“Oh, don’t cry!” Aunt Na-Na patted my arm. “Men are rats. I can see why you ran home.”
“I came to see you, actually,” I said, remembering Isabella’s advice.
“Me?” She lifted her spoon and preened. “Really?”
The article, plus the smell of oatmeal, was making me queasy, so I got to the point. “Do you remember when my father married Bitsy Wentworth? And Honora threw them a party?”
“That day is cemented in my memory.” She tapped her head with the spoon, leaving a comma of oatmeal in her hair.
“Did I try to drown myself?”
She drew in a deep breath, then dropped her spoon into the bowl. “Yes. But it wasn’t my fault.”
“I don’t remember it. If you feel like talking,” I said, “I’d like to hear the details.”
“I bet you would,” said Aunt Na-Na, fixing me with hooded eyes. “I just bet you would.”
Chapter 31
THE PATRON SAINT OF WATER
You want details? I got details. I may be old, but I remember everything about that cursed party. It was for my godchild, Louie, and that blond bimbo he’d up and married. The news had drove up my blood pressure. I went to confession and told the priest I had black thoughts in my heart. My favorite godchild had married a blond Baptist, a divorcee with a child. But just try and tell that to Honora. She lived for her parties.
I sat in a white Adirondack chair, in the shade of a hundred-year-old live oak, watching her play hostess with the mostess. A warm breeze rose up from the bay, tinkling the wind chimes along the patio, ruffling blue water in the swimming pool. Votive candles burned everywhere, even though it was still light enough to see. Guests crowded around the barbecue pit, where a caterer was turning a piglet. It was the same barbecue pit where my brother Chaz had collapsed and died—no, he didn’t die in the pit, but next to it. I don’t know what Honora was making him cook. But they say it was burned to a crisp.
Thanks to her bad cooking, she had clogged Chaz’s poor heart with butter. Now she was throwing parties, serving high-cholesterol shrimp. She stood next to the barbecue pit, her yellow dress fluttering around her calves. Why, she didn’t even have the decency to wear black. It was a disgrace. Somebody should call the police, because Honora killed my poor brother. Her weapons were butter, bacon grease, and Crisco. That unholy trio will kill you every time.
Ruined hearts run in the DeChavannes family, and I’ll tell you, I feared for my life. Plus, I was allergic to sunlight. I’d chosen the Adirondack because of the shade. Me and the live oak were soul mates. When I was a girl, I’d thrown tea parties under the oak’s low, gnarled branches. We had endured hurricanes, lightning, droughts. Now, all of this belonged to Honora.
The party had been arranged at the last minute to celebrate Louie’s marriage. His bride was pretty. Curly blond hair drawn back with a silver clasp. Blue eyes rimmed with black lashes, each one longer than my little finger. A short white dress showed way too much leg—not a skinny leg but a curvy one. Louie kept one hand on her waist, his fingers cupped just shy of her breast. She lifted her arm, and silver bracelets clinked. Her charm bracelet caught my eye. It had a silver mermaid, lighthouse, and conch shell. Her fingers were unadorned except for a thin silver ring. It looked cheap, like the bride herself.
Renata sulked around the edges of the party. Her blond bangs hung in her lovely gray eyes, and her arms were painfully thin. She kept her distance from the bride; but she watched her through narrow eyes, as if she were thinking, Who will get the love, if there is any left to go around?
When the child thought no one was looking, she skulked over to the buffet table, then she picked up a huge platter of raw oysters and boiled shrimp and flung them onto the grass. With a self-satisfied smile, she flounced off, marching around the pool, her arms swinging back and forth.
The caterers ran over to the buffet table, calling to Honora. A black-haired caterer knelt down and picked up the oysters and shrimp, tossing them into a plastic trash bag. Louie, oblivious to everything, found Renata and hoisted her into the air. He could open raw oysters like nobody’s business, and so could my brothers; but his daughter couldn’t be beat throwing them.
On the other side of the pool, the bride sat on a low brick wall, sipping champagne. Even in the failing light, I saw that she was a beautiful woman. Her eyes briefly met mine, and there was an instant clash. Electric sparks flew into the air. I smelled ozone and sulfur. Then I crossed myself, asking the Blessed Virgin to give me strength.
As I uncoiled myself from the deep wooden chair, my black dress rustled like crow feathers. Walking stiff-legged, I crept around the pool. My intention was to interrogate the bride, to trick her into saying something she’d regret. Halfway to my victim, I was stopped by the groom, who shifted Renata to his shoulder and gave me a one-armed hug.
“Here’s my little godmother,” said Louie.
“It’s about time you noticed me,” I said, pretending to bristle.
“You’re my favorite aunt,” Louie said.
“Listen to you.” I poked his shoulder. “I’m your only true aunt. My sister-in-laws don’t count.”
“You were so good with children,” he said, then glanced over at Honora, who was throwing shrimp into a garbage can. “Better than most people,” he added. “If you get my drift.”
“I was, wasn’t I?” I smiled.
“As a matter of fact, you’d be the perfect one to take Renata to the beach.” He swung the girl down and gave her a little push toward me. “You all have a good time.”
“Now?” I blinked, horrified at the prospect of leading this child to the water, slogging through the sand in her good Sunday shoes. The child scowled up at me with evil eyes. She was dressed all wrong, in babyish clothes: a short dress, hand-smocked shirt with rabbits, the sort of suits little children wear to church here in the Deep South. Renata needed a sedate black dress and sensible shoes.
“You take her.” I pressed the child’s shoulder, guiding her back to Louie. I hardly knew Renata. Honora had made certain of it. “I’m too old to beachcomb,” I added.
“That’s impossible, Na-Na. You can’t be a day over forty-nine.”
“You really think so?” I straightened up, preening a bit, and my black dress stirred.
“If Mama went down to the beach, she’d break her hip or faint. She’s in horrible shape.”
“And slow,” I pointed out.
“I’ll bet it wouldn’t take you ten minutes.” Louie steered the little girl back to me.
“Oh, all right,” I said crossly. I peered down at my godchild’s evil child and smiled, showing all my teeth. On purpose. The girl stepped backward, bumping against Louie’s leg.
“It’s all right,” Louie said to her. “Aunt Na-Na is a sweetheart.”
As we headed across the lawn, I clasped the girl’s hand, causing her to cry out. “You don’t want to get eaten by a pelican, do you?” I scolded, baring my teeth. The girl shook her head. Before we stepped down the rickety steps, I crossed myself. Forehead, chest, shoulder, shoulder. When we stepped down into the sand, the girl twisted her hand and broke free, running toward the water.
“Don’t go too far!” I called to Renata. Then I glanced up and down the beach. It was a little after sunset, a dangerous time to be out and about. I could see disaster lurking in the shadows. While the child dawdled, the night would thicken. In my widow-black dress, I would be virtually invisible. The girl would walk into the bay and meet a horrid end, but not me. I hadn’t lived this long to become shark food.
“Come on back, girl!” I cried, but the wind pushed the words down my throat. “Come back this instant!”
The child ran along the water, then squatted to pick up a shell. She had sturdy legs and flyaway dark hair that was starting to grow in blond. Just like Shelby. With a weary sigh, I lifted my skirt and shuffled through the sand. I was already breathless, and I could feel my old heart pumping the blood to my brain. Straight ahead, the long wooden pier was e
mpty. I prayed the child wouldn’t see it and get ideas. Children were that way, always sticking their pudgy fingers into dangerous things.
I hadn’t been to the beach in years, mainly because of the sun and the stink of fish. And I hated the local teenagers who came down here to drink beer and smoke that dope. I knew what-all they did. I read the papers. I had spent my girlhood here with Chaz and our friends, waiting for the wind to change, and then someone would shout, “Jubilee!” Crabs and flounder would jump out of the water. And we’d get buckets and run down to the beach and bring it back to the house. The maid would open a cabinet and take out the crab boil. A Jubilee happened only once in a while, but almost every day I went sailing with my brothers in their rickety boat. Those were joyous days, long before Honora came along and spoiled everything. I moved to Pass Christian to be near my brother James, who eats dinner with me every night and leaves his silly wife at home; but it’s not the same.
Now I gazed past the sandbar, where gulls were crying. I strained to see what was exciting them. The sky looked empty, except for a few thin purple clouds drifting east. I looked back at the sandbar. Several yards beyond it, in a streak of dark gray water, a human head bobbed up and down. I heard the gulls again, but it wasn’t birds, it was a little child crying for help.
I gathered up my black skirt and trudged through the ribbed sand, leaning into the wind. There, in the water, I saw Renata. “Daddy!” she screamed. “Get my daddy!”
This seemed like an excellent idea, fetching Louie, but when I turned back and faced those rickety steps and all that godforsaken sand, my heart started thumping. Behind me, Renata screamed and flailed in the hazardous waters. I raised my skirt, revealing bony ankles, and waded out into the water. The warm waves lapped around me like chicken stock.
“Float, Renata!” I called. “Don’t fight the current! Float until I get there!”
“No! Get Daddy!” Renata let out an agonized cry. All around her the water churned. At that instant, I remembered another reason I’d stopped coming to the beach—it had happened right after I saw that awful movie Jaws. I pictured a toothy shark ripping into my grandniece. I glanced down into the water, thinking I spotted a shadow. I screamed, then waded back to shore. Wringing out my dress, I whirled around and waved at Renata.
“Help is coming!” I called. I scuttled over to the base of the terrace and yelled up at two guests from Tennessee, who were placidly gazing out at the bay. “A child is drowning!” I yelled. “Get Louie!”
The startled guests ran off, and I slogged back down the beach to check on Renata. Behind me, I heard footsteps on the wooden stairs. Louie and two men ran down to the beach. Above them, on the lawn and terrace, all of the guests had gathered, still holding champagne flutes. Renata let out a garbled cry when she spotted her daddy. Then, with a wicked little smile, she slipped under the water. Again, I crossed myself, praying to Saint John the Baptist, the patron saint of water.
Poor little Renata. First, she overturned a bowl of shrimp, then she got into shark-infested waters. I pictured the little girl stretched out in a youth-sized casket. Then a funny thought hit me. Why was Renata smiling? Maybe this wasn’t an actual drowning. Maybe the girl was forcing her daddy to choose—the bride or the daughter, the party or a rescue.
Louie rushed past me, pulling off his shoes, flinging them into the sand. He ran down to the bay in his sock feet. When he was little, he had been horrified of the water. Well, I hadn’t meant to scare him. All I did was tell him that a cyclops lived under the lighthouse, and it would snatch bad little boys. Children drowned every day, and I didn’t want that to happen to Louie.
Nigel and Chaz got sick of Louie acting like a girl. But Honora made him that way, not me, I didn’t coddle him. I was visiting that day, and I knew the men were up to something. They waited until she went off to play canasta. Then they trapped Louie and carried him to the end of the pier. The whole time, he bit and screamed and kicked. Chaz and Nigel swung him back and forth like a rolled-up rug and threw that child into the water. I just knew he’d drown, but Louie surprised us all and swam.
Now I shook my finger at him and yelled, “This is all your fault! You up and married that woman, and Renata wants to die.”
He wasn’t listening. He ran into the shallows, his legs churning up foam. The two men charged in behind him, and I thought what a pity, they’ve ruined their nice pin-striped suits for nothing. Just before Louie reached the sandbar, Renata’s head shot out of the water. She gasped, arms waving.
“Da-dee!” she called in a pathetic voice. She rose up on the backside of a wave, then slid over it.
“Baby, I’m coming,” Louie cried hoarsely. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
In three steps, he crossed the sandbar, then lunged out. The water instantly rose to his hips, then his chest. The bay flattened, and Renata splashed toward Louie. From shore, I watched the two heads come together. When they stumbled into the shallows, Renata leaned against her father, her arms around his waist, his arms clutching her shoulders. Her party dress billowed behind her, floating in the water, the sheer cotton forming a pink bubble on the water. I waved them ashore, feeling absurdly happy, as if I’d saved them both.
Chapter 32
HALF AN OYSTER SHELL
I drove home and went straight upstairs to my mother’s trunk. Something that Aunt Na-Na had mentioned kept rolling around in my head, something about my father and oysters. I reached into the bottom of the trunk and scooted my hands over the bottom, dislodging papers and little trinkets. I pulled out an oyster shell, then a stubby knife with a wooden handle.
I sat down on the bed and pulled the phone into my lap and dialed my father’s cell phone.
“What?” he said.
“Daddy, it’s me.” My hands started shaking.
“Yeah, your name popped up on my caller ID. I can’t talk long. Joie woke up.”
“That’s wonderful, Daddy! When did it happen?”
“Yesterday. Faye stuffed Billy into a beach bag, then sneaked him into the ICU. The minute he started licking Joie’s face, her nose twitched, then she opened one eye.”
I laughed. “Oh, Daddy, I’m so happy for you.”
“I thought I was imagining things until she waved one hand and said, ‘Enough kisses, Billy.’ Then Faye screamed and ran into the hall, ‘Call 911!’ she screeched. ‘My baby is awake!’”
“You do a fabulous imitation of Faye,” I said, and Joie, too, I silently added.
“Coming from you, I’m not sure that’s a compliment. Why are you calling? You never call.”
“I found your old oyster knife, and half of a shell. An oyster shell.”
“Really? I’ve been looking a couple of decades for that knife.”
“Mama had it. It was in an old chest that she left at Honora’s. In fact, I’ve found all kinds of things. If you want the knife, I’ll give it back.”
“Well, thank you for returning my own property. How can I repay you?”
“Just tell me one thing. After you and Mama were divorced, did you ever come over to our house and open oysters?”
“Your mama didn’t have a house, she had a floating shack. And yes, even after the divorce, I continued to open her oysters.”
“Did y’all have an affair? While you were married to Bitsy?”
“No comment. Not now, not ever.”
“But Daddy—”
“Go tell it on the mountain,” he said. “Or better yet—tell it to the National Enquirer. I don’t know who is putting you up to this excavation, or what you hope to accomplish, but when you dig up old bones, it’s a foul, smelly process. Stop puzzling over those damn artifacts. Dive headfirst into the present.”
“I can’t. Not yet. I’m hoping you and I can have a long talk about Mama.”
“There’s nothing I can tell you that you don’t already know.”
“Oh, yes, there is, Daddy.”
“Listen, I really have to go. Catch you later.”
The line clicked.
Still holding the phone against my ear, I sat cross-legged on the floor, forcing myself to breathe. Was I expecting too much from my father? On some level, had I been waiting for Ferg to abandon me the same way Daddy had? I slowly replaced the receiver. A moment later, I snatched it up and dialed Ferg’s hotel. The operator put me through to his voice mail. I started to tell him where I was, and that I loved him—but I had an image of Esmé hearing my heartfelt message, then keeling over laughing. So I hung up, then lay back on the bed, studying the oyster knife.
Pushing all thoughts of Ferg and Esmé out of my mind, I scraped up an old memory. It was a Sunday afternoon in 1978, when I’d been visiting Daddy and Bitsy. When they brought me home, my mama waiting on her dock. She’d cleaned up, I noticed—her hair was all fluffed out around her shoulders, and she was dressed in cutoff jeans and a tight T-shirt.
“I bought fresh oysters,” she called to Daddy. “And guess what? I can’t open them.”
“Do you have an oyster knife?” he asked.
“Your old one. But I can’t seem to pop them open.”
“Do you want me to?”
“Oh, would you?” Her lips parted. “I’d be so grateful. But it’s too hot for your wife to sit in the car. Tell her to join us.”
Daddy hunkered down, and I climbed on his back. He swung me around. I grabbed Mama’s hair, drawing her into the circle. Minutes passed before we noticed Bitsy standing on the dock.
“The oysters are in here,” Mama said, lifting me off my daddy’s back. She opened the screen door and carried me into the house, bending under my weight. Inside, it was cool and dim, smelling pleasantly of seawater. She set me down, and I followed her into the minuscule kitchen. Everything was tidy, almost astringently clean. Off the kitchen was a square porch, haphazardly screened, leading out to a small dock. Next to the sink was a blue cooler filled with ice and oysters. A fat knife lay on a battered pine table. Two unopened oysters sat in the middle of the table, all surrounded by hard gray chips where Mama had tried to pry them open.
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