***
Marianne was waiting for us when our plane landed in Baton Rouge the following Thursday. I walked into baggage claim holding Lilly's hand and saw Marianne's expression go from surprise to resignation in a matter of seconds. I wanted to laugh at her reaction but there was too much turf to cover.
"Lilly, this is my best friend, Marianne. Marianne, Lilly."
"Well, hello Lilly. It's a pleasure." Marianne looked up at me with a big question mark on her face and I shrugged, coyly, and grinned.
"Hi," Lilly curtsied and Marianne got to her knees and grabbed Lilly in a big bear hug.
"You are way too cute, Miss Lilly." Marianne let go of Lilly and held her at arms' length, eye-to-eye.
"Thank you, ma'am." Lilly curtsied again and smiled.
"Oh, my God, Susie, where did you find this precious child?" Marianne looked up at me.
"Lilly's parents let her come with me since we'll only be here a few days. I hope it's okay?" I was grinning.
"It's great. My sisters and cousins will love you, Lilly." Marianne looked at Lilly.
"If you're Susie's friend, does that mean you're my friend, too?" Lilly wrapped her arms around Marianne's neck as if they were old friends and I laughed at how innocent and loving she was at five years old.
"Aren't you precocious? Of course it does." Marianne hugged Lilly again and looked at me over her curly brown locks. I shrugged and smiled, proud of Lilly for being so grown-up, yet innocent at the same time.
"What's pre-coh-shuss?" She pulled away and looked at Marianne.
"It means wonderful." Marianne was still on one knee and Lilly hugged her again, then came back to my side and put one arm around my leg.
"I like our friend," Lilly looked up at me and I winked at her.
"I knew you would. Now let's go get our luggage." I reached out to hug Marianne and Lilly ran off to the baggage carousel that had just begun to turn and spit suitcases onto the conveyor belt. She was mesmerized and forgot Marianne and I were there.
"Where's Lucy?" I was pulling my bag off the carousel and Lilly was watching the luggage go round and round in amazement.
"She's working. You'll meet her tonight."
"Thanks for driving all the way to Baton Rouge to get us. We could have taken the bus to Jean Ville."
"No problem. I wanted time with you, but I guess our conversation will have to wait."
"Lilly will fall asleep in the car. She's exhausted. She was too excited to sleep on the plane."
"What gives?" Marianne looked at me, then at Lilly. "I mean?"
"I'm friends with her parents and her mother is sick. I'm helping out." I tried to avoid Marianne's inquisitive look and ignored the way she stared at Lilly as if trying to figure out where she'd seen that face before. We walked to the parking lot, Marianne with my bag, me holding Lilly's hand in one of mine, her duffle in my other. I pulled her stuffed Pooh out of the duffle and handed it to her when I laid her down on the back seat of Marianne's Datsun.
"Is this new?" I was admiring the gold, four-door car that looked like a miniature station wagon.
"About a year, I guess."
"Fancy."
"Yeah. I'm doing okay." She was about to open her car door and our eyes met over the top of the little sedan.
"I'm so proud of you, Mari."
"Thanks, Susie-Q. I'm proud of you, too." We got in our separate doors and soon were headed north on Highway 190. Lilly went right to sleep and Marianne and I whispered on and off for the next two hours. I told her about Emalene's undiagnosed illness and explained how worried I was, and how Emma and Joe had become family and helped fill the hole left by Rodney. I told her that I spent lots of time with Lilly and I really loved her. We also talked about my job.
"At first I was bored," I pulled down the visor hoping there was a mirror so I could apply some lipstick, but nope. I flipped it back up and turned slightly towards Marianne. "The publishing company where I work mostly publishes textbooks, but several months ago I convinced my boss, Mr. Mobley, to take on a memoir written by a new author, Phillip Agee. It's about the CIA and called Inside the Company. I think it will do well, and if it does, maybe Shilling will agree to publish similar books"
I told Marianne that I was mostly relegated to line-editing textbooks, but with memoirs and nonfiction written more descriptively, almost like novels, my boss had pretty much given me free rein to find books that we should consider and bring them to him. I acted like an in-house agent, reading manuscripts and interviewing authors to determine whether the books they submitted were a good fit for our publishing house. He then had to take them to a committee that made the ultimate decision.
"I think Shilling will publish The Catfish Stories." I tried not to act as excited as I was.
"So you waited all this time to tell me the best news of all. That's wonderful. When?" Marianne tried to look at me a couple of times but was driving and paying attention to the highway.
"I don’t know. I'm afraid if I talk about it, it won't happen. I'm crossing all my fingers and toes." I was laughing.
"Please let me know. I'll come to New York for your book launch."
"Would you, really? You've never come to visit me."
"Well, this will be a momentous occasion I wouldn't miss." She smiled and I knew she was genuinely proud of me, also proud her grandfather’s stories would finally be in print. She drove in silence for a while.
"What about your love life. It's been over a year since… Rodney." Marianne stared out the front windshield and I looked at her profile. She was so beautiful. Her burgundy hair was wavy and full, although she'd cut it to shoulder length. She had a small nose and big eyes that were almost violet in color, a combination of green and hazel, with a bit of blue. The only features that tied her to the Negro race were her full lips and deep forehead. Her hair was curly, but not frizzy, and her eyes were set a bit far apart—the shape of almonds, almost oriental.
The fact that my dad had fathered her still boggled my mind, and I knew she didn't want to accept it. She hated him more than anything or anybody because he had taken advantage of her mother at such an early age and never acknowledged Marianne as his child.
"More like a year and a half," I quipped and tried to laugh, but it came across as a weak joke. "I've been seeing someone, but it's not serious. I mean we've only kissed a couple times."
"What's his name?"
"Josh. Josh Ryan. He's a doctor. I knew him years ago, then we lost touch. He's friends with Lilly’s parents, Emma and Joe, and it's comfortable."
"I'm glad, Susie. You need to move on. Rodney… well."
"Please, can we not talk about him?" She didn't say anything else, but I knew she had something important to tell me that I wasn't ready to hear. "Tell me about you. And Lucy."
"It's still hard to be, well, you know…"
"Gay?"
"Yeah. It's hard to have a relationship with someone who is your gender, especially in such a small town. Most people think we are best friends. And we are. It's just that I get lots of questions about why I'm not dating anyone and when will I settle down and have kids and stuff like that."
"I'm sorry it's so hard. Have the two of you thought about moving to a city?"
"We talk about it but I can't leave Mama."
We drove in silence until we crossed the Atchafalaya River from Pointe Coupée into Toussaint Parish. I inhaled deeply and when I exhaled I inadvertently let out a moan.
"What's wrong?" Marianne reached over and patted my leg.
"Lots of emotions." I thought about the last time I crossed the river, going the other way, thinking my entire life was ahead of me and that I'd spend it married to Rodney. I also thought about how close I was to Jean Ville and, although I was eager to see my siblings, I was afraid to face my dad. The last time I saw him, he had beat me. Now I was going to see him on his sick bed.
"Your dad? I hear he's not doing very well."
"What do you know about his condition?"
"Maybe my mama should tell you what she knows. She's at their house every day and helps take care of him. It's ironic, isn't it?" She let the last words come out as a whisper. I would never learn to accept what I considered a love triangle—Mama and Tootsie, Daddy and Tootsie, Mama and Daddy. Then there was me, and James and Will and Robby and Sissy and Albert; finally, there was Marianne. We Burton kids had two Mamas—Tootsie and Anne Burton. I guess Daddy liked them both.
Marianne didn't seem angry about my dad, like she had when I would mention him in the past. I was surprised.
"Have you accepted it?" I was really asking whether she had accepted that my dad was her dad.
"I've had to accept a lot of things. I've decided to accept that he is my biological. That's as far as I'll ever go with that bastard."
"Don't blame you."
"I hope he dies." Marianne gasped at her own statement. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that out loud."
"It's okay. I get it. I won't miss him, either. He's a mean, angry person." We both sat with that thought and I knew we'd never need to discuss him again. We'd said it all; there was nothing more and it was a waste of time and energy to talk about him.
"I haven't heard from Rodney since he survived the fall of Saigon and was at an army base in Kansas." I spoke softly as though I were afraid to talk about him. "We wrote to each other when he was in Vietnam, then a little when he got back. I think I'm the one who quit. No use."
"He came home on leave. He looked good, but he's changed." Marianne told me that Rodney seemed sad and preoccupied. She said he wouldn't talk about anything that happened in Vietnam but he said, "It wasn't good. None of it was good."
Marianne said Rodney talked about staying in the army after his time was up. He said it would be a good life now that the war was over. She told me that he was done with Annette and he'd met a woman in the army, also a lawyer, whom he was seeing. Marianne said, "She's colored. His parents approve."
"Oh." I wanted to be happy for Rodney. You want those you love to be happy, don't you? I was trying, but it was so hard to picture him with someone else. Marianne and I were quiet for a while.
"You want to tell me about Lilly?" Marianne whispered. I turned to check on Lilly and she was still sound asleep.
"What's there to tell? Her parents are my friends. Her mom is sick."
"You think I don't see the resemblance?"
"Mari, please don't go there."
"Susie. Others will see it, too. I can't believe you never told me."
"Look. I just met her, less than a year ago, after…"
"Mama will see it right away," Marianne said.
"Do you think she'll say anything? She is Lilly Franklin, daughter of Joe and Emalene Franklin. That's the whole story."
"Does he know?" She ignored what I said.
"Who?"
"Susie. It's me, Mari. Come on."
"No. And I don't want him to know. Please. Can you respect that? She's not our child. She's Lilly Frank…"
"I know, daughter of Joe and Emalene Franklin…" Her voice had a quirk in it. I wanted to explain why I didn't want Rodney to know about Lilly, but I wasn't sure of the reasons myself.
"He's my cousin you know. Family."
"What am I? Minced meat?" We laughed but were both thinking that we were sisters, and that's closer than cousins. "Really, Mari, there's nothing to tell. Lilly Franklin!" Then we got serious again.
"Emalene is a very special person who believes her child will be more secure and develop a strong sense of self if she is loved by lots of people. She says the more people who love your child, the better your child's life will be and the more likely she is to be and do anything she sets her mind to."
"Wow. I never thought about it that way." Marianne seemed truly enchanted by Emalene's philosophy.
"I know. That's what I mean. Emalene Franklin is special." I explained how I'd become a part of Emalene and Joe's family. "I was so lonely after Rodney… well, uhm… after it was over. Emma and Joe took me in and helped fill that void."
"Why didn't you tell Rodney about Lilly?" Marianne was still not convinced, and I couldn't explain that Lilly's life was better without the drama and complexities of the forbidden love between me and Rodney.
"Nothing to tell. She belongs to Emalene and Joe." We were quiet for a while, then I said, "Rodney chose his family's safety over me. And rightly so!"
"Things have changed a lot around here, Susie."
"How so?"
"To start with, Sheriff Desiré changed all the rules. There's no separate seating for coloreds and whites. That means we all sit together at the movies, restaurants, buses, trains, everywhere. The bank has one line and both colors stand in it together! The sheriff insists that school integration laws are followed so black and white kids go to school together. Of course, lots of families send their kids to St. Alphonse's Catholic School. I know of Baptists who send their kids to the Catholic school just to keep them from us dirty black people." Marianne laughed and slapped the steering wheel.
"Black people?"
"Oh, yes. It's the new term we are supposed to call ourselves. It's taking me some time getting used to it, but it came about with the Black Panthers movement. We are supposed to refer to ourselves as African Americans, not Negroes." Marianne laughed at her own statement but I didn't know whether to laugh with her.
"You don't say? How do you feel about that?"
"The new rules or the new titles?"
"All of the above."
"It's all good. We're making progress. A few months ago, a black man right here in Toussaint Parish was found innocent by an all-white jury. Now that's progress."
"I'll say. Next thing you'll tell me is that there are mixed-race marriages."
"Not yet. That might never happen in Jean Ville."
We pulled up in the Quarters and I sat in the car and took it all in. The sugar cane was blowing in the wind, the pecan trees budding and full of soon-to-be nuts, the old red barn had been repaired and painted, Catfish's garden was overgrown with weeds and the little fence was falling in. All the cabins were still in their places and about a dozen children were running and playing in the dusty backyard.
The five little cabins were once slave cabins on Shadowland plantation owned by the Vans, all in a row, their back porches almost touching each other, facing a dirt yard with a fire pit in the center and cane fields beyond that. There were three new cabins facing the old ones, the dusty yard and fire pit between the two rows.
I came of age in the old falling-down barn set a few hundred feet in the backyard, and in the cane fields and pecan groves that stretched as far as you could see. Those fields were a special place for me, Mari, and Rod to take long walks, talk about personal things, and feel shielded from the cruel world that judged relationships like ours so harshly. It was there that ours became the closest of friendships.
"Not much has changed here, has it?"
"Not much, except for the additional cabins built for my married cousins." Marianne winked at me and got out the car. I reached behind me and touched Lilly's leg. She was stirring and I knew she'd be waking soon. I didn't want her to wake up in the car alone so I sat and watched her, turned around in my seat as far as I could. Marianne was busy getting our bags out of the back of the car and I could hear the screeches and chatter of the kids. A rubber ball hit the windshield and I jumped.
"Hey, don't hit my car with your balls!" Marianne started chasing a little boy about five years old and he was giggling as he ran away from her. She grabbed him and turned him upside down, dangling him by his legs. He squealed with laughter and happiness.
Lilly sat up in the back seat of the car, grinned like a Cheshire cat, and reached for the door handle. She was ready to join the fun.
I took her by the hand and led her through the pecan trees to the barn, showing her around the yard littered with cockleburs that looked like Spartan balls. She was mesmerized by the hundreds of pecans on the ground and I found an old bucket in the barn to gather some of the nuts. We walked through the grove, Lilly swinging a bucket, the pecans crunching under our feet.
Within minutes, a parade of curious kids was following us and helping to fill the bucket with nuts off the ground. I knew most of Marianne's nieces and nephews and began introducing everyone to Lilly. Lilly let go of my hand and wandered away from me with the children. They were all laughing and some were showing her how to distinguish pecans that were ripe enough to be picked.
I lost complete control and watched the kids gather nuts, play ring-around-the-rosie, and weave in and out of the sheets and towels hanging on the clothesline, laughing and shouting at each other. My fear of Lilly feeling uneasy in a strange place was dispelled as she ran through the dirt and followed the other children in the yard, passing the bucket around, nuts falling from it into the thick St. Augustine grass.
I climbed the three little steps onto Catfish's porch. His rocker was in the same place, and the green Naugahyde chair with the torn seat was still next to it. I sat in the rocker and watched the children just like I had when I visited Catfish through the years. Marianne came out and sat next to me.
"Do you have a phone?" I was watching the kids run and giggle.
"Yep. In the kitchen."
"I'd like to call Joe and tell him we got here safe and sound. Do you mind?"
"You gonna call Josh, too?"
"I'll pay for the calls."
"Don't worry about it. Go ahead."
I called the hospital and asked for Emalene's room. Joe answered the phone. I told him we'd made it, that we were in Jean Ville, and that Lilly had already made a bunch of friends and was having a ball. He didn't seem interested in what I was saying. He handed the phone to Josh who happened to be in the room checking on Emma.
"Hi. You okay?" He seemed chipper but I could tell there was something wrong.
"What is it, Josh? How's Emma?"
"She can tell you when the two of you talk." I could hear him breathing into the phone.
"How are you, Josh?"
"I miss you." He whispered and sighed. I could picture him rubbing his forehead with his thumb and forefinger as though trying to spread out the frown lines.
"I'll be home in a few days."
"Have you seen your dad, yet?"
"No. I'll go there soon. It's only a few blocks away and Marianne will watch Lilly. She's running and playing with Marianne's cousins, having a ball."
"That's good. Keep her busy so she doesn't get homesick."
"I'll try."
"Susie…"
"Huh?"
"I… well… bye."
"Kiss Emma for me. Goodbye, Josh."
I sat in Catfish's rocker on the porch and Marianne sat in the straight-backed chair. We didn't talk for a long time, just watched the kids. I was lost in the memories of the first time Rodney kissed me in that old barn and the last time we met there when he was skittish because the Klan had threatened his family again. We should have known a mixed-race relationship wouldn't work in a small town in the Deep South. It wasn't just the Klan that kept us apart. My dad was determined it would never happen. I guess he won, after all.
"I probably need to go see my dad."
"You want to use my car? I'll stay here with Lilly."
"No, I'll walk. I used to do it all the time." We both giggled when we remembered all the times I would sneak off to the Quarters to visit Catfish and Marianne and, hopefully, meet up with Rodney. I remembered how invincible I felt, until my dad found out and beat me within an inch of my life. Still, Rodney and I continued to try to make it work.
We must have been crazy.
*
I walked up South Jefferson Street towards the big antebellum house on the corner of Marshall Road and stopped in front of a ranch-style house—the Burton family home where I had lived until I was about ten or eleven. The low-slung roof had been replaced, and the white siding was painted blue, but the big ditch and the dogwood trees were still there.
A horn scared me out of my thoughts and I turned to see my childhood friend, Callie leaning out the window of a new Cutlass Supreme.
"Hi, stranger. When'd you get to town?" Callie grew up across the street from me and we'd been like sisters in elementary school. We'd walked to and from school together every day and spent lots of nights at each other's houses. I hadn't seen her since I went off to college, eight years before.
"Callie! Hi. You look great! What have you been up to?" I looked in the back seat and saw a baby strapped in an infant carrier. "Is this your baby?"
"Yep, John and I have two of these little monsters. Where you going?"
"To my parents' house. I just flew in from New York."
"Hop in and I'll take you the rest of the way." We talked nonstop for the three-block drive and sat in my parents' driveway for fifteen minutes catching up. Callie didn't ask why I was walking up South Jefferson or where I was staying while I was in Jean Ville. I guess she took it for granted I would stay at my parents' house and that I was taking a walk around the block.
"Will you come to dinner while you're here?"
"I need to see about my dad before I make any plans. Can I call you?"
"Sure. Here's my phone number. We live a few blocks towards town in the old Tucker home."
"I'll call you." We hugged and I got out of the car and waved until she was out of sight. I think I was trying to postpone my entrance into my former home. I walked to the back of the house, intending to go in through the back door. Two of my brothers were playing basketball near the carport and Will ran up to me. We hugged, then I pulled away.
"How's Dad?"
"Not good. I'm glad you're here."
"What's wrong with him, Will?" I was only a year older than Will and we'd been very close growing up. My older brother, James, had been a tyrant and had also tried to kill Rodney in Jackson a couple of years before. He was lingering near the basketball goal as though he didn't know what to say to me. I approached him, and before he could say anything, I hugged him. He hugged me back and when he pulled away there was moisture in his eyes. "You worried about Daddy, James?"
"I guess. He looks bad."
"Do you two want to come with me to see him?"
"Sure," Will said, and he took my hand and practically pulled me up the back steps. James followed close behind. When we walked into the kitchen, Robby, who was number four, about three years younger than Will, was getting something out of the fridge. He was surprised to see me and hugged me extra tight. "You're so tall, Rob. What happened?"
"I grew. I'm almost twenty-one, you know."
"Where's Sissy?""
"She's in Dad's room," Robby said. "Come on. He'll be glad to see you. He's asked about you a hundred times."
I watched my three brothers walk with confidence into my parents’ bedroom while I held back, feeling scared and insecure. Will grabbed my hand and pulled me.
I barely recognized Daddy. His skin was grayish-yellow and his hair white. My once big-chested, broad-shouldered dad looked like he'd lost fifty pounds, yet under the sheets I could see his stomach protruding a foot in the air.
He hadn't shaved in a few days and the uneven growth on his face was white and made his nose look huge. His eyes were closed. Sissy was sitting on the far side of the room next to Daddy's bed and when she saw me she jumped up and ran into my arms. We hugged and I noticed that she was taller, although not as tall as me. When had she grown up? She took my hand and drew me towards Daddy's bed.
"Daddy, guess who's here?" She spoke in a voice just above a whisper. "It's Susie." Daddy opened his eyes a slit and looked at me. His hand, thick and hairy, came out from under the covers and he reached for me. I was afraid to take it; afraid he'd jerk me towards him and hit me, so I stiffened my arm and held back.
"Come closer, Susie." His voice was a hoarse whisper. "Let me look at my beautiful daughter." I took a step towards the bed but didn't loosen my elbow. His grip was weak and when I realized I was probably stronger than he was, I relaxed and moved closer. He patted the mattress near his hip and I sat on one side of my butt, the other hanging off the edge of the bed. "You're still beautiful."
"Hi Daddy. How are you?"
"Better now that you're here." He attempted a smile but it looked more like a smirk.
"I wanted to see you." I didn't know what to say and I wasn't making sense. I sat there for a while and he held onto my hand while I kept my arm stiff and tried not to fall off the bed. I noticed bruises on the top of his hand and his forearm. There was also a big bruise, like a hickey, on his neck. He closed his eyes and seemed to drift off so I got up and moved towards Sissy and the boys.
"What's the doctor say?" I looked from James to Robby to Will to Sissy. "And where's Mama?"
"Dr. Switzer comes twice a day. The doctors in New Orleans said it's cirrhosis."
"Liver disease? How advanced?"
"It's pretty bad."
"Can it be cured?"
"They feel as though he's had it for years. The question is whether there is permanent damage to his liver. They say we have to wait and see if his liver will repair itself or continue to deteriorate."
"He's getting a shot every week and takes medication that can help repair the liver, but he's really sick." James was standing in front of me and it was the first time I'd ever seen him show any emotion.
"And he's confused and sometimes slurs his speech," Sissy said.
"Mama?" I looked at my siblings with a big question across my forehead.
"Mama took Albert and went to visit Aunt Betty. She said she couldn't take it." Albert was the baby of the family, born when I was in college. He was ten and I wondered what Mama was doing about Albert going to school.
"Mama left Daddy and went to Houston?"
"Yep. That's why we need you here." Sissy looked from me to James and back to me.
"Wait. I'm not staying. I can't stay. I have a job, responsibilities. I just came to see Daddy in case…"
"In case he's going to die? And you don't want to feel guilty if that happens?" James stormed out of the room. I followed him and cornered him in the kitchen.
"What do you care? He beat you, too."
"That's in the past. He needs us now. Can't you forgive and forget?" James walked out the back door and left in his old Chevy pickup truck. I went down the hall to the front door and sat on the porch swing. After a few minutes, Sissy and Will came out and sat in the rockers. We didn't talk for a few minutes but I couldn't stop thinking that Mama left Daddy, sick in bed, and went to Houston.
"I'm not staying. I can't. Sorry." I sat with one leg across the swing, the other dangling over the side, and pushed myself slowly back and forth.
"How long can you stay?" Sissy was staring at Dr. Switzer's house across the street.
"My plane returns to New York Monday. I can't just walk out on my job. And I'm helping a family out right now. The mother is sick and I'm keeping their daughter." I didn't mention that Lilly was with me in Jean Ville.
"I think Mama is depending on you staying here with Daddy until he gets well. You're the oldest daughter."
"He's Mama's responsibility, not mine. Sorry, you guys. I'm not staying." I got off the swing and walked down the thirteen steps to the front yard, down the sidewalk to the blacktop, and turned right. I kept walking until I reached the Quarters fifteen minutes later. No one followed me.
I couldn't believe what I'd just encountered—my siblings expected me to leave New York and come to Jean Ville to take care of a father who had abused me my entire life, all because my mother gave up on him. Well, he was her responsibility, not mine. As far as I was concerned, they could put him in a nursing home.
I was indignant when I walked up on Catfish's porch and plopped into the rocker. Lilly ran up the little steps, hugged me, then ran back into the yard to play with her cousins. Oh. Her cousins, I thought.
It hit me that Lilly was actually with her biological family. Marianne and I were half-sisters, so Marianne's nieces and cousins were related to my daughter. In fact, Rodney’s Uncle Bo was married to Marianne’s Aunt Jesse, so their children were related to Lilly, too.
Catfish's house, now Marianne's, was on the end of the row in the Quarters, closest to Gravier Road. Next was Tootsie's, then Sam's, Catfish's oldest son, and his family, then Bo and Jesse’s cabin. The last house belonged to the second brother, Tom. Tom and Sam's kids were starting to have kids of their own and some of them lived in the three new cabins facing the five originals.
Marianne walked out of the house with a pitcher of sweet tea and three glasses.
"Lucy's on the way over. How'd it go at your dad's?"
"Did you know my mother skipped out?"
"Mama told me. She's been gone over a week now, I think."
"They want me to leave my life and move back here to take care of him."
"Oh, my. Well?"
"I'm not going to do it."
"Don't blame you." Lucy must have parked in front of the house because she walked around to the back and climbed the little steps to the porch. She pecked Marianne on the top of her head and shook my hand.
"I've heard a lot about you." She sat on the floor of the porch with her legs dangling over the edge. She was a bit masculine, but pretty, with short, brown hair that had been ironed straight and hung over one eyebrow. Her skin tone was copper and she had dark eyes and brows and wore a small gold stud in the side of her nose. Lucy was thin and lanky, almost athletic, and spoke in a husky voice. Her dry wit was magnetic. She laughed a lot and was fun to be around. I soon forgot about the dysfunction at the antebellum house on the corner of Marshall and Jefferson Streets.
Marianne fired up the charcoal grill and laid out a couple of chickens, then she opened a bottle of wine and poured some into three jelly glasses. The three of us watched the children and laughed while evening fell around us and the chickens cooked. I called to Lilly and she came in, tired and dirty. I washed her up at the kitchen sink, dressed her in the pink pajamas we'd packed, and fed her a bowl of cereal. She was too tired to eat a meal. She fell fast asleep on the pull-out sofa in the next room.
Marianne's little cabin had three rooms, in shotgun fashion, which meant each room had a door into the next. "No halls," Catfish had told me. "That's a waste of space. Plantation owners called them 'shotgun houses' 'cause they said you could shoot your gun through the front door and kill a chicken in the backyard." Catfish laughed when he told me that, several times.
The room on the rear of the house, off the porch, was the kitchen. It had a stove, a sink with a faucet with running water, and a small refrigerator, which was new because Catfish had an old-fashioned icebox. There was a round table with four chairs and an old pine cabinet that held dishes and glasses. The middle room was the sitting room and Marianne had installed a black-and-white television across from the small sofa. There was also an old rocking chair.
The last room, on the front of the house, was a bedroom. I hadn't been in it since after Catfish's funeral. At the time it had a small bed, a dresser and a rod across one corner where he hung his clothes. A picture of Jesus had been over the bed. I wondered what Marianne had done to change the room, but didn't ask. I'd see it later.
The three of us polished off two bottles of wine and one of the chickens, and laughed until we were all exhausted. I asked about the bathroom and they looked at each other funny.
"You still have an outhouse?" I looked from Marianne to Lucy.
"We're just pulling your leg. I built a bathroom with running water, even hot, on the front porch. Just go through the bedroom."
I checked on Lilly as I walked through the sitting room. She was sound asleep. I opened the door to the bedroom and it no longer looked like the one I remembered. A large bed sat under the windows on the right and a big dresser with a huge mirror was across from it. On the far wall, next to the front door, was an armoire that I figured held Marianne's clothes. Nice, navy draperies hung from the two windows and there was a bedside table with a lamp on each side of the bed.
I opened the front door and, instead of a porch, there was a modern bathroom, complete with tub, toilet, and sink. I was impressed.
When I returned to the kitchen, I walked in on Marianne and Lucy kissing and turned around and closed the door between that room and the sitting room. I went into the bathroom, took a hot bath, dressed in my pajamas, and crawled into bed with Lilly. I was asleep before my eyes were totally shut.