Uncle Ethel

After lunch, as the coffee was brewing and Betty and Penny were clearing the table, bringing the luncheon dishes into the kitchen, and Ginnie was taking desert plates and forks into the dining room, Uncle George hummed "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" to himself as he rinsed and stacked the lunch plates. Katie, sleepy after having eaten, entered the kitchen holding her doll by one arm. She snuggled up close to her grand uncle's legs.
"Hi, Uncle George," she said sweetly.
Uncle George stopped humming; tears filled his eyes as he looked down at his sweet young niece.
Naomi took a step toward her. "Katie, honey," she said, reaching for her.
"No!" Katie yanked her shoulder away from her. "I want my Uncle George!"
This moved her uncle even more. "Of course, you do, honey," he said sadly. He turned off the water, bent down and lifted her and her doll into his arms and rocked them both.
"Well," said Naomi, "that's the third time. I guess some things do change."
George looked at her then softly began to cry.
Naomi could have kicked herself. "I'm sorry," she said. "That was a dumb thing to say."
"No, it wasn't," he said. "It's true. Things do change. I'm just feeling a little emotional today. It must be the occasion. It's just that I miss him so much."
Naomi shot Betty a look.
"Who?" asked Ginnie, coming in to get a stack of coffee cups.
"Aunt Ethel, Ginnie," her Aunt Naomi said.
"He said 'him'," said Ginnie.
"No, he didn't, honey," said her mother.
"Yes, he did."
"No, you misunderstood, Ginnie," Betty said pointedly. "Come on, everyone. Let's have dessert," she said, giving her daughter a look that sent her back out of the kitchen before the others.
"You all go in, will you?" Uncle George asked as he handed Katie and her doll to Naomi. "I'll be in in a moment. I just need a minute to myself."
Betty winked privately at Naomi. "He made himself a birthday cake," she whispered as they left the kitchen together.
"You're kidding!" she said.
"Nope. I saw it. I offered to make him one but he wouldn't let me." They giggled quietly at the eccentricity. "I also offered to help him clear out some of Aunt Ethel's belongings yesterday," she added. "I won't tell you what he said to that."
"He cursed?" guessed Naomi.
"He cursed."
They laughed.
When they had gone and he was alone, George closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He patted his chest with his hand. A vision of Ethel materialized in his mind. His only real concern was for her. He listened. He wanted to hear that she was well.
"I am all right," Ethel said in obedience to her visionary's expectation.
"Yes," he said aloud with determination. "I am all right. And we have a birthday to celebrate."
He opened a high kitchen cabinet, brought down the birthday cake that was sitting on a glass cake pedestal, and set the pedestal on the kitchen counter. It was a beautiful double layer white cake with chocolate butter cream frosting, his favorite. White violets rested at the base and, on top, having used Ethel's cake writer, he had scripted, in sweet white frosting, a message.
He fished in his apron pocket for the book of matches he had put there earlier and when he found it, he inadvertently brought out with it Ethel's tube of lipstick. He was about to allow the lipstick to roll off of his fingers back into his pocket, but he stopped it before it fell. He looked at the gold and white floral patterned metal cover, which acted like a magnet from which he couldn't remove his eyes. Slowly, he removed the cover and set it upon the counter. Then carefully, almost reverently, he twisted the base of the tube, rolling up the well-worn flat-topped coral-colored lipstick, and held it before his gaze.
It was understood by now that a place was always to be set for Aunt Ethel. So, as with the dinner and lunch plates, when Ginnie had set out the dessert plates she had set a place for her great aunt, her old place, at the table's end closest to the kitchen. And no one thought anything about it. It was there, they expected it to remain vacant, and that was that.
"Now!" whispered Frank to his son who was standing ready with the blinds' cord twist in his hand as the leading curve of the lighted birthday cake rounded the kitchen doorway. Deftly, Kevin darkened the room.
"Happy birthday to you..." Penny and Timothy led the singing of the birthday song.
The others joined in. "Happy birthday to you..."
Betty and Naomi winked at one another again as Uncle George entered the darkened room carrying his cake.
"Why isn't someone else carrying it?" Tony broke out of song and whispered to his wife.
"Because he made it," Betty whispered back before returning, on cue, to the song.
"For himself?!" whispered Frank.
Betty and Naomi both nodded.
"Happy birthday, dear Geor-orge," Uncle George joined in as he proceeded to his end of the table and set the cake down in front of his place.
"Happy birthday to you," the family concluded in unison.
There were ten lit candles on the cake--seven large ones and three small ones, to signify "seventy-three".
"Kevin, would you and Ginnie like to blow out the candles?" Uncle George asked.
"Sure," they answered.
"Me, too!" said Katie.
"And you too," said her great uncle.
"And don't get spit on it," Penny said with a cruel little laugh.
On three--counted by the seven adults--the three children blew out the candles.
Betty had been trying to read the cake's inscription upside down since Uncle George had set the cake down on the table, but the darkness of the room and the distorting brightness of the candle flames had combined to obscure from her vision the words as much as they had her uncle's face. Once the candles were out, however, though the cake was still upside down, she was able to read what it said. "To My Darling George", she slowly made it out, but she couldn't get it to register. Then Timothy opened the blinds and Kevin laughed a loud, hard laugh and she looked up from the cake to her nephew then to where he was looking--at Uncle George's face--and she grasped the meaning completely.
Then Naomi saw it; she dropped her cup onto her saucer.
Then Frank saw it. "Oh, my God," he said quietly.
Then Penny said, "Holy shit!"
Then there was a moment of silence as everyone except Katie stared at the vision before them. Uncle George, standing at his place at the table, was holding in his hand, point down, the black handle of a long, sharp carving knife, and on his smiling lips and the edges of his large yellow teeth was a thick, smeared coating of coral pink lipstick. Lipstick by Coty, the only lipstick that really stayed on. With a gesture of generosity, he extended the knife toward Betty.
Nobody spoke a word. No one attended to the spilled coffee or the broken cup, or to the horror and sorrow that clutched at their hearts. Nor was anyone, except Katie who, for no apparent reason, began to repeatedly bang her doll's head on the top of the dining table, able to take his or her eyes off of their "Uncle George", a sight all the more frightening because of his obliviousness to their horrified concern as he stood there smiling with a weapon in his hand and his late wife's lipstick on his mouth, waiting for his niece to accept the honor of slicing the birthday cake he had made for himself.
Tony was ready to spring if necessary. He gave Tim the eye. Tim returned it. Then Frank. Then, as steadily as she could manage it with a racing, aching heart, Betty stood up, walked behind her husband, Timothy and Penny, and up to her Uncle George. The tension was nearly shrieking. Smiling plastically, with tears in her eyes, Betty slowly extended her hand toward her uncle's. George, calm and guileless, brought the knife to her in one quick motion, and the room gasped. But when the knife remained still, Betty accepted it from him and, with great control, began to cut the cake into party slices as Uncle George walked to Aunt Ethel's place and sat down.