Tom Lake(59)

Emily puts down her fork.

“I don’t mean to be insensitive,” Nell says. “You know how glad I am that Uncle Wallace pulled through.”

“He only pulled through until the fall.” Just saying it makes me catch my breath. So many years ago! Dear, stupid, intractable Uncle Wallace.

“He had cirrhosis as well,” Joe says. “He didn’t stop drinking.”

“They put a balloon in his esophagus and he kept drinking?” Emily asks.

Joe and I nod as the girls sadly shake their heads.

“Was that his last performance?” Nell asks. “That night with you?”

Funny how we never know. Uncle Wallace didn’t go onstage thinking it would be his last night. When my last night came I didn’t know it either, my last time to play Emily, my last swim in the lake. “I guess it was, the shape he was in. He went home after he got out of the hospital, back to Chicago.”

“Nell’s right,” Emily says. “Tell us about Lee. You can finish up with Uncle Wallace later but I need a break if I’m going to eat dinner.”

Joe sighs, tents his fingers. “Talking about Uncle Wallace bleeding out onstage will ruin your dinner but talking about Lee will ruin mine.” He looks at me but I shrug. I’ve done most of the telling around here. If Joe is forced to reminisce about Lee, so be it.

“Okay,” he says. “First off, this wasn’t my problem. I had gotten the play to opening night. That was my contractual obligation. Lee was Gene’s problem now.”

“Whatever happened to Gene?” I ask.

“Children’s television,” Joe says. “Last I heard he’d made it to Sesame Street. Gene was a talented guy, but that didn’t mean he was up for Lee. He went to find Lee as soon as the ambulance pulled away. They were still mopping up the stage when Lee had gone back to his house. It must have been eleven o’clock at night by the time Gene got to Lee’s and started knocking on the door.”

“The only person in the company who left the theater was the understudy,” Nell says.

“That’s a bad sign,” Maisie says.

Their father nods. “Gene doesn’t stop knocking. That’s what I liked about Gene. He came across as very mild but he was tenacious. He’d been there maybe fifteen minutes when finally a light goes on upstairs.”

“Tell me he didn’t send his wife down.” I’ve never heard this part of the story.

“He sends his wife down.”

The girls do their unison groan.

“She opens the door six inches, tells Gene it’s late and Lee has gone to bed. He’s very tired after the performance.”

“He wasn’t in the performance!” Nell cries. I can see now that her dinner will be ruined as well.

“Gene tells her to please wake him up, tells her it’s important, a man is very sick. She wants to know if he’s dead, and when Gene says ‘No, Missus’—-” He looks at me again. “What was his last name?”

I can’t remember. I’ve blocked it. Joe nods. “Missus says if Uncle Wallace isn’t dead then Gene should call in the morning after ten. Gene tells her that Lee can just open the door at ten because he isn’t leaving.”

“I’m assuming there was a . . .” Emily pauses, searching for the correct word, “a dynamic at work here.”

“Black man, white woman, huge house, middle of the night,” Joe says. “Yes, there was a dynamic. In fact I would hazard to say it was the dynamic that sent Gene into a career of directing puppets. But into that dynamic walks Lee himself, glasses on, fully dressed, asking his wife who had come to see them so late. Oh, Gene, goodness, I didn’t know it was you, so then they have to go through all of that.”

Maisie pushes away her plate.

“Lee sends his wife back to bed and steps out on the front porch, closing the door behind him. Gene tells him he’ll have to go on as the Stage Manager, day after tomorrow. Then Lee asks if Uncle Wallace is dead. When Gene says no, Lee completely relaxes. He claps Gene on the shoulder. ‘He’ll be fine,’ he says. ‘It might not seem like it but trust me, I’ve known this guy a long time. He always goes on. If he has to walk here from the hospital, he’ll do it. He won’t miss a show.’?”

I pound my hand on the table. “He’s missing the show!” I say this as the person he bled on, the person who went to see him in the hospital.

Joe nods again, a marvel of restraint. “They go in circles for a while, Gene explaining and Lee demurring until finally Gene, who doesn’t feel like he’s been hinting at anything, becomes explicit: The company will not allow Albert Long to return, and as his understudy, Lee will perform the role on Thursday night.”

Then suddenly I do remember. Joe told me this story eons ago. I remember all of it. “This is the best part!”

“Lee just stares at him and finally he says, ‘I would prefer not to.’ Then he goes inside and closes the door.”

“Bartleby!” Nell shouts. “He Bartlebied him.”

Her sisters, smart women both, stare blankly.

“?‘Bartleby the Scrivener,’?” Nell says. “Herman Melville. Look it up.”

“How do you remember these things?” Emily asks her sister.