Dollbaby: A Novel (18 page)

“Master Graham, what are you doing?” Queenie picked him up and
carried him over her shoulder into the house. She set him down just inside the door, then bent over, speaking softly. “Now listen, Master Graham, you feeling mighty lost right now, but we can’t take back the way things are no matter how much we try, understand? We got to go on. You got to be strong for your mother. There ain’t nothing gone bring Master Balfour back, you hear me?”

If only I had grabbed his hand, climbed out onto the gutter, maybe I could have saved him,
Graham thought
.

Queenie turned his chin toward her. “Master Graham, are you listening to me?”

He cut loose and started running up the stairs toward his mother’s room. When he tried the handle, it was locked. He turned and yelled down at Queenie, “Let me in!”

She shook her head. “No, baby. Doctor says your mama needs her rest. We ain’t to disturb her.”

“Where’s my father?”

“He’s at the hospital. He went back early this morning to make arrangements. Now come on down here so I can make you some breakfast.”

A week went by. They buried Balfour out at the Metairie Cemetery on a bitter cold day when the rain was spitting down on them. Fannie came out of her room to go to the funeral. She didn’t speak a word the whole time. Not to Norwood. Not to Graham. Not even to Balfour as they buried him. It was as if she’d died herself. After the service, Norwood escorted Fannie back to her room. Graham waited for him outside the door.

“Is she ever going to say anything again?” Graham asked his father.

“I hope so, son,” Norwood said. Then he stooped down and hugged Graham. He could hear his father crying softly.

Christmas came and went. Queenie took the tree down the day after New Year’s and put the unopened presents in the hall closet.

When it came time for school to start again, his father came to Graham’s room to speak to him.

“Son, I need to talk to you about something.”

Graham was on his bed reading a comic book. He put it down and sat up. “Is it about Mother?”

“In part.” Norwood smoothed back Graham’s dark hair. “You need a haircut.”

“I know, but everybody’s been busy.”

“I know, son. That’s the problem. I feel bad. I’m sorry I haven’t been a very good father lately.”

“It’s okay.”

Norwood kissed him on the forehead. “Listen.”

Graham tensed up. Every time someone said
listen
, something bad usually came after it.

“The doctors told me this morning that your mother is going to have to go away for a little while.”

“What’s a little while?” Graham asked.

“They don’t know for sure. Until she gets better.”

“Can I see her before she goes?”

Norwood reached over and took Graham’s hand in his. “They’ve already come to get her, while you were asleep.”

Graham yanked his hand away. “What do you mean? Why didn’t anyone wake me up?”

“Calm down. It was in the middle of the night. She started having some sort of seizure. But don’t worry—the doctor says she’ll be all right.”

“When will she be back?”

“I hope by the summer, when you come back.”

“When I come back? From where?”

Graham adored his father, had always looked up to him. Tanned and rugged from working out on the tugboat, he had strong arms from heaving towlines. He wore his dark hair parted on the side, just as Graham did, and his steady hazel eyes turned green in the sunlight.
Today those eyes didn’t look steady. Instead, they looked as if they were saying one thing and meaning another.

“I have to go away on an extended job down the river. I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“Queenie can take care of me.”

“Queenie has a family of her own, son. She can’t be with you all the time. I’ve spoken with the headmaster at St. Stanislaus, a boarding school over on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I’m bringing you there first thing tomorrow.”

“What?” Graham sat up on his knees. “No!”

“Listen, son.” Norwood pushed him back down on the bed against the headboard. “I don’t have a choice. I’m sorry. But for the time being, this is the way it’s going to be.”

The next morning at daybreak, Queenie woke Graham. She helped him get dressed and packed a breakfast for him. She handed him a small suitcase and waved goodbye as Norwood backed the car out of the driveway.

Graham looked out the back window of the car, wondering if he would ever come back to the house on Prytania Street again. And if he did, would things ever be the same?

Would his mother ever love him the way she had before Balfy died
?

He wasn’t so sure
.

“Did it happen in this room?” Ibby asked.

Doll nodded. “That’s why that window is all boarded up. Been that way since the accident.”

“One of the locked rooms on the second floor—is one of them Balfour’s?”

“Yes, Miss Ibby. Fannie had Queenie lock it up that night. No one been in there since.”

“I wonder why Daddy never told me about his brother.”

Doll shook her head. “’Cause, Miss Ibby, the day Master Balfour
died, something in your daddy died, too. He thought his mother blamed him for the accident. He thought that was why his parents sent him away to boarding school. He never said as much, but I could always see it in his eyes. Think that may have been one reason he ran away with your mother. But Miss Fannie, she never blamed him. All she wanted was for him to stay here in this house with her, so they could be a family. She tried to talk to him, tried to show him how much she loved him, but after the accident, Master Graham, he kept pushing her away. I think he had so much hurt inside that he just didn’t know how to let it go. Broke Miss Fannie’s heart watching him suffer like that.”

“I wish he’d told me about it. I could have tried to help.”

That explained the sadness she saw in her daddy’s eyes sometimes. Ibby used to think that she was the one that made him sad. She thought perhaps he wasn’t proud of her, or maybe he wished she’d been a boy. Now she understood. He was hurting inside from something that had happened a long time ago. Still, she wished he would have told her about the accident. Maybe she could have made it better for him somehow.

Doll let out a big sigh. “Some things too broke to fix sometimes. All you can do is make the best of it.”

“Doll?”

“Yes, baby?”

“Is Fannie too broke to fix?”

Doll flicked one of her fingernails several times before answering. “Just remember that she loves you, no matter what,” Doll said. “Now try to get some rest.” When she got to the door, she turned around. “Tell you what, Miss Ibby. Tomorrow, first thing, I’m gone get Crow to take them boards off that window. Make it a lot more comfortable once we get some air circulating. About time we got some life back in this room.”

T
he next morning Ibby stopped by her father’s room and held the urn for a while. She’d stayed awake all night, thinking about him. There was so much she never knew about him, so much he’d never told her. She remembered the way he had looked at the photo of Fannie the day it fell out of his wallet at the school fair, as if he wanted to say something to her but couldn’t. She hadn’t understood the pain in his eyes then, but she did now. He had wanted to tell his mother that he loved her, just as she wished she could tell her father at this very moment how much she loved him.

As she closed the door to his room, she knew it was too late to help her father, but maybe it wasn’t too late to help Fannie. Somehow.

Queenie was taking some biscuits out of the oven when she went into the kitchen. “You look all tuckered out, Miss Ibby. What’s the matter? Didn’t you get any sleep?”

“Not much,” Ibby said.

“Doll, she say she up all night, too, listening to that tiger down at the zoo.” Queenie nodded toward the backyard, where Doll was yanking some sheets off the clothesline. “Better stay out of her way today. She gets mighty cranky when she don’t get her sleep.”

Queenie put a plate of bacon in front of Ibby and said cheerily, “So, what we gone do today? Could go on down to the poultry market off
Carrollton Avenue and get a few fresh chickens. Know they fresh ’cause they wring those chicks’ necks right in front of you, then pluck ’em clean and wrap ’em up right nice so you can tote ’em home.”

Queenie was awfully talkative this morning, even for Queenie.

Ibby shook her head.

“No? Well then, we could go by the fish market over on Jefferson Highway, get some fresh she-crabs or some shrimp, and make us up some stuffed mirliton. I got some nice Creole tomatoes in the back, could make some more gazpacho.”

“I’m not really hungry,” Ibby said.

Queenie kept rambling. “Well, how about a game of
bourré
? I got some cards right here in the kitchen drawer. Or better yet, we can watch my stories on the TV while Doll irons the sheets.” Queenie kind of laughed at that last suggestion.

“Has the doctor called?” Ibby asked.

“No, baby. Expect it be a few more days before we hear from him.” Queenie turned to face the sink.

Ibby got the feeling there was something she wasn’t telling her. “Is something wrong?”

Queenie sat down at the table. Her happy face had vanished. “Your mama called this morning, Miss Ibby.”

“My mother? Did she wish me a happy birthday?”

“Ibby, baby, I don’t know how to tell you this.” Queenie set her eyes squarely on the floor, a sure sign she was getting ready to deliver some bad news.

Doll came in the back door and set the ironing basket on the counter. “What’s going on?”

“Her mama called a little while ago,” Queenie said.

Doll’s eyes widened. “What Miss Vidrine gone say when she finds out Miss Fannie ain’t here?”

“Don’t matter no more.” Queenie shook her head.

“What you mean?” Doll asked.

Queenie looked from Ibby to Doll and back again. “’Cause Miss Vidrine, she say she ain’t coming back.”

One morning almost two weeks later, Ibby, Queenie, and Doll were in the kitchen when they heard the front door open and close.

Fannie had returned from the hospital. She dropped her suitcase in the hall and walked into the dining room, took her usual spot at the table, and began reading the newspaper.

“I’d like some coffee!” she bellowed.

“You go on in there and take your seat at the table, pretend like nothing has happened,” Queenie said to Ibby. “You hear me? Don’t say nothing about her being in that hospital. Just go on about your business like it’s any other morning.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Ibby asked as Queenie pushed her through the door into the dining room.

“Just do what you do every morning—say hello and give her a kiss on the cheek.”

“Then what? What am I supposed to talk about?” Ibby said.

“You just follow my lead.” Queenie nudged Ibby toward Fannie.

Ibby went over to Fannie and kissed her on the cheek, then took a seat at the table. “Good morning, Fannie.”

“Good morning, young lady. How’d you sleep?” Fannie didn’t look up from the newspaper.

Before Ibby could answer, Queenie came over to serve Fannie some coffee. “What you feel like for breakfast this morning, Miss Fannie?”

“Maybe some bacon,” she said. “They make terrible bacon in that place.”

Ibby looked over at Queenie, hoping she was going to change the subject.

“Sure enough—got plenty of bacon I can fry up,” Queenie said, making eyes at Ibby.

Ibby couldn’t tell what Queenie was trying to get her to do.

“Miss Ibby, what you want?”

“Same as Fannie, I guess,” Ibby said, making eyes back.

Queenie left the room for a second, then came back in. “You want something else, Miss Fannie?”

“I have a hankering for clabber. Could you bring me some of that, too?”

“Sure thing, Miss Fannie.”

“Anything happen while I was gone?” Fannie asked to no one in particular while she was reading the paper.

Ibby looked over at Queenie.

Queenie nodded. “Might as well go on and tell her, Miss Ibby.”

Ibby glowered at her. She’d hoped she could wait a few days, until she was sure Fannie was back to her old self, before bringing up Vidrine’s phone call.

“Tell me about what?” Fannie asked.

“Miss Vidrine called,” Queenie said. “About two weeks ago.”

Fannie put the newspaper down. “What’d she want?”

“She say it be okay if Miss Ibby stay with you awhile,” Queenie said.

Ibby tightened her lips. That wasn’t exactly what her mother had said, and Queenie knew it.

Fannie’s face brightened. “How long is awhile?”

“She don’t say,” Queenie said, making her way back to the kitchen. “Just thought you’d want to know.”

Fannie jumped up from the table. Ibby could hear her dialing the phone in the hall.

Queenie came back into the room to refill Fannie’s coffee cup.

“Why’d you go and bring that up?” Ibby whispered to her.

“She got to know sooner or later,” Queenie said.

“Later would have been better,” Ibby said.

“No time for later around this house,” Queenie said.

“Who’s she calling?” Ibby said. “I hope it’s not Vidrine.”

“Oh.” Queenie sat back on her heels. “Never thought about that.”

When Fannie came back into the room, she was smiling.

Queenie said to Ibby, low enough so Fannie couldn’t hear, “Couldn’t have been Vidrine. Not the way she’s grinning.”

“It’s all settled,” Fannie said.

“What you going on about, Miss Fannie?” Queenie asked. “What’s all settled?”

“I just enrolled Ibby at Our Lady of the Celestial Realm Catholic School for Girls. She starts in a couple of weeks.”

Ibby fell back against her chair.

Queenie shook her head. “Miss Ibby gone be a Catholic schoolgirl. Now, ain’t that
something.”