"Yer the spittin' image of him, jus' as handsome as he was."
"Hello, Fanny," I said softly. She had come dressed in a sleeveless, black lace dress with a frilly bottom and a low-necked bodice. It fit her a size too tightly around the hips and bosom, but I could see little evidence of her pregnancy--perhaps only a slight thickening around the middle. She wore a widebrimmed black straw hat and had her hair pinned up behind her head. As usual, her makeup was too thick--the blue eye shadow, the rouge, and the bright red lipstick.
"Well, hello yerself. Say hello ta Randall," she demanded, turning toward him. With his hat in his hands he had been standing in the kitchen doorway looking in. He was dressed in a plain, dark brown suit and looked much older than I remembered. Life with Fanny must be aging him quickly, I thought. He smiled shyly and nodded.
"Hello, Heaven," he said. He looked toward Logan. "Logan."
Logan simply nodded.
"Ya'll could be more cordial," Fanny said quickly. "Randall was kind enuf ta escort me on this sad journey," she added, threading her right arm through his while she held on to Drake with her left, "especially with me bein' in a delicate condition," she added, looking slyly pleased!
"That is very kind of him." didn't respond to her insinuation. I wanted to rescue Drake from Fanny's clutches. "Logan, weren't you giving Drake something to eat?"
"Yeah, sure. His sandwich is ready." Logan suddenly regained the composure he had lost at the sight of Fanny and put the dish down on the table. "I made him some chocolate milk, too. That's what you wanted, right, Drake?" Drake nodded and Fanny reluctantly brought him back to his seat.
"So," she said, looking around, "ya skinned this place ta the bone yit?"
"There's nothing to skin, Fanny," I said coldly. "There's little of value here. Everything that belonged to Luke and Stacie is going to be placed into a trust for Drake. The lawyer is working on it."
"I'll bet," she sneered. "Told ya she'd have it all wrapped up 'fore we got here," she said to Randall.
"I didn't have to wrap anything up, Fanny. As a matter of fact, it was all set in motion before I arrived. Instructions were left," I said, leaving out that Tony had left them. I still didn't understand his role in this myself.
"What 'bout the funeral and such?"
"The funeral's tomorrow at eleven at the Kingsington Cathedral in Atlanta, burial at the church cemetery."
"You payin' for that?"
"It's all been taken care of, Fanny," I reiterated.
"Ya stayin' here tanight?" she asked and looked at Logan. He refused to meet her eyes and busied himself putting away the milk and peanut butter.
"No, we're going to stay in Atlanta at a hotel tonight," I said. I wanted to make sure Fanny dealt with me, not Logan. "But you can stay here and search the house to see if there's anything you might want."
"Well, he was ma pa. He loved me the most. I gotta right," she declared stubbornly.
"I suppose you do," I said softly. "Here are the keys to the house. Just bring them with you tomorrow and we'll give them to the attorney in charge of the property." I dropped the keys into her palm and she looked up at me with surprise.
"What about Drake?" she said, turning to him. "You wanna stay here with Randall and me, Drake, honey? Then you kin go ta the funeral with us tommorrah."
For a long moment Drake just stared up at her. Then he looked at me and then again at her.
"I'm goin' to a hotel," he said, "and then on an airplane. And then to a toy factory!"
"Oh, ya are?" She looked at me. "Ya takin' him back ta that castle?"
"He's coming back with us, yes. We'll make a home for him."
She stared at me a moment, the strangest blankness in her eyes. It was a blankness devoid of all feeling which I hadn't seen in her before. Then she turned back to Drake. "Well, honey, wouldn't ya rather be in yer own bed tanight?"
"You're confusing him, Fanny," I interrupted. "He's confused enough. It's better his mind is occupied." She turned to me with more characteristic Fanny fury in her eyes.
"I ain't confusin' him "
"She's right," Randall said softly. He looked almost surprised that he had spoken up, but what he saw made him do it. Almost immediately, though, he realized he had brought Fanny's wrath down upon himself.
"Oh, sure, ya'll say she's right," Fanny snapped.
"Ya'll probably always take her side 'gainst me, won't ya?"
"Come on," he said, in a pleading tone, "let's go have something to eat at a restaurant. We'll come back later."
She stared at me hatefully and then her face softened and she put on one of her brilliant smiles.
"Randall's right. I've been so upset about Pa, I couldn't think about food. And I'm eatin' fer two now, ain't I, Heaven," she said as she looked straight at Logan. "We didn't eat a thing since we left Winnerow, did we, Randall?"
"No," Randall agreed, obviously confused by the tension between Logan and Fanny.
"Ya wanna go to a restaurant, Drake, honey?" she asked.
"Fanny, can't you see he's in the middle of eating a sandwich?"
"Sandwich." She put her hand on his head and stroked his hair "Ya'd rather go ta a restaurant, wouldn't ya, Drake baby?"
"I'm not a baby," he said, pulling back.
"Well, I didn't mean yer a baby, honey."
"Fanny, let's go eat," Randall pleaded. "We'll come back."
"All right," she snapped. Then she put on her smile again. "We'll see ya all later on." She knelt down beside Drake and kissed him on the cheek. "Jus' as handsome as yer daddy was," she said. He stared at her as she joined Randall
"We'll see you at the church tomorrow," I said coldly.
"Oh, God, I forgot," Fanny said. "Poor Luke." She threaded her arm through Randall's. "I jest hate thinkin' 'bout it. Lemme borrow that handkerchief again, Randall, honey," she said and dabbed her eyes gently. She lowered her head.
"So long," Randall said.
The moment he and Fanny left the house, I took a deep breath and tried to calm the coiling rage Fanny had aroused in me. I looked at Logan, who wore a guilty, sad expression.
"I'll take Drake's things out to the car," he said, "so we can leave as soon as he's finished."
I nodded and then sat at the table and began wiping Fanny's lipstick off Drake's face.
Early the next morning, with Drake between us, one of his small sweet hands in each of ours, we entered the church, like a family. Luke's circus employees crowded the pews and spilled over into the aisles of the small church. There were giants and midgets; a bearded lady in a long, black dress; animal trainers with their hair so long they looked like bodybuilding rock singers; acrobatic groups who were so in tune with one another's movements, they looked attached; some glamorous-looking women who assisted magicians and the ringmaster; some management types in business suits; and men who played clowns, their faces so ridden with real grief, it was as if they wore their sad makeup clown faces.
All of them knew Drake, and at the sight of him it seemed as if the entire collection sighed and burst into tears at once. We walked down the aisle to the front pew and sat facing Drake's parents' caskets.
"Are Mammy and Daddy coming here?" Drake asked, his big brown eyes looking around anxiously. I felt my heart almost break in two.
"This is a special place to say good-bye to your mommy and daddy," I said, holding him tightly.
He looked up at the stained-glass window, at the candles, at the two caskets sitting side by side. The bearded lady had just walked over to Luke's casket and, weeping profusely, leaned over it and placed a single rose atop it.
"He was so kind to me," she whispered aloud to herself.
"Why is Auntie Martha talking to that box?" Drake asked. "Who's in there? Did Melin the Magician put someone inside there?"
"No, honey," I said. I tenderly kissed his forehead.
"I want to look inside! I don't believe you! I don't believe you! I know my daddy's in there!" he shouted, trying to wrench himself free. "Let me go! I want my daddy!"
He ran up to the coffin. But then he suddenly stopped. He put his tiny little ear against the wood and knocked. "Are you in there, Daddy?"
I tried to run up to him and hold him and protect him, but the bearded lady gently took my elbow. "Please," she said kindly, "I think I can handle him. Drake and I have always been very good friends."
Drake hugged the bearded lady. "Auntie Martha, Auntie Martha! Is my daddy in there?"
"My precious, darling Drake. Your daddy is in Heaven; it is only his shell in there. But don't worry, darling, Heaven is just like a wonderful circus. The biggest circus your daddy and mommy ever saw. They will be very happy there. But most important, they want you to be happy here on earth. They want you to go to school, and do well, and stay healthy, and when you grow up, you can be a ringmaster just like your daddy was." She began to cry.
"I want to be a ringmaster," Drake said. "And a lion tamer, too."
"Now I want you to go back and sit down with your sister. She loves you very, very much."
Then the bearded lady swept little Drake into her arms and kissed him good-bye.
"Pm going to be a lion tamer," Drake told me proudly.
"Of course you are, darling, you're going to be everything you want to be, and I'm going to help you," I assured him. "Now, Drake," I said, as I led him away from the casket, "let's sit down and listen to the service, okay?"
He nodded bravely, clutching my hand so hard he seemed to be afraid I, too, would disappear. As we walked back to the pew, I saw that Drake was comforted by the sight of all the familiar faces. As I scanned the congregation, I was surprised Fanny and Randall hadn't yet arrived. But my mind didn't linger on her. We sat down and Logan put his arm around me. I couldn't help but stare at the casket and think about Luke.
The organ music began. Then I heard a commotion at the door and turned around to look. Fanny and Randall were hurrying up the aisle. Fanny was wearing the same black cocktail dress she had worn yesterday and her face was just as heavily made up. As she slid into the pew beside us, she suddenly caught sight of the casket. She grabbed my hand as the tears began to spill down her cheeks, her heavy eye makeup turning her tears into muddy black and blue streams. At that moment I almost felt close to this sister of mine who seemed always to want to hurt me.
The minister appeared. He delivered a fine eulogy for someone who hadn't really known Luke and Stacie. Obviously, Mr. Steine had provided him with some biographical material. The minister talked about Luke's desire to provide entertainment and pleasure for people. He said that some people believed life, itself, was like a circus, and that God was like the ringmaster. He said that Luke had a finer performance awaiting him in Heaven, that God had called him to a greater responsibility. I was glad he had used the expression "God had called him." Little Drake, who stared at the closed coffins before him, looked up with widened eyes when the minister said those words. He remembered what I had told him.
Then the minister talked about Stacie, who had been a good mother and a good wife, and how Luke's and her love for each other must have been so strong, God decided to take them at the same time so they could be together.
Fanny began really sobbing, wailing loud enough so everyone in the church could hear. Randall comforted her, hoping to get her to lower her voice, I thought. For one moment, before the minister finished, Fanny and I looked at each other, and I saw my own sincere pain and sorrow reflected in her eyes. Luke had often shown her affection when she was younger, and Fanny hadn't seen very much of real affection in her life. She was suffering a real loss in Luke's death.
The caskets were carried out of the church and brought to their plots in the cemetery. A monument stone had already been cut and engraved.
Casteel
was written on top and their Christian names below with their birth dates and the date of their death. Under that it simply read, "Rest in Peace." After the final words were said and the caskets lowered, the mourners began to depart.
Out in front of the church Fanny scooped Drake into her arms again, tears streaming down her face.
"Oh, Drake, honey, yer like an orphan now, yer like us." She showered his face with kisses. He didn't resist; he was numbed and overwhelmed by the service and the sight of the coffins. I thought she was overdoing it, however, and pulled him out of her arms.
"He's not an orphan," I said, my face aflame with anger. "He's going to have a home and a family."
Fanny stepped back, stung by the cold tone in my voice. She wiped the tears from her cheeks with Randall's handkerchief and glared at me.
"He should be in the Willies," she said. "With his daddy's kind."
"That will never be," I stated, something proud and strong as steel springing into my spine. "Luke left the Willies to make himself a better life, and he would want the same for his son."
"Come, Fanny," Randall said softly. Some of the mourners from the circus had stopped to watch us. "This isn't the place to hold such a discussion."
Fanny looked around for a moment and then smiled.
"Yer right," she said. "Good-bye fer now, Heaven Leigh. Bye, Drake, honey." She threw him a kiss and then pivoted on her heels and sauntered off with Randall.
We drove directly to the airport. Drake was like a rag doll in my lap all the way, sitting limply, quietly, his head against my breast. When we arrived at the airport, however, the excitement surrounding the airplanes and the business of travel revived him. He had some lunch and we boarded our plane. I placed him at the window and he became very animated. "Are we up above the birds?" he asked. "Will we land on the moon?" Logan explained to Drake all about how airplanes flew, how the clouds prevented us from seeing the ground when we flew above them, why the plane didn't disappear in the clouds Drake was so excited with this new adventure, his face so animated, I felt sure we were going to be able to make him happy in his new family. Logan was going to make a wonderful father. Already he had accepted Drake as his own.
Soon both Logan and Drake fell asleep, Drake's sweet dark head resting on Logan's lap. How peaceful they seemed. I wished I could feel so peaceful, but my mind was abuzz with anxiety. I wanted to know why Tony had given the circus to Luke, why Luke had that clipping of my wedding from the newspaper in his drawer. I wanted to start my new life with Drake and Logan and our new baby clear from the sticky webs of the past, and I was determined to force Tony to clear away every one of them.
Tony was not at Farthy when we arrived. Curtis said he had been called away on business and wouldn't be back until late the following afternoon.