It was so shocking to me, so shaming, and still I was grateful.
Pallace gave me the keys to her Honda and I went back to my room to change. She couldn’t come with me because it wasCabaretnight, and while it might have been nice if Duke had offered to ride along, we both knew Uncle Wallace wouldn’t care about seeing him.
“Which brings us to the subject of Lee,” Nell says over dinner.
“Wait, who’s Lee again?” Maisie asks.
Joe nods solemnly. “Who is Lee, indeed.”
“The understudy?” Emily scoops green beans onto her plate. “The rich guy?”
“The talentless, unprepared understudy,” Nell clarifies. “He’s like one of those crazed axe murderers who’s hiding in the basement. I’ve been waiting for him to reemerge this entire time.”
“Are you serious?” Maisie says. “Poor Uncle Wallace is in the hospital having practically bled to death on our mother and you’re thinking about the understudy?”
“He was something to think about,” Joe says.
“Stop it!” Emily says. “For all we know, Uncle Wallace is dead.”
Joe and I shake our heads in unison.
“What happened to him?” Maisie asks.
“Esophageal varices,” I say. “It’s a rupture in the vein that runs along the bottom of the esophagus. Truly, something you do not want to happen.”
“How do they fix it?” Maisie asks, and I know that before she goes to sleep tonight she will be looking up esophageal varices to see if it can happen to dogs, to pigs, to rabbits.
“They put something called a Blakemore tube down the throat. There’s a balloon on the end.” I stop myself. “Forget it. You don’t want to know.”
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 toSesame 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.
