“Believe me, I know this is awkward for you. But I do understand what this is all about. As you must know, when Daddy died, Uncle Harry came down and talked to me, to try to soothe me, calm me. What upset Uncle Harry was I wasn’t upset. I wish he could have understood that as far as I was concerned my father had died long before that stupid crash, and that my brother’s death was of a far greater importance to me, because I had... I had hope for Walter. But Walter was stubborn. Stubborn as hell, and he wanted to walk in his father’s footsteps, God alone knows why. So I could accept his death, too.”
Nolan sipped his tea. He felt uncomfortable. He wished he’d thought this out better, planned exactly how he was going to handle the daughter. But who could have planned for a girl like this, anyway? Nothing to do but sit here and let her talk.
“So, as I said, this is entirely unnecessary. I heard the news on the television, and I was saddened for a moment, but I must admit that while Uncle Harry was a nice man in his way, I feel the world will be a better place without him. People like my uncle, and my father, are destructive, to themselves and to their society. My family had long been a part of organized corruption, our family history is long and illustrious in that regard. My mother’s father, my grandfather, why they write books about him! Famous people played him in the movies, I was a celebrity as a little girl because of it — the only kid on the block whose grandpa was on ‘The Untouchables’! No, I won’t miss Uncle Harry, just like I won’t miss my father. You want to know who I miss? Walter, sure, Walt, but mostly, I miss my mother, I wish I could sit and talk to my mother. She was ten years older than Daddy, she was a good woman and always pretended she didn’t realize Daddy married her because she was somebody’s daughter. She was young when she died, in her early sixties, and she died more of neglect than anything else, but she was too much in love with Daddy ever to complain — at least she never complained loud enough for me to hear. My whole family was caught up in that other Family, it drained the life out of all of us, and so please tell your people not to come bother me anymore. It’s so ridiculous now, there’s not a close blood relative left and yet still they feel obliged to send you, out of some insane, archaic sense of duty or custom or something. Excuse me. I hope I haven’t offended you. But you must understand. My father was dead long before he was killed in that crash. He was morally dead. My uncle, too. Can you understand that?”
Nolan nodded. He cleared his throat, said, “Uh, you were in the Peace Corps, weren’t you?”
“Yes. Guatemala. I was in the Central American jungle, with very primitive people, who believe in evil spirits and that sort of thing. We built them a school. It was a good experience, but it was as much escape as service, and I realize now that my joining the Peace Corps was somewhat hypocritical. I’m back in college again, taking a degree in English this time, because I want to help where I’m needed most, and where my own moral need is greatest. I hope to teach in the slums, the ghettos. In Chicago, if at all possible. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
He did.
“No,” he said.
“I want to go into the jungle where it’s my father’s kind who are the evil spirits. His kind who need warding off. With education, with patience, with love, maybe a person like me can teach the underfed, the underprivileged, educate them into understanding that hell is what the heroin dealers offer, to realize the absurdity of spending five dollars a day on a game of chance when your family is starving, to know what it is to...”
He stopped listening to her. Bleeding-heart liberals gave him a pain in the butt. She was doing her best, he supposed, but she was starting to sound like the naive, condescending child she was.
“I’m sorry Uncle Harry is dead,” she said after a while, “and please thank whoever it was that sent you. But that part of me is gone now. I won’t miss Uncle Harry. I’ll admit I miss my mother. My brother, too. And I miss the father of my childhood.”
“I knew you when you were little,” Nolan said. It was a shot in the dark, untrue, of course. But he tried it.
“You did?”
“I came around to your summer place once. On business.”
She found a smile somewhere and showed it to him. “I won’t lie and say I remember you, but I guess you could’ve seen me when I was a child. I can remember that Daddy was secretive about that place, about Eagle’s Roost.” She grinned, forgetting herself. “He bawled Uncle Harry out one time, bawled him out terrible, for bringing business people around to the lodge. I can remember it so clearly. Maybe you were one of the men with Uncle Scary, uh, Harry that time. Maybe that was the time you saw me.”
“I think it was,” Nolan said. “I remember how mad your father got.”
