Chapter 10

A couple of evenings later, Uncle Cy held a fish fry on the island for our extended family and a number of his friends from town. Uncle Luther was there with his wife, Suellen, and their sons Earl, Jason, and Denny. The mayor of Mercy, Granville Drake, came with his wife and children, as did several members of the town council. Reverend Ralph Kilkenny of Grace Presbyterian Church showed up and invited us to services on Sunday, an invitation Mother and Daddy accepted gratefully.

Mother mingled with Aunt Suellen and the other ladies while Daddy spent most of the evening in quiet conversation with Mercy’s Chief of Police, a ruddy-faced bear of a man named Neal Macnish. He and Daddy had been friends all the way through school but had lost touch when Daddy left Mercy back in 1902. The intervening years had left them with a lot of catching up to do.

As for me, I wasn’t feeling very sociable. Uncle Cy said he’d invited the sheriff of Warren County, Jerry Wiant, which meant Marcus should have been there, but he wasn’t. For whatever reason, the sheriff and his family weren’t able to attend. I was trying to come to terms with the idea that there would be no more dances with Marcus. I hadn’t heard from him since Saturday, and here it was Wednesday. The passing of the days told me he wasn’t interested in coming back.

After eating, I stood barefoot along the river’s edge, my toes in the water. I looked up and down the river for bootleggers, but the only boats out on the water were our own rowboats and canoes. Down the shore from where I stood, my teenaged cousins competed to see who could spit a watermelon seed the farthest into the Little Miami. I was thinking about getting another helping of watermelon myself when Uncle Cy sauntered over and joined me.

“Having a good time, Eve?” he asked.

“Yes,” I lied.

“Want me to introduce you to some of the young ladies?”

I looked over my shoulder at the crowded picnic tables and felt my stomach turn. “Not right now, Uncle Cy. But maybe later.”

He nodded, pulled a cigar out of his shirt pocket, and lighted it. I rarely saw him smoke; most of the time he was simply too busy. He inhaled deeply, let it out. “You and your family doing all right? I mean, you feel like you’re settling in all right?”

I smiled. “Oh yes. I love being here, Uncle Cy. I really do. I have so many good memories of the island from my childhood.”

He took another pull on his cigar. Even the scent of tobacco brought back warm memories of earlier times. “I’m glad you do, darling,” he said.

“I think it’s a shame we didn’t come here for so many years.”

Another nod. “I do too. Wish you’d gotten back sooner.”

“Really, Uncle Cy?”

He looked at me with his large brown eyes. “Of course.”

“Well.” I picked up a pebble and tossed it in the water. “Why didn’t we? I mean, I know you and Daddy had a fight about something at the wedding, but it seems like it shouldn’t have kept us away.”

“Did Drew say that?”

“What?”

“Did your father say we’d fought?”

“Yes. Although he doesn’t remember what the fight was about.”

Two long pulls on the cigar. Then, “Funny. I don’t remember fighting.”

“Really?”

Uncle Cy shook his head. “We’ve had plenty of arguments in our time, but I don’t remember a fight at the wedding. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, though. But as far as you not getting back here sooner, I think there might be something else involved. Drew . . . your daddy . . . he never really felt like he fit in here. He was always comparing himself to me and Luther and feeling like he came up short. Of course, it’s a bunch of poppycock, his feeling that way. Drew’s as good a man as ever lived and better than most. He just doesn’t believe it.”

For a moment I couldn’t speak. I felt a rush of love for Uncle Cy that sent me up on my toes so I could plant a kiss on his sweaty cheek.

“What was that for?” he asked with a smile.

“For believing in Daddy.”

“Well, he’s a Marryat, isn’t he?”

I nodded. We Marryats, with a few exceptions like Cassandra, were cut from good cloth. “Uncle Cy?”

“Yes, darling?”

“The other day when I was out boating with Jones, we saw a couple of bootleggers on the river. Did you know there are bootleggers around here?”

“Sure.” He squinted against the setting sun as he looked upriver. “But we don’t have anything to do with them. We mind our own business, and they mind theirs. It’s best that way.”

“They won’t bother us?”

“Of course not. Why would they?”

I shrugged, trying to look nonchalant, trying not to let Uncle Cy sense my fear. “Where is Jones, by the way?” I asked. “Shouldn’t he be here?”

“Jones?” Uncle Cy frowned as he exhaled a long stream of smoke. “He doesn’t much care for social gatherings like this. Last I saw him he was working on his radios.”

“Oh.” Of course, I thought. Had I really needed to ask? “Maybe I’ll take him some watermelon. Do you think he’d mind?”

“I think he’d like that. He—”

“Cy!” A heavyset man approached us, waving an arm. His unkempt moustache wiggled like a caterpillar while he spoke. “Beg pardon for interrupting, but I got a bit of business for the town council. We can bring it up at our next meeting, though I’m not sure it can wait that long. Granville tells me we’ve got the gopher problem again.”

“The gopher problem, Stan?”

“They’re back digging their tunnels in the graveyard and scattering bones around the grounds. Someone found a shinbone far away as Water Street. We all got family buried there, and we can’t have them being dragged hither and yon, Cy. We got to get this thing under control.”

Uncle Cy sighed. “All right, Stan,” he said. He tossed what was left of his cigar on the pebbled beach and ground it out with his shoe. “Maybe we can call an emergency meeting. . . .”

As Uncle Cy drifted off with a hand on Stan’s shoulder, I went to get a plate of watermelon for Jones.