Four and Twenty Blackbirds (13 page)

"I guess. I went to Pine Breeze looking for—well, for
more,
really. I don't know much about my mother and no one wants to talk about her. And I don't know who my father is at all, but it may have something to do with my crazy cousin. You know—the one who keeps shooting at me every fifteen years or so."

"What did you find there?" She leaned forward, her forearms against her knees. "Did they ever clean that place out? When I left, the police closed the place up and called it an ongoing investigation. They wouldn't let me in after anything at all, not even a sweater I'd left hanging on the back of my chair. Damn shame about that sweater. One of those angora cardigans that looks so nice with everything, but costs so much to replace."

"If I'd've known, I would have taken a look around for you—but I don't think you'd want it back, now. It's all there, inside, but everything is rotted or rusted. I even found some filing cabinets full of stuff in one of the back buildings. There were medical records, prescriptions, people's names and social security numbers—but the place was trashed, as you might assume."

"Christ," she swore. "The board of directors kept telling me that I was going to get them sued with the way I handled things; they even tried to fire me, if you can imagine that. They tried to fire me from a hospital that the state had formally closed. I didn't have a job to get fired from. And then they went and left everything there? Idiots, all of them. They should have at least let me clean the place out. All that junk should have been shredded decades ago. It isn't fair to the kids we kept there, or to the adults they are now. Sons of bitches."

"Sons of bitches indeed."

"But you found what you were looking for?"

I shrugged. "I found things that put me on the track to finding what I need. And I found you."

"Fat lot of good I am to you, dear."

"I don't know, this is a pretty good glass of tea."

She smiled, like I hoped she would. "Then it hasn't been for naught. But I have to tell you—I don't know who your father was. I think your grandmother might have known, but I don't know if you'll ever get it out of her."

"Since she's dead, that's a pretty safe bet."

"I'm sorry to hear that. It's as I told you: she was trying to do right, even if she didn't go about it in the best way. I got the feeling she didn't know her own children very well at all, and it confused her and made her mad. I hope your aunts learned that—and they learned to forgive her for handling Leslie the way she did."

I didn't know how to answer that, so I didn't. I don't know about Aunt Michelle, but Lulu hung on to her grudge with a death grip, and I don't think that grip eased up any with my grandmother's passing.

"But I do want you to know, I liked your mother. She was an old soul, as they say sometimes. Older than her years. She was a child, yes, but she was a wise little thing, and she knew she'd screwed up. Even though she was shut away there, out in the hills, she never acted like she was a prisoner. I think she felt better for being there, as strange as that sounds. Like she was relieved to be free of the drama." Marion finished off the tea and the cigarette in two separate breaths.

"Thank you," I said, since nothing else seemed appropriate.

"Thank you for what?"

"For this, all of it. You told me more about her in a couple of paragraphs than Lulu has ever managed to share. She doesn't like to talk about her, or her mother either."

"Oh, you're welcome, then. And don't hold it against your aunt; it hurts her to remember, that's all. Leslie was . . . Leslie was something else." She rose from her seat to take both of our glasses into the kitchen. "Pine Breeze wasn't the happiest place to be. It was someplace that kids went when the rest of the world didn't know what to do with them anymore. It was a place where kids went to cry."

Marion retreated to the kitchen, and I heard the glasses clink into the sink where she set them down. "But Leslie was there, and I liked her, because she could still laugh."

III

Next night, after spending an evening with a couple of friends who knew their way outside the city better than I did, I came home with a resolution to leave. Marion was a neat lady and I appreciated her time, but she'd given me everything she knew in a couple of paragraphs. If I was going to get any real answers, I was going to have to head south and hope for the best. I did not anticipate that Lulu would let me do this without a fight, though, and she was unprepared to disappoint me. She was waiting at the door when I pulled in; it was late, but not so late that she could pretend the sound of my car had roused her.

"You've been drinking." I made it a statement, though I wasn't certain until I got close enough to smell her. It was worth noting aloud, because it wasn't something she did too often when she knew I'd be around. I'd been out most of the night, and Lulu knew better than to wait up for me. I couldn't figure out why she'd done so now.

"So've you."

"Not much. Just a little wine to go with the conversation."

I think she knew I was baiting her, so she made a point of not biting. "Dave's in Atlanta, and I got bored," she said instead. "And I'm not feeling too hot, so you never mind what I have and haven't been swallowing. I don't owe you any explanation."

Usually she wouldn't have asked, but that night curiosity got the better of her.

"Where've you been?"

"Walking to and fro upon the earth."

"No dice, Job." Lulu's sharp even when she's hammered. Sometimes I think it's cool, and sometimes I wish she were more easily impressed. This time her response was hard, and it utterly lacked any saving cushion of humor. I was immediately ill at ease; her tone was crying for conflict, and that was never a good thing.

"Where were you at? And what are you up to?"

I had no reason to lie. I'd already decided I was leaving, anyway. I was glad I'd found Marion, but she had only told me that there was nothing for me to learn there in the valley. It had taken me a couple of days to come to terms with it, but once that difficult truth had settled in, the rest of my course was as clear as it was peculiar.

"I was out with Jamie and Drew," I said, "but that's not half as interesting as what I was up to this weekend. I went to Pine Breeze. It wasn't that hard to find." I took a hard breath and stepped past her. I went down the hall to my room without looking back, then gathered an overnight bag and started packing it with clean underwear. Socks followed suit, and a clean pair of jeans. Lulu trailed behind me and stood in the doorway, one arm lightly hanging on the frame in a gesture that had become very familiar to me.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Macon," I responded without looking up from my bag. "Now are you gonna ask what I think I'm gonna find?"

"No. You're looking for
Tatie
." She spit the last work out, adding contempt to the pronunciation. Tah-
tee,
she says it, and even though that's the way it's supposed to be, it sounds like a curse, or something like despair. "You don't really want to find her. You don't really want to go to Macon."

"Okay," I agreed. "Then maybe I'll go to Highlands Hammock."

I would almost swear that the blank stare Lulu gave me was genuine. She's a good liar—maybe a better one than I am, but I don't think she's
that
good. "Where?" she asked, and my confidence faltered. I've been wrong before and bluffed my way free, but if you're wrong with Lulu, you might as well fold. She'll have won before the next words are out of your mouth.

"Highlands—Highlands Hammock. It's in Florida."

Her forehead did not uncrinkle to hint at enlightenment. "Where in Florida?"

I was forced to confess that I didn't know. "But I've got a map in the car. It can't be that hard to find."

"Who's in Florida that you think you need to talk to?" Again, I didn't think she was messing with me. If she really knew something about the place that I didn't, she should have gone into politics with that poker face.

Shit. All right, then, it was time to bluff; but once again I didn't know the answer. "Tatie could tell you, if you'd bother to ask her." Like Mr. Spock used to say, "Never lie when you can misdirect."

"Tatie would as soon see us dead as tell us anything useful."

"Sort of like you?" It flew out before I could stop it. Old patterns die so hard. I'll be eighty and she'll be one hundred, and I'll still regress to a wiseass six-year-old when she confronts me.

For a second I honestly thought she might strike me—and that would have been a first—but she held her position and straightened her back. "
Nothing
like me. That's more unfair than you know."

"Then tell me why Tatie paid for my mother to be at Pine Breeze. That would be useful, and it would set the two of you apart."

Disgust clouded her face. She shook her head. "You don't even know what questions to ask. You don't know what's useful and what's not. You're shooting in the dark, firing blind, and you think you're going to wring something out of her?"

"See—that's what I mean. Since you're not talking, I'm going to have to go ask someone else." I went on with my packing, even though I was all but done. I pulled an extra T-shirt out of a drawer and made a show of unfolding it, then folding it again.

"No." Lulu's knuckles whitened around the doorjamb. "No, don't go to her. Ask me whatever you want, but don't go there. Not after I've spent so long keeping you away from her. She'll fuck you up if she can."

I shoved the shirt into the bag and faced her then, full on, no blinking away. "Why did Leslie ask to go to Pine Breeze?"

Lulu leaned against the frame. Her temple pressed against the wood. "She was afraid."

"Of who? Or what? My father?"

"No. Not your father." She shook her head, rolling it back and forth on the frame and wearing a pink groove into her skin. "She had him wrapped around one little finger, I think. That's the impression I got, anyway. If anything, she was irritated by him. But not afraid, ever. Not that I know of."

I believed her. And if I thought she was going to tell the truth, I might as well keep asking, even if it did turn out to be too little too late. "All right then. Who
was
my father? And I want to hear more than some initial or general Caucasoid appearance you think he might have had. You've gotta know more than that."

"He was somebody's husband. Beyond that, I don't know. All I know is that he was married, and that his wife was a nut who kept threatening Leslie. I swear to you, baby, that's all I know about him. He had a wife, and she knew about Leslie. She tried to make trouble."

That may well have explained the nasty letter I'd found. "And that's why she was afraid?" I asked.

"Yes," Lulu affirmed, but her almond-colored eyes veered away from mine. "I think that's it."

In that quick dash of her glance, she lost me, and I knew for sure that this wasn't going to work. Even if she was telling the truth, it was a slanted version of it—a version that was close enough to falsehood to serve me no purpose. She was right. I didn't know what questions to ask yet, and until I did, I needed to go find someone who didn't know me well enough to lie to me. I reached back for my bag and threw in a pair of sneakers.

"We're done here. I'm going now."

"And how do you expect to find her?"

Lulu thought she had me, but I'd already thought up an answer to that one. "I bet I can find a phone book."

She didn't argue. Instead, she reissued her warning. "Don't you go to her. No good could come of it." She planted her feet apart and stood blocking most of the door. I had a feeling she wasn't half so drunk as I thought she was, but I'd never seen her desperate before and I didn't want to acknowledge her desperation now.

I screwed my courage to the sticking place and slung the bag over my shoulder. "You thinking of stopping me?" I asked with more bravado than I felt. "You'd better not try. 'Cause you can't."

She didn't take the challenge right away, but she answered me all the same. "I wouldn't be so sure of that."

"Try it, then." The longer I looked at her, lean but solid and wholly unflinching, the more I prayed she wouldn't call my bullshit.

Lulu didn't move. I wondered if she was thinking the same thing—measuring whether or not she'd be able to take me if she felt she had to. I never reached her height, but I was twenty years her junior and I was faster than she had reason to know. Lulu might have been past forty, but she could still knock the head off 'most anyone I knew. Even so, she backed down first.

"You know I've never laid a hard hand on you—not in your entire life—and I don't mean to start now. But yours is a mind that needs changing. I wish I knew how to do it, but I don't. And I can't keep you hostage here forever, even if I stopped you now and didn't let you leave.

"You're my daughter. I don't mind saying so—you're
my
daughter. Not Leslie's. And not your mythical father's, either. You're mine and you're Dave's—the closest we ever had or ever will have, and I love you accordingly. I know you've got things you think you need to get answers to, but I wish you'd take my word that you don't. There are some things you're better off—hell, you're just plain
happier
—not knowing. There's so much of that crap waiting for you that even I don't know it all, because I didn't want to hear it. I'm only going to say this once, and then I leave it to you: Don't go get involved with old Tatie."

I tried to be flippant. "You make it sound like a matter of life or death."

She snorted and slapped her hand at the wall. "Goddamn stupid kid."

Then she retreated from the doorway and half stumbled out into the hall, then into her bedroom. Her voice trailed behind her, taunting but sad. "There's more she can take from you than just your life." Her bedroom door closed, but I heard her last, bitter words.

"She knows who you really are, you know."