I Was There the Night He Died by Ray Robertson Page B

knew; people who worked with Sara in fundraising at the OSPCA—would run into one or the other of us and say, “We never see you guys anymore. We really need to get together.” And e-mail addresses would be verified and phone calls would be promised and another few months would go by and it would still be just Sara and Sam, Sam and Sara. It wasn’t misanthropy; we never fell out with anyone; it was never anything we planned on happening. But even when we fought, we knew there was only us. We’d snap, we’d snarl, we’d scream at each other, but it was almost like arguing with yourself—as if, until a soft word or firm embrace finally stopped the shouting, you simply weren’t whole anymore, were only half of what you were supposed to be.
    Uncle Donny honks, but my laptop is still turned on and the electric blanket is still plugged in, and by the time I get everything shut off and am putting my coat on, he’s at the door, not bothering to knock or ring the doorbell, going straight for the door handle. Which is locked. Which causes him to pound on the door with his fist and yell, “It’s me, let me in.” Which I do.
    â€œIt’s the middle of the day, what are you doing locking your door for?”
    Every time I came home from university for a visit, Uncle Donny would remind me over another of my mother’s epic Sunday dinners, “You know, if you lived in Chatham, you could eat like this all the time.” I made the mistake only once of attempting to explain to him that St. Clair College, Chatham’s local academy of higher learning, was renowned more for its certificate in air conditioning repair than for its liberal arts course selection. “Which reminds me,” he said, turning to my dad. “I’m gettin’ water running all down the back of my damn a/c unit. Seems to me like it’s working way too hard for what it’s putting out.” My dad poured some more creamed corn over his mashed potatoes and promised to drop by the next day and have a look. Uncle Donny never needed an air-conditioning repair man; Uncle Donny had my dad.
    I get my other arm through the other coat sleeve and slap my jean pocket to make sure I’ve got my keys. “Do you want a pop?” I say. Uncle Donny quit drinking alcohol and began drinking pop before I was born, replacing a vodka bottle with a pop can virtually overnight, sacrificing only his teeth and giving himself a mild case of diabetes in return for the salvation of his liver and his life. Never seeing Uncle Donny drunk is one of the things I’ve always been most grateful for.
    â€œWhat have you got?”
    â€œMountain Dew.”
    Uncle Donny makes a face.
    â€œI’ve also got Diet Mountain Dew.”
    Uncle Donny keeps making a face; adds a dismissive shake of the head to the mix. “I’ve got one going in the car, let’s just get a move on.”
    Uncle Donny doesn’t approve of my not driving, not driving being a fault of mine as a man, not owning a car being a fault of mine as the grandson and son and nephew of two generations of auto workers. I was a teenage driver, of course, borrowing the family’s ’67 Buick Skylark every chance I got, but who needs a car in Toronto when you’re nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-five? And by the time there was a reason to get behind the wheel again—car-rented road trips with Sara when we were first going out, visits to her parents or mine once we were married—Sara always did the driving because she was the better driver, and one year it just seemed silly to pay eighty bucks to renew a piece of paper that was only going to rot in my wallet. And I still don’t need a driver’s licence to live in Toronto. Living in Chatham, however, I’m not so independent. Living in Chatham, I need Uncle Donny.
    Before he turns the key in the ignition Uncle Donny goes right for the cooler resting on the backseat,