“Darren,” Crystal said again, her finger still resting on the last zero, “why does Uncle Vernon have nine million dollars in his account?” The bounce house hissed behind us. A little boy in a paper crown was blowing out candles on a sheet cake nobody was watching anymore. Twenty five church people stood frozen with plates in their hands, and in the middle of the lawn stood my nephew with his beer, his mouth moving without sound. I have sold birdseed to every kind of person for forty two years, and I know the look of a man trying to decide which lie to use next.
“Vern,” he said at last, with that bright, wobbly smile. “That must be a mistake. The bank mixed up the statements.” “It is my name,” I said gently. “It is my credit union. And it is my patent money, Darren. I sold the latch. Four patents, to a pet supply company in September.” A murmur went through the guests. A woman near the cake whispered, “The latch? The one on my canary cage?” I nodded. “That one,” I said. “The one a bird cannot open and a man can open with one finger.” Somebody laughed in surprise.
Then I laid the Social Security letter on the table beside the statement and pushed it toward Crystal. “And that,” I said, “is the part I would like you to read.” She picked it up. Her lips moved: Representative Payee Approval. Advanced cognitive decline. Applicant: Darren Tate. She read it all, and when she got to the name of the doctor, she turned very slowly to her husband and said, “Darren, who is Dr. Pell? I have never heard of Dr. Pell. You told me your uncle had seen a specialist.”
A quiet inventor set a bank statement on a picnic table and gave his nephew the chance to explain it.
Darren put down his beer. He tried one more time. “Crystal, honey, he is forgetful. You know he is forgetful. He left the stove on in June.” “I left a pot of coffee on in June,” I said. “Once. After you came into my apartment unannounced at six in the morning.” By then a tall man in a brown suit had stepped out from behind the garage. I had asked him to come at four o clock, and he was a quarter of an hour early. He was an investigator from the Social Security fraud office, and he carried a leather folder, and he had been very polite on the phone.
“Mr. Tate,” he said to Darren, “I would like a few minutes of your time. We have records of an application for representative payee status on your uncle, supported by a physician who has no license in Oklahoma. We also have four months of deposits to an account in your name.” Nobody said anything. The children had stopped running. The oldest boy, the birthday child, stood at the end of the table holding a paper plate with a slice of cake on it, looking at his father as though his face had turned into a stranger.
Darren sat down on the bench. He covered his eyes. “I was behind,” he said, in a small broken voice. “The truck payment. The house. I did not think anyone would notice. He did not use the money. He sits in that apartment and eats soup.” “He sits in that apartment,” said Crystal, standing very straight, “because you made him feel small enough to stay there.” I will remember her saying it for the rest of my life. She took her son by the hand and went into the house, and the church people began to gather their purses.
I stayed on the lawn until the investigator had finished. The payee status was voided on the spot. The money, every cent, would be returned from Darren, with the rent he had charged me, and the rest would be a matter for a judge. The man in the brown suit shook my hand and said I had done a brave thing. I said it did not feel brave. It felt like standing in the yard of somebody else on a hot afternoon with a plate of cold hot dogs. He smiled and said that was exactly how brave things feel.
That evening Crystal came to the garage apartment with a casserole and her eyes swollen. She did not sit. She told me she was taking the children to her sister in Broken Arrow for a while, and that she was ashamed, and that she did not expect me to forgive them. I told her there was nothing to forgive in her. I told her that those children would never again hear a man called Birdbrain in their home, not if I could help it. And before she left, I handed her an envelope. Inside was a check for the boys, enough to cover four years of college each.
I found a house in October, a small white one on a street with maples, with a screened porch and a long sunny window facing east. I bought three canaries, named by the boys after cartoon characters, and a fourth for June, because she would have wanted a fourth. They sing in the morning. Crystal and the boys come on Sundays. The oldest, the birthday boy, has taken to sitting on the porch step with a notebook, drawing latches. He says he wants to be an inventor. I told him it was an honorable way to be hungry.
Darren sent me a letter at Christmas. It was two lines long. It said he had sold the truck, and that he was sorry, and that he hoped the canaries were well. I wrote back one line. I wrote that the canaries were singing and that the cage was open, and that birds, like men, come back when they are ready. I have never closed that little door since. I leave it open every morning and watch them hop to the edge of the perch, look at the wide bright room, and decide, one more day, to stay.