blowing.

  Aunt Patty never stops once she starts to climb, even though she is not built for climbing through dormer windows. “Now, dumplin’, it’s not like you’re coming out to sit on the porch. You better rethink this,” Uncle Hob is saying as Aunt Patty looks for footholds. “I don’t think you care for heights. Leastwise, you don’t care for them when I get up too high.”

  “That’s because you’re accident-prone, Hobart,” Aunt Patty says, growing testy as she becomes frustrated with the difficulty of heaving herself up onto the windowsill.

  “Me? When have I ever had any accidents?” Uncle Hob wants to know.

  “You haven’t,” Aunt Patty says, “because I watch out for you. I don’t know what you would do without me.”

  “Neither do I, dumplin’,” Uncle Hob says, grinning. He reaches for Aunt Patty as she teeters uncertainly on the windowsill, but she slaps his hand away.

  “I can do it,” she says.

  “I wish you’d reconsider,” Uncle Hob says.

  “I have no choice but to go forward,” Aunt Patty says, getting a firmer grip on the edge of the dormer s
tructure. “I can’t go backward now.”

  But when she gets wedged in around the hips and starts to shriek, we all pitch in and do what has to be done. We take hold of her and pull until she pops through, like a cork out of a bottle. There is a little sound of ripping cloth, and I expect Aunt Patty will get all upset at ruining one of her outfits. But she doesn’t mind it. She pats down the tear and says, “No real damage done.”

  She tries to stand up then. Aunt Patty is too fond of being the boss of things to be comfortable with scooching around. Her foot slides out from under her right away. Uncle Hob grabs for her and pulls so that she sits down hard. “Oh, now, dumplin’,” he says, before she has a chance to get mad. “You can’t be walking around out here with sandals on.”

  “Good thing you weren’t on both feet, exactly,” I say. “You could go right over the edge, looking like one of those skiers up north.” I make a little out-and-down motion with my hand.

  Little Sister nods.

  “This is dangerous,” Aunt Patty says. “Haven’t I been telling you all this is dangerous?”

  “Then why are you out here?” Uncle Hob says with a trace of impatience in his voice. “We aren’t going to stay out here forever. We’d be coming back inside directly. Surely you didn’t climb out here to tell us that.”

  “No. No, I didn’t,” Aunt Patty says. “Don’t be mad, Hob. I couldn’t stand being all alone in there. I wanted to be with the three of you, even if we are all crazy as bed-bugs.”

  “All right, then,” Uncle Hob says. He settles us all in a new spot, higher and near the dormer window. Aunt Patty sits and moans, “Be careful now,” while we gather up the picnic basket and the empty water jar and the guitar. During all the excitement, the umbrella has rolled into the gutter that runs around the edge of the roof.

  “I’ll get it,” I say.

  “No,” Aunt Patty shrieks, and I stop.

  “Now stop that screaming, dumplin’,” Uncle Hob says in a no-nonsense voice. “I’ll show you how we can get at that umbrella without even having to take out the ladder.”

  Uncle Hob shows Little Sister and me this grip he learned in the Navy. You open your hand between the index finger and the middle finger and grip somebody around the wrist while they do the same thing and grip you around your wrist. It looks like shaking hands but what happens is the fingers get a good grip under the wrist bones and it’s more like you’ve tied a knot than like holding hands.

  “You can’t lose hold of somebody that way,” Uncle Hob says. “Even if your hands are sweaty. And if you stay low, gravity works for you too. You’re too bottom-heavy to pitch over.”

  He takes my hand so he and I are gripped together. “We’re like a human chain,” he says. “Now you’re safe as can be, if you want to reach for that umbrella, Willa Jo.”

  “I’m not quite close enough,” I tell him.

  But then Little Sister takes my other hand and points at the umbrella. Behind us, Aunt Patty moans.

  “All right then,” Uncle Hob says. “But you have to stay low, Little Sister. And you and Willa Jo have to hold on to each other like I showed you.”

  So Little Sister and I twine our fingers around each other’s wrist and pull, to show how tightly we’ve tied the knot. Uncle Hob nods and we stretch down the roof like the human chain Uncle Hob calls us. Aunt Patty’s moan becomes a high-pitched keening. Suddenly there is a nervous fluttering in my stomach.

  For the first time in most of this whole day, I realize that I have encouraged Little .Sister to do a dangerous thing, to sit out here on the roof with me. As careful as I try to be of her most of the time, I have not given that much thought today. It seems like bad judgment on my part. I tighten my fingers around her wrist. It would not do to lose her now.

  Little Sister’s fingers tremble as she reaches for the umbrella. It is harder for her; she is the one who is close enough to look right over the edge of the roof. In fact, she has been this close more than once today, but I don’t think she’s been nervous about it till now. It seems likely the sound that Aunt Patty is making has us all keyed up. Then Little Sister has the umbrella and she is scuttling back up to throw herself in Uncle Hob’s lap.

  Aunt Patty gives in to the urge to cry, and is sobbing loudly.

  “Don’t tell me you were scared,” Uncle Hob says to Little Sister, and follows this with a little laugh. “We were holding on to you.”

  Little Sister buries her face in his neck. I draw in a deep breath. Everything is fine. Even Aunt Patty’s sobs are already drying up.

  “You girls have been just fine up here,” he reminds us. “You stayed low, you didn’t walk around or even move around unnecessarily. You certainly weren’t foolish enough to dance. And now you know how to make yourselves into a human chain. Next time I need to fix the roof, I know who I’m going to call for help.”

  “They’re natural billy goats, born and raised in the mountains,” Aunt Patty says in a voice that is both tearful and admiring.

  Little Sister grins and peers out at me from beneath Uncle Hob’s chin. And we all of us agree to move back up by Aunt Patty “Now tell me,” Uncle Hob says to Aunt Patty as he and I settle ourselves with Little Sister between us. Seeing her hanging out over the edge of the roof has had an effect on both of us. Nothing will do now but to see her safely enclosed. “What did Noreen have to say?” Uncle Hob says when we are satisfied that Litttle Sister won’t blow away.

  “She says she’s missing them,” Aunt Patty says to Uncle Hob. And then she turns to us. “You girls, she’s missing you girls.”

  My heart lifts at hearing this, and Little Sister’s face lights right up.

  “And?” Uncle Hob says.

  “She said she wants to take them home,” Aunt Patty says. “So I said, ‘Well, you can’t take them yet.’ ‘Why not?’ Noreen says. ‘Because they aren’t here now,’ I say. ‘Where are they,’ she says, and I tell her, ‘They’re out playing.’ ”

  “Somehow I don’t think that’s going to discourage her,” Uncle Hob says.

  “I said they were playing at a neighbor’s. I said they might stay overnight.”

  “Oh-h,” I groan and let my head drop onto my knees, and Little Sister pats me on the back of my head.

  “You can’t expect to put her off that way forever,” Uncle Hob says. When I look up again, he is looking at Aunt Patty like her mind has flown the coop.

  “She’s never going to let me hear the end of this,” Aunt Patty says.

  After a long moment during which Uncle Hob says nothing to comfort Aunt Patty, I say “We could go downstairs and she’ll never know. We won’t any of us say a word about this.”

  Little Sister shakes her head. No, not a word.

  “Now that wouldn’t do,” Uncle Hob says. “You can’t be keeping secrets from your mother.”

  Little Sister shakes her head. No, no secrets.

  “She’s coming to get them,” Aunt Patty says nervously, and Little Sister’s hand creeps into mine. It is a hopeful hand, I think. “She’s driving over.”

  “Well, good,” Uncle Hob says and settles back. “It’s like a family reunion.”

  “She started out much earlier today. She called to say she’s coming near,” Aunt Patty adds.

  “It’s time,” Uncle Hob says.

  “Time for what?” Aunt Patty says. She is sounding more cranky than nervous now.

  “Time for her to concentrate on the living,” Uncle Hob answers. “She has two beautiful daughters who are still with her. Or who could be.”

  “It’s going to be a disaster,” Aunt Patty says, her stubbornness rearing its ugly head.

  “It was never a disaster,” Uncle Hob says firmly.

  “They were living like, well, like every day was their last. Like they wouldn’t ever need another dish, so why wash one. Like—”

  “Like my grandpa and I lived the summer after Gramma died. You remember me telling you about that, dumplin’?”

  “I remember. It was like you were ab
andoned, like they abandoned you to that old man,” Aunt Patty says.

  “No,” Uncle Hob says. “We only had each other, it’s true. But there were things he had to teach me. Things I needed to learn. Things no one else could teach me, maybe, because they weren’t able to share their pain with each other.”

  “What do you mean?” Aunt Patty says.

  “I learned that year—just in time, really,” Uncle Hob says, almost as if he is talking to himself, “before I started to believe all that baloney about what it is that makes a man—I learned to cry unashamedly. It was the saving of me, really.”

  “I don’t know what you mean by that,” I say. But I’m holding on to Little Sister’s hand awful hard; I’m that unsure of whether I even want to know what Uncle Hob means. She wiggles her fingers to make me loosen up.

  “I might never have learned to cry if it weren’t for that time with my grandfather,” Uncle Hob says. “I might never have learned to cry. Which means I might never have known really what it is to pray or to laugh right down deep into my belly or to tell your aunt Patty how much I love her.”

  “Crying is important, then?” I’m suddenly afraid I’m about to cry and I don’t even know why.

  “Knowing that time is short is important. Knowing to make the best use of it you can, that’s important. Letting those around you know you love them. Because you never know when you’ll have to say good-bye.”

  Now Little Sister’s fingers tighten around mine.

  “All those things are important,” Uncle Hob says. “They are the most important things.”

  Little Sister nods, patting Uncle Hobart on the knee as if to comfort him because she is sitting next to him. Little Sister is the sweetest thing sometimes. Only Baby could ever be sweeter.

  The air has gone all quiet. It’s as sticky as it has been throughout the day, but it is soothing now in some way that it couldn’t be while the sun was right overhead. We all sit together and watch the clouds gather. A trickle of something bright and silvery-white, like melted platinum, wanders across the sky.

  “Looks like we’re going to get some weather,” Uncle Hob says after a while.

  “Not till after dark,” I say. I don’t even know how I know that.