They were on the front porch of the Hoffman home, just the two of them, Vanessa in a chaise lounge – it was bought and put there for her and her only – and her uncle, Bill Piatkowski, seated in an outdoor rocker.

“Are you up to date?” she asked him. She was carrying around a dark mood. Everyone saw it and worked to ignore it.

Her uncle leaned toward her, twisted his neck and gave her a reproving look, then looked away. He’d heard pretty much everything. It hadn’t been easy listening. His sister told him what she’d heard from Vanessa; his sister looked exhausted and swore she wasn’t. Walking through what he’d heard, his brother-in-law seemed both cheerless and charmed, and that combination was a tip-off that he, maybe the whole family, was wobbly. Nephew Ethan looked perplexed and heartbroken, yet somehow managed to deliver his tale with a half-smile. Finally, it was Lauren who delivered Taylor and Hannah’s comments. Uncle Bill took it all in, nodded through every recital, and decided he wanted to hear the story – or stories – from Vanessa herself.

Never married, Bill Piatkowski was enamored with his niece and nephews. He’d wanted a family and it hadn’t happened. His parents and his sister thought he put his work first. They told him so. He felt differently, but      why argue? He was a salesman, quite successful, and the reason he was successful was because he put in the long hours required. Did that mean he put his work first? He didn’t think so. Why was he still single? It was simple, he’d never met her yet. The one. That bothered him, had bothered him for a long time, he bottled it up, and somehow his family saw him as reserved and often at arm’s length. What Bill Piatkowski was      was lonely.

He was forty.

“Yeah, I think I am,” he replied, “especially if you’re asking me if I’ve been told what you’ve been telling your family.” It came out more harsh than he wanted. He wondered, the moment the words left his mouth, if he’d been maneuvered out onto the porch. Had this been Vanessa’s idea, or his sister’s? He’d arrived the night before, slept on the couch, and woke up thinking he should have sprung for a hotel. “Am I right?” He twisted his torso and spoke softer. He didn’t want to upset his niece; he was as worried as anyone. She looked thin and pale, and he saw she was fragile. He didn’t mention that. If he’d told her she was fragile, their conversation might get dicey, and he wanted the conversation. She’d been on a roller coaster for years, up for a week or a month or more, down for a week or a month or more. He knew that, so he waited, quietly, and watched her. She didn’t respond and looked peeved.

He could wait. He was a people person and he had people skills. Part of his skill set, developed over years in sales, allowed every person he met to just be themselves. In conversation he could wait. He could allow and ignore and forgive and forget and withstand. He could listen and agree or disagree, he could walk away or walk toward, he could engage and disengage and he could lead or follow. Whatever that skill was called, he was using it with his niece. She was not happy and he knew there was no reason in the world she should be. Depending on the hour of the day, she was struggling, lost, loved, coddled, aggravated, enthusiastic, hopeful, anxious, happy or sad, and probably wanting to be a normal seventeen-year-old. She wasn’t having much luck, he knew that, too, so no matter what happened on this visit, no matter what she said or how she acted, he was going to let Vanessa Hoffman have free rein. He’d thought about that all the way from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

He twisted again, she was looking away. He twisted back, looked away, too. It was quiet in the neighborhood, quiet inside as well, and she finally spoke.

“I’m always thinking I’m going to die,” she said.

He didn’t look at her. He picked up his chair, moved it closer to her chaise lounge, put it down and put a hand on her arm. He didn’t look at her and they went quiet again until she said “Uncle Bill, I’m scared most of the time.”

Bill Piatkowski turned to his niece, put his hand on hers and squeezed. What to say?

“I act like I’m not,” she said, “and sometimes … it’s weird … I’m not. Does that make any sense? Sometimes I’m not sure if it matters whether I’m feeling good or bad, and sometimes I’m just mixed up about what I’m feeling. I think about it and, this is so weird, but I’m so used to it, feeling this way. I can’t imagine just having a regular life. It’s like, I know I won’t get one.”

He looked at her, twisted his lips and raised his eyebrows.

She paused, took a deep breath, relaxed her body. “I didn’t mean that,” she said. “I don’t mean that at all. I shouldn’t have said that.” Her uncle looked at her; she was looking at him. She rolled her head and rolled her eyes. “This is what I’m used to. This is my life. Has been my life.” She bit her lip. “It’s not fair.”

She took a deep breath, and he watched her lower her eyes and look away.

All salespeople know the key to sales is overcoming objections. Bill Piatkowski loved hearing objections. He asked for them; wrote them down. Understood them. How often had he listened to a litany of reasons not to buy and answered, without hesitation, “I get it. I understand. I’m not trying to sell you what you don’t need. I won’t do that. No sale? No problem. All I ask is you give me a chance when you have a need. That’s it. That’s all I ask.”

He knew his niece was right. He agreed. It wasn’t fair.

“You want to hear something weird?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said. Where would this go? He didn’t care.

“Okay,” she said, and she wiggled around on the chaise lounge, leaning toward him. “I heard someone say this in a movie recently … since I’ve been home here again. And I have no idea whether it’s right or not, but it sounded right to me, and hearing it, I believed it immediately. So, you ready?” She waited for a nod, got one and went on “The movie – I forget the name – has a trial. Lawyers and all that stuff. And the guy on trial, it’s a man, he’s on trial for theft or something. Embezzling money. Something like that. And there’s all these people testifying against him. One after another. Lots of them. And the guy’s attorney, the defense attorney – it’s a woman – she asks them questions and tries to get them to get real specific on what they remember about what the guy did. All that stuff. Like what he said to them, something like that. Or what they saw him do. That, too. And she’s always looking at the jury, you know, like telling them pay attention. And in her closing argument, that’s the part that got me, in her closing argument to the jury she explains how memory actually works. Everybody’s memory works this way. She says that when you remember something, the first time you remember something, you pretty much remember what happened. You remember as good as your memory is, okay? You remember what happened pretty well     , but just that first time. Because the next time you remember that thing, you’re kinda not exactly remembering the thing. The next time, you’re remembering that first memory. You’re remembering how you remembered before. It’s like, the memory is now the thing you remember, plus that first remembering. Get it? And each time you remember that thing, the memory keeps adding up. Like      it’s growing. Remembering something kinda changes what you remember. You keep remembering the last time you      remembered it, so there are these little changes, okay? You don’t even know you’re doing it. That making sense? And that means the thing changes. Not the real thing, but the way you remember that thing … your memory of it.” She stopped and scratched an ear. “Am I saying it right?”

About the Author:

Victor Kreuiter’s stories have appeared in EQMM, Halfway Down The Stairs, Bewildering Stories, Tough, Frontier Tales, Del Sol SFF Review, Literally Stories, and other online and print publications.