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Evy tells us we got it wrong about our brother. She’s his wife, Artie’s defender, and she says we misunderstand him, that there’s a goodness about him hidden in the antics. And I agree with her. There’s the time he taught my daughter Helen how to make a bunny out of a cloth napkin, and when he first showed it to her, she backed away because she thought it would attack, but for years afterward she asked for it. There was also a house of cards (the two of them on the floor like kids) and some piano lessons, because Artie’s always been musical. Hum a tune to him and out it comes on the keyboard, no sheet music or nothing.
But Evy keeps going. He’s the best of us, she says, and I keep quiet. He has a spirit that we lack, and I say okay, fine, but then she says, “He’s the most sane of all of you,” and I tell her, “If that’s true, Evy, we’re going faster than I thought to the bin.” But she doesn’t crack a smile to that one, just stiffens a bit.
They love each other. We hear it from them often, especially from Artie after he’s been sucking on a bottle, which is often, too. When he’s at a get-together, he calls out for her. All super-emotional, “Where’s my Evy? Where’s she hiding? Let me see her face.” And she’ll come in smiling, shaking her head maybe, but still smiling. She tells a story that the day they were married, she was at his desk and found that he had written on his personal calendar, “My New Life!” And she saved the page. She keeps it in her drawer or somewhere. Nightstand, maybe. They both married late, and there’s a sense with the two of them that if not for the other, no one.
