Uncle Ethel

Uncle Ethel

a novel by

Kathryn Marie Bild

Rooftop Books

a division of Rooftop Arts

New York City

www.rooftoparts.com

Smashwords Edition

Rooftop Books

a division of Rooftop Arts

P.O. Box 878, New York, N.Y. 10021

www.rooftoparts.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2009 by Kathryn Marie Bild

All Rights Reserved.

Library of Congress #2010905776

Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Bild, Kathryn Marie

Uncle Ethel: a novel by Kathryn Marie Bild

ISBN: 978-1-102-06184-7

book design by Doug Barron

cover photo by Nesya Blue

Published in The United States of America, September 2009

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ALSO BY KATHRYN MARIE BILD:

FICTION:

Miss Madeline Goes Shopping

NON-FICTION:

Acting From A Spiritual Perspective

The Actors Quotation Book

Einstein For Infants (humor)

Kathryn Marie Bild at Smashwords.com

for my family

chapter 1

While Penny Crisler was searching for napkins inside her great aunt’s Shaker hutch, she discovered a large brown leather photo album. The album, although fifty years old, had been kept with impeccable care.

My goodness, where did you find that old thing? her Aunt Ethel asked as she entered the dining room carrying a large handful of freshly polished silverware. I’ve been looking for that for days.

Right in there, Penny answered, indicating the hutch. Then quickly, before her aunt could object, she set the album on the dining table and opened it.

Aunt Ethel didn’t object. She lay the silverware down, next to the album, on top of the lace table cloth that had been her mother’s, wiped her damp hands on her pink and white checked apron that covered her floral house dress and peered over Penny’s shoulder.

Well, thank you, dear, she said. That was the one album I couldn’t find. Right in there?

Uh-huh. In the back. Sitting up on its side. Against the back wall.

Oh, yes, said Aunt Ethel.

But Aunt Ethel didn’t remember that she had put it there less than a week ago, in a special place so she would be able to lay her hand on it quickly. She had forgotten the moment she’d placed it there. Now that her great niece had recovered it, though, Ethel felt much relieved. For weeks she had been trying to get everything in order. And when she had begun to miss her favorite photo album, the one she most wanted to pass on to her niece Betty, Penny’s mother, not only had she felt upset about the loss, she had begun to worry that she wouldn’t be ready by the time she heard the angel’s call.

Ethel Owens Holman was seventy-four and still beautiful. When young men saw her they would say to themselves or to their companions that she must have been a knock-out in her day. They hadn’t yet grown to recognize how really beautiful she had become. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas of lower middle class farmers descended from Irish/Scottish/French immigrants, Ethel had been the eldest of two girls. Her parents had been practicing Southern Baptists—hard-working, good-natured and affectionate people. They taught their daughters the value of integrity and dedication. But, while both girls were inspired by their mother’s loving example, Ethel seemed to have been born with a special, inherent knowledge that loving others was the only true road to happiness.

When Ethel was eighteen, she and her family moved out to California to take up ranching in the San Fernando Valley. She met George Holman seven years later, on the morning of her twenty-fifth birthday. George was driving home after having been expelled from Princeton for all-around failure to adapt to college life when, arrested by a beautiful sight, he pulled his white Mercedes convertible to the side of the road beside a white paddock fence to enjoy it. Beyond the fence, a beautiful young woman with shoulder length curls the color of the chestnut mare she was riding appeared fearless and free, and happy, as she and her horse flew across an oak-dotted field. Two years later, once George had begun to entertain hope of success in his experimentations with what would later become known as plastics, Ethel and George were married.

Not long afterwards, George and Ethel purchased a small nearby ranch of their own, which, as George’s business grew, they improved and expanded. For a time it was a successful working ranch with horses, a few head of cattle, and chickens, and included small orchards of apricots, avocados and walnut trees. But fifteen years ago now, when the Holman’s were in their late fifties, George sold the animals to his next-door neighbor and Ethel sowed the pastures with wild flower seeds.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, Penny’s Great Aunt Ethel sang softly to herself as she looked at the photos of her husband and Penny carefully turned the leaves. You make me happy when skies are gray. You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away. Then, starting over, she just hummed the tune.

Aunt Ethel’s singing was unconscious on her part. She always sang this particular song when she looked at the photographs of her husband. George would occasionally catch her doing it and tease her about it but she didn’t care. The song perfectly expressed the way she felt when she beheld her beloved’s image. Her beloved. He was a handsome man when he was young, but no more so than he appeared to his wife today.

Oh! she exclaimed when she saw a particularly flattering shot of him at the age of about forty-five. Penny let the leaf float back open. Isn’t he handsome here, Penny?

Penny would not have been quick to agree with this view of Uncle George—not if handsome is as handsome does—but before she had time to even hesitate, Aunt Ethel touched the photo with the forefinger of her translucent hand and it was as if her aunt’s love for him caused the dining room to suddenly turn from black and white into color. Suddenly, the napkins were a brighter yellow, the white lace table cloth became brilliant, Aunt Ethel’s bright blue eyes sparkled with a richer sapphire intensity—and, indeed, Uncle George did look handsome.

Yes, she answered, surprised by her own perception, he does; and she was pleased that she could agree with her on the subject. Especially since, in her heart of hearts, she did.

Something slid out of the album. It was a white envelope, aged but otherwise ordinary in appearance. But by the way Aunt Ethel caught it before it hit the floor, Penny could see that, in addition to the sheet of paper that comprised its contents, it held great meaning for her aunt.

What is that, Aunt Ethel? she asked.

Ethel smiled. Something very important to your uncle and me, she said. She opened the envelope and was about to share its contents with Penny when she was stopped by a piercing cry.

Naomi! came the roaring, almost plaintive, male cry. It had come from the living room.

Ethel and Penny looked, first at one another, then down the long hallway which led into the living room and saw three now very silent men and a twelve year old boy sitting as still as mice. They then looked to the left into the kitchen, and saw two now still and silent women—one in her forties, the other in her thirties—and a ten-year-old little girl, staring toward the living room. Animation had ceased throughout the house but neither Penny nor Ethel could grasp what had caused such alarm. Then it dawned on Ethel. One very headstrong five-year-old bundle of joy was unaccounted for. And even before Naomi Mahoney, the younger of the two women in the kitchen, bolted toward the living room, Ethel was halfway down the hall.

Uncle George was seated in a tall leather wing chair, next to an empty cane-backed rocker, which was positioned in such a way that his back was to Aunt Ethel when she entered the room. The attention of the other three men and the boy in the living room was fixed upon Uncle George and the wriggling bundle who was trying to crawl up into his lap, and was diverted only slightly as Aunt Ethel approached. One of the men, Frank Mahoney, a handsome, dark-haired man about forty dressed in dark slacks and a long-sleeved white shirt, stood up and was about to handle the situation when Aunt Ethel, coming up behind her husband’s chair, raised her hand and gave Frank a wink, which made him settle back down into his.

Now, what seems to be the matter? Ethel asked in a cool, soothing voice as she lay her hand on her husband’s broad shoulder. And, all at once, her presence was more palpable to the others for the immediate lessening of tension that it achieved. For all but Uncle George, that is.

George Holman, the man in the photos—now nearly thirty years older—still slender and handsome with soft blue eyes and silver hair cropped close to his head, became even more agitated by the fearful hope of deliverance she generated in him.

She wants her mother! he roared, shaking with discomfort as he tried to keep the overwhelming advance at bay. But it was steadily and successfully overwhelming him, only encouraged by what appeared to her as a playful challenge on the part of her Great Uncle George.

No, I don’t! contradicted five-year-old Katie Mahoney with a devilish glint in her eye. I want my Uncle George!

Everyone except George found this charming and amusing. But, with the exception of Aunt Ethel, their mirth was also peppered with varying degrees of anger toward Uncle George.

Uncle George had always seemed somewhat cold and uncaring to his nieces and nephews, but he had become worse since his retirement two years ago. And the reactions to his increasing unpleasantness seemed to be running the gamut from greater tenderness and tolerance on the part of his wife to a smoldering, near igniting hatred on the part of Naomi who was now standing at the living room door with her sister-in-law—Frank’s sister, Betty—and Betty’s two daughters, Penny and Ginnie, watching the bitter old man struggling against the affection of her daughter.

Aunt Ethel still had the floor. Come to your Aunt Ethel, darling, she said as she walked around the chair to the child.

But Katie would not be dissuaded. No! she said with such unmitigated finality that everyone but Uncle George laughed in admiration of her moxie. Marshaling her forces this time, she grasped the denim fabric covering her great uncle’s large bony knees, bent her own small ones, then leapt as hard and as high up as she could, to hoist herself into Uncle George’s lap.

She almost made it. She would have made it, but instead of assisting his young niece’s guileless ascent into his lap, or just leaving her alone, the rigid, old uncle had held her tightly by her small, now very pink, elbows, which had had the unfortunate effect of failing her flight of but two or three inches and causing her to strike her chin on his knee and bite her tongue hard upon landing.

All smiles plunged into frowns and groans. Aunt Ethel knelt down beside Katie as the first siren blast erupted from her bloody little mouth. Naomi rushed toward her but Frank was up again and swooped Katie into his arms before she reached her. The others all stood and fidgeted and twitched sympathetically. Only Uncle George seemed unmoved.

Well, if her mother was watching her like she should have been, this wouldn’t have happened! he growled with a frown, which masked any sign of true feeling.

At this, Naomi was grievously offended. She wanted to pounce on her husband’s old uncle. She looked demandingly at Frank to see if he would defend her but he had their crying daughter in his arms and didn’t seem to have heard him. She looked at Betty. Betty had heard him but she just shook her head sympathetically at Naomi and then lowered her eyes to the ground.

Only Ethel knew that George hadn’t meant what he’d said. It had been nothing more than a guilt-ridden, fear-filled reaction and, as always, in her mind she excused it. He felt sorry that he had caused Katie to bite her tongue. Of course, he did. She knew he felt painfully sorry. It was just that George didn’t know how to express his feelings to anyone other than her.

George Holman was two years younger than his wife and he had teased her about her being an older woman all of their married life. Ethel liked it. She knew it was one of her husband’s few ways of expressing his appreciation for her. For Ethel was one of those talented women able to transmute the basest of words and actions into purely innocent intentions. She could see directly through hatred to its cause of fear, and through fear to the innocence it was attempting to protect. And her talent lay in addressing neither the reaction, nor the fear, but rather the precious, innocent child. When she had begun to do that with George nearly fifty years ago, he had begun, that same day, to imagine a future in which Ethel would be his wife.

Born in Decalb, Illinois, George Holman had been the only child of emotionally distant middle class parents who, instead of comforting him when he was hurt or afraid, blamed and scolded him, lecturing him that he had better learn how to be tough. He was taught that the world was