Us and Uncle Fraud (13 page)

"You take it, Marcus," he said, gesturing from his wheelchair to the bicycle. "You do my paper route until I'm better."

And Marcus, who once would willingly have undergone terrible tortures before getting up at dawn to ride a paper route, took over for Tom. He went to bed early each night so that he could wake
up at five, and I missed the laughter late at night and the notes poked through our secret place.

Throughout the summer, our town was rebuilt and the damage from the flood repaired. It took many weeks to put the cemetery back together. Teams of burly workers, like ants inching breadcrumbs to their nest, moved the heavy gravestones from the places where they had been strewn by the flood and arranged them in rows to be returned to their proper locations. Downed trees were sawed into manageable lengths and hauled away; uprooted shrubbery was discarded and new grass was planted. Meticulously, the workers replaced the ruined wall. The entire cemetery was cordoned off with ropes and No Trespassing signs while the men labored there through the summer. But on a Wednesday afternoon, the ropes and barriers were opened and I went inside once again, this time with an escort of three policemen.

The landscape was changed, and I stood on the path—new gravel now—and looked around to get my bearings. Behind me was the gate. Ahead, where I could hear the thumping noises from the workers, was the wall. The path curved, and the land, bare now of gravestones, which were still waiting to be reset, looked unfamiliar.

My father was with us, and he could see my confusion. "Take your time, Louise," he said. "Let's start down by the river. I'll show you where I found Tom's bike."

And so he took me there, with the police following silently behind.

"Here," said Father, pointing to the spot. "Tom's bike was here."

I looked at the patch of bare earth. Behind me, I could hear the policemen shift their feet. One muttered to another, "That was his son, the boy who—"

"Marcus was over there," I said, and pointed. "He was throwing up. And that—" I pointed again, to the tree trunk scarred by a massive laceration in its side, "was the tree that fell."

Father nodded, and we both stared for a moment at the tree that had both nearly destroyed and possibly saved my brothers and me.

"I was here. And when I saw that Marcus was okay, I started to run to get help. I ran this way. I thought I was on the path, but it was all water, so I couldn't see."

I began to walk, and they followed me.

"I was heading for the gate, and I was trying to think which way to turn when I got to the street. I think—no, wait; I went
this
way. I remember going between these two trees."

I turned from the path and walked between the two huge trees, which still stood, firm and upright.

"There were some places that weren't under water," I said, "because they were higher. See over there? That little hill?"

Father nodded.

"That's not the one. I ran past that one, and over there, that second hill—that's the one where he was. I could barely see him because of the rain. At first I thought he was a statue. Then, when I realized it was a man, I thought he was praying."

We all headed for the second hill. "Did he see you, Louise?" one of the policemen asked.

"Yes, and he heard me, too, when I got close, because I was screaming. I scared him. He yelled at me to go away."

"Then what happened?"

"When I was close enough, I saw that it was Kenny Stratton's father. And I told him what had happened to Tom. He ran for help. He ran to that house over there, outside the gate."

"When did he drop the pitcher?"

"When he stood up and started to run. I didn't know what it was. I just picked it up and ran after him."

By now we were all standing on the side of the hill. The sun was hot, and the earth was solid, baked firm, but marked with the ravages of the rain. One of the policemen poked at the dry, hard dirt. He went to the top of the small rise and scraped with a stick until a flat stone marker was revealed.

"Mary Stratton," he said, reading the carved words. "He was digging in his own family's burial plot, for crissake."

The policeman who seemed to be the leader of the trio glanced down at the name. "He wasn't so dumb," he said. "Anybody seeing him digging here
would think he was planting flowers or something. Maybe praying, like the girl thought.

"Let's rope this area off before we start digging." He was directing the other two men. "Mr. Cunningham," he said, turning to Father, "you can take your daughter home now. The county attorney will be in touch with you."

"Father," I said, as he and I walked toward the cemetery gate, "I can go home alone. You ought to stay, for the paper."

He stopped for a moment, looked back, and sighed. Then he put his arm around my shoulders. "I'll call them when I get back," he said. "I can send someone over to cover it. For once in my life, I think I'd just like to walk my daughter home."

On the day of Mr. Stratton's hearing, I was both terrified and proud because I was called to testify. My parents sat solemnly in the courtroom and watched as I perched on the witness stand in my best dress and answered the questions as carefully and honestly as I could.

When I had finished, and the judge smiled and said, "You may step down now, Louise," I hesitated. I had been looking at Mr. Stratton sitting there with his pinched face, so much like Kenny's, and he looked so ashamed and so scared.

I bit my lip. "Can I say something else?" I asked the judge in a whisper. He nodded.

"I know they found all the other stuff there, where it was buried," I said earnestly. "And my father
told me that the man from the pawn shop identified Mr. Stratton, so I guess it's true that he stole all the silver. But I think it's important that when I screamed to him because my brother was drowning Mr. Stratton put the pitcher down and ran as fast as he could for help. He didn't even think twice. He helped me. And—well, that's all. I just think that's important."

"Thank you, Louise," the judge said. "We will certainly keep that in mind."

I told my father that I thought my picture should be on page one because I was a witness in the case; but he laughed and said he hoped there would never be a Cunningham on page one again.

One night, fooling around with Marcus in his room after supper, I said to him, "You know, Uncle Claude didn't steal the silver."

"I know that. If he had, old Kenny Stratton wouldn't have had to move to Cleveland to live with his grandparents. So what?"

"So I don't hate Uncle Claude anymore."

"I don't hate him either. I don't think I ever really did."

"And maybe he isn't a complete liar, like I thought."

"Maybe he'll drive up in a Rolls-Royce someday," Marcus suggested.

"And
maybe
, Marcus, he really did smuggle those eggs out of Russia—"

Marcus groaned. "Well, tough luck if he did. I'm sick of searching this house."

"Yeah, me, too, but I've decided it doesn't matter if we ever find them. It's like you said once, the whole house is special just because it might have a treasure in it."

"Also," Marcus pointed out, "he really does know Russian, Louisamanda."

"Yeah."

I could hear Tom across the hall in his room, walking heavily and slowly from his desk to his bed. One of his legs still dragged awkwardly, but he said he didn't mind; the doctors had promised that it would improve after a while. "Hey, Tom!" I called.

"What?"

"
Ya tebya lyublyu!
"

Tom's stern voice, so much like Father's, came back across the hall. "Marcus," he called, "and Louise. Can't you two obnoxious infants find something productive to do?"

Marcus and I dissolved in giggles.

Tom hadn't changed. Nothing had, really. But Marcus and I had changed in our knowledge of things. We loved Tom, and we had not truly known that before. And we knew now, really, that Claude had lied; but we accepted that, because Claude was different, because he was part of our family, and because he loved us.

Downstairs, we could hear Father muttering as he turned the pages of the paper, and Mother's low, expressive voice as she read a bedtime story to Stephanie. All around us, the house throbbed with the regular sounds of family life and of the love that bound us together, despite our flaws. The recognition of that was Claude's real gift—and, as Claude had said, it was a priceless one. But fragile? Claude was wrong about that. It was not fragile at all.