Spoonbenders

Teddy’s foot was barely moving, if it was moving at all, but the table was undoubtedly shaking. Then the screen showed Archibald and the host. Teddy stood off to the side, looking into the wings, grimacing in frustration.

“I can teach you how to do it,” Archibald said to the host. “No psychic powers required.”

Mike Douglas turned to Grandpa. “What do you say to that, Teddy? No powers required?”

Teddy appeared not to hear him. He was staring offstage. “Where the—” He stopped himself from swearing. “Where is my wife? Could someone please bring her out here?”

Irene grabbed Grandpa Teddy’s arm, embarrassed. She hissed something to him that didn’t make it to the microphones.

“Fine,” Grandpa Teddy said. He called Frankie to him. “We’re leaving.”

“Really?” Archibald said. “What about Maureen? I’d really like to—”

“Not today, Archibald. Your, uh, negativity has made this impossible.” Then to the host he said, “I really expected better of you, Mike.”

Teddy and his children walked offstage—with great dignity, Matty thought. Mike Douglas looked flummoxed. The Astounding Archibald seemed surprisingly disappointed.

Uncle Frankie pressed the eject button and the screen turned to static. “See what I mean?”

“Wow,” Matty said. He was desperate to keep the conversation going, but he didn’t want Frankie to get fed up and stop talking to him. “So Grandma Mo never came back onstage?”

“Nope. Never got to do her part of the act. It would have shut Archibald up, that’s for sure, but she never got the chance. Buddy got worse and we all went home.”

“Okay, but…”

“But what?”

“How did that kill her?”

Frankie stared at him.

Uh-oh, Matty thought.

Frankie hauled himself to his feet.

Matty hopped up, too. “I’m sorry, I just don’t—”

“You know what chaos theory is?” Frankie asked.

Matty shook his head.

“Butterfly wings, Matty. One flap and—” He made a grand gesture, which brought his almost-empty glass into sight, and he drained it. “God damn.” He studied the front window, perhaps seeing something new in the old houses. But the only thing Matty could see was his uncle’s reflection, his shiny face floating like a ghost over his body.

Frankie looked down at him. “What was I saying?”

“Uh, butterflies?”

“Right. You have to look at cause and effect, the whole chain of events. First, the act is wrecked. We’re dead as far as the public is concerned. Gigs get canceled, fucking Johnny Carson starts making fun of us.”

“Carson,” Matty said, affecting bitterness. Everybody in the family knew that Carson had stolen Grandpa Teddy’s envelope act.

“Once they isolated us, we were sitting ducks.” Frankie looked down at him with an intense expression. “Do the math, kid.” He glanced toward the dining room; Matty’s mom had moved into the kitchen, and no one was in sight, but Frankie lowered his voice anyway. “Nineteen seventy-three. Height of the Cold War. The world’s most famous psychics are discredited on The Mike Douglas Show, and just a year later, a woman with your grandmother’s immense power just dies?”

Matty opened his mouth, closed it. Immense power?

Frankie nodded slowly. “Oh yeah.”

Matty said, “But Mom—” Frankie put up a hand, and Matty lowered his voice to a whisper. “Mom said she died of cancer.”

“Sure,” Uncle Frankie said. “A healthy woman, a nonsmoker, dies of uterine cancer at age thirty-one.” He put his hand on Matty’s shoulder and leaned close. His breath smelled like Kool-Aid. “Listen, this is between you and me, right? My girls are too young to handle the truth, and your mom—you see how she reacts. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, your grandmother died of natural causes. You follow me?”

Matty nodded, though he wasn’t quite following, starting with why he could be told this secret, and Mary Alice, who was two years older than him, could not. Though maybe that was because she wasn’t a Telemachus by blood? She was Loretta’s daughter from a previous marriage. Did that make a difference? He started to ask, and Frankie put up a hand.

“There’s more to this story, Matthias. More than’s safe to tell you right now. But know this.” His voice was choked with emotion, his eyes misty.

“Yes?” Matty asked.

“You come from greatness,” Uncle Frankie said. “You have greatness in you. And no jackbooted tool of the American government can—”

Matty would never know what Uncle Frankie was going to say next, because at that moment a loud bang sounded from upstairs. Mary Alice screamed, “Fire! Fire!”