April Shadows (Shadows 1)
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.