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“That just gets funnier and funnier every time you do it,” I retorted, poking through his paunch at his ribs.
“Aw, honey, he doesn’t know any better,” Uncle Paul said, shaking his head. “Mama dropped him a lot when he was baby.”
Paul and Junior were Dad’s brothers. I liked both of them, but when I was growing up, they were always so busy with their big, strapping sons, Dwight and Oscar. And they actually managed to move a whopping forty-five minutes away from Half-Moon Hollow, so I didn’t see them except around holidays.
“How’s my shortcake?” Uncle Paul asked.
“You’re seven feet tall, everyone’s shorter than you,” I said, kissing his cheek and following our usual “comedy” routine. “Just wait until old age catches up with you, we’ll see who laughs last.”
“Your mama told us you’ve had some health problems,” said Uncle Junior, who hugged me hard enough to crack mortal ribs.
“I guess you could call it that,” I said, suspicious thoughts beginning to churn in my brain.
“Those deer ticks are everywhere,” Paul said, clucking and shaking his head. “That’s why I duct-tape my pants legs around my socks when I go turkey hunting.”
Had I accidentally walked into a French film? It was as if they were having a totally different conversation. “Yeah …”
“But there are treatments nowadays, aren’t there?” Junior asked. “It’s not supposed to affect your life span or anything, is it?”
“No, quite the opposite,” I muttered.
“That’s great, sweetie,” he said, chucking me under the chin. “I’d hate to think of my niece keeling over from Lyme disease.”
Lyme disease?
“Lyme disease?” I thought it bore repeating outside my head.
“You just let us know if you need anything,” Uncle Junior said. “If those doctors don’t treat you right, we’ll kick their asses.”
“You know, most of our conversations end that way,” I noted.
“And we always mean it,” Uncle Paul assured me. “Now we’re going to say hi to your grandma and then give your dad a hard time.”
I turned and zeroed in on a woman simultaneously serving coffee and simpering. Mama. “I’ll see y’all later.”
I stormed as quietly and subtly as possible across the room. Daddy saw “that” look on my face, caught my arm, and pulled me to a quiet corner. “Honey, whatever you’re about to say to your mama, I’m sure she deserves it, but this is a funeral. Bob’s family, at least, deserves our respect.”
“Daddy, as the only sane member of my family, I love you and respect your opinion. That’s why I’m going to address the situation quietly and calmly in a nice private corner, where I will not make a scene …” The eerily calm tone got Daddy to release my arm before he heard me say, “While I slowly choke the breath from her body.”
By the time he called, “Jane!” in a warning tone, I had already grabbed Mama from a gaggle of tutting church ladies and dragged her into an alcove. “Lyme disease, Mama? Really?”
“What?” Mama asked, the picture of innocence.
“You told the uncles I have Lyme disease!”
“I told them you’d had some health issues,” she spluttered. “They just assumed it was Lyme disease.”
“No one assumes you have Lyme disease,” I whispered. “How do you just assume Lyme disease? I know this hasn’t been easy for you, Mama. I know you’re embarrassed that I’m different. I know it took you months to work up the nerve to be around me without being afraid or ashamed.”
“I’m not ashamed of you,” Mama insisted. “It’s just that everyone makes these assumptions about me and your daddy. I know it’s not true, but it’s so difficult knowing that people are looking at me and judging and whispering.”
“But it’s not even like this makes me the most scandalous member of the family. I’m bothered by the fact that Junie manages to pick up singles without using her hands while she performs at the Booby Hatch. But do I say anything? No.”
It was at that moment that I realized that we were standing next to a podium. A podium with a mic on it. A mic that was on.
Crap.
We turned to find most of the bereaved watching us, horrified. And my cousin Junie didn’t look thrilled with me, either.
