leave, but witnessing his continuous degeneration was
enough to give me the courage and the reason to do it. We were sitting in the living room having a
light lunch and watching television. He had messed up
one of his tricks again the night before but had
recovered before the audience realized it. Of course. I knew immediately. It put him off his rhythm, and he actually cut the performance short. going to our finish ten or fifteen minutes before he was scheduled to do so. I didn't say anything about it to him, but the theater manager asked him if everything was all right. I heard him say, "You seemed a little distracted
tonight."
Uncle Palaver assured him he was fine and
blamed any loss of rhythm on his introduction of a
new trick. Of course, there was nothing that new in
the act. and I c
ould see the manager knew it. too. He's
going to lose bookings, I thought. It was inevitable. My voice was actually trembling when I began,
but I was determined to try. "When you were at the
supermarket this morning. I heard Destiny call for
you." I said, and he turned to me slowly, a smile
freezing on his face.
"What?"
"I was sure I had heard her. so I went to the
bedroom to see what she wanted, and we had a nice
talk about you."
"What kind of talk? What are you talking about.
April?" he demanded.
My heart thumped, and my breath caught in my
throat. but I gathered strength and determination and continued. "She said she was worried about you, warned you were worrying too much about her and
because of that maybe drinking a little too much." He stared at me. I held my breath. Would he
scream, shout, tell me to leave?
"Aw," he said, waving his hand. "She worries
too much. I'll speak to her. She's always picking on
that. I know when too much is too much." he said
firmly.