DERLAND

He was two years older than I was and if I walked ahead of him on the stairs he would reach a hand up between my legs. If I forgot to lock the bathroom door, he would come in and ask—What are you doing?

He was the son of my uncle and a girl I never saw, and she was age of fourteen when baby Derland came out. Then baby Derland was brought into the home of my uncle and his wife Mildred and their two sons.

My uncle’s name was Derland, too, but everyone except his wife called him Dick. She called him Derland and she called the boy Derland and when she called, Derland! Stop what you’re doing! Don’t be so stupid! it was hard to tell which Derland she meant.

Arranging flowers was Aunt Mildred’s special talent. People came to her when they needed something pretty for a luncheon or a funeral. When she married Uncle Dick, she made herself a tourniquet of love-lies-bleeding.

Aunt Mildred kept her hair twisted and pinned in a rigid lump on the back of her head, but when she released it, it came down past her buttocks—nearly to her knees—and was a coarse, dark gray like some pelts I’ve felt. It took her an hour to wash it. I would help her with the towels, wringing the wet out foot by foot. In fine weather she’d hang her head out the bathroom window to let the hair fall down the side of the house into the sun. When a breeze came, it lifted the hair straight out like a large, floating rug.

I saw her once—in her bedroom, on the floor, in her girdle—while Uncle Dick stood at the bureau in his suit and wingtips, sipping from a glass, reading from a folded newspaper. I saw her lean forward to reach for his foot, and I saw the foot toss the hand away like a small, vexing dog. Then, without looking up, he unbuckled himself.

Uncle Dick—he was always unbuckling. He unbuckled all across this great land of ours. Eventually he headed south of the border to continue his life’s work, and was never heard from again.

Now Aunt Mildred and I have a little shop together in town. We keep a garden and a nice house. Our advice is regularly sought by members of the community. On weekends, we take turns baking something new for each other. More often than not, what we make turns out tender and moist, with an excellent crumb.

Back then, the boy Derland had a trick of hooking his pinkies into the edges of his mouth and, with his other fingers, tugging down the corners of his eyes. It made a melting mask of his face. It was the face he made when I jammed my knee into him and pushed him down the cellar steps. It was the face, too—wherever it may have been—that I imagined on Uncle Dick’s head.