All that is Darkness

CHAPTER TWO: UNCLE JIM

An hour outside of town we came to a stop at a lonely junction. Overhead a single street light shimmered on a canted wooden pole, the small, rusty windmill that powered it creaking eerily in the warm night air. Mom turned off the car and we sat in the dark, waiting, surrounded by an ocean of open fields and a bazillion chirping crickets. It was rather frightening and I wanted to be back home in our cozy flat, and far off to the west I could see the lights of a farmhouse standing alone, out in the middle of nowhere. Just like us.

"Are we going to be all right, Mommy?" I asked.

"Oh, sweetheart, of course we are," Mom said. She leaned over and gave me an awkward hug and a kiss on the top of my head. "We're just going to wait here a little while, is all."

"Why?"

"Someone is coming to help us."

"Uncle Jim?" He wasn't really my uncle, but the last time we'd seen him he had told me to call him that. I didn't really know what he was in Mom's life; only that she occasionally talked to him on the phone and every so often he would pay us a visit and he and Mom would talk in hushed voices about things I didn't really understand. I remembered he'd been there the last time we'd had to leave in a hurry for another place.

"He's going to make sure we're safe," Mom said. She reached over and smoothed my hair with a gentle stroke of her hand. "He's sort of our guardian angel."

"But he doesn't have wings."

She laughed. "Angels come in all shapes and sizes, sweetie. Sometimes they're not at all what you'd expect." She had an air of wistfulness about her as she spoke, and I'd the feeling she was thinking about something else—someone else. It wasn't the first time I'd seen her in a mood like that, but I was too young to understand what it meant, to understand there were secrets buried in her past that still haunted her.

We sat for a long time in the electric, until it was well past the time I should have been in bed. But despite Mom encouraging me to sleep, I simply couldn't; I was too wound up, and three hours later I was wide awake when headlights blazed brightly up the road ahead. I sat up straighter and looked expectantly to Mom as she sucked in a breath and tensed beside me, frightened because she seemed frightened and only relaxing when she flashed a grin and said, "There's nothing to be afraid of. We're going to be all right."

A battered Universal electric pulled up on the opposite side of the intersection and sat there a minute or two before the headlights flicked on-off-on in quick succession. Mom toggled a switch on the console of our car and the headlights flared bright, then dimmed in response. A moment later the door of the Universal opened and Uncle Jim got out, looking massive against the tiny electric, his tall, broad-shouldered frame looming in the night. He peered around cautiously and then walked slowly toward us.

"Time to go," said Mom, now all business. She got out and started unloading our luggage.

Uncle Jim joined us as she was wrestling with a suitcase. "You're late," she said, impatient and gruff-toned as she gave him a perfunctory look.

"I came as fast as I could. You didn't give me much notice."

"Well, excuse me," Mom said, lugging out another suitcase. "Next time I'll ask them to book an appointment."

Uncle Jim scowled. "You don't have to do this, you know."

"We've been over that. I'm not going to spend my life on a military base under lock and key. Besides, do you really think we'd actually be safer there?"

He heaved a sigh. "You don't make this easy."

"I'm sorry it's such a damn inconvenience for you," Mom snapped. "Do you think I like this?" She turned to him, fiery-eyed, hands on hips.