The Apple-Green Triumph

by Martha Lacy Hall

Louisiana State University Press ISBN 0-8071-1608-4

Copyright &COPY 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990 by Martha Lacy Hall

Before opening the car door, Lucia took a deep breath of
the Louisiana night air. She was not unaware of its heaviness, its
moistness, the smells of Lake Pontchartrain salt, seaweed,
water creatures, alt mixed with the sounds produced by the
wind slapping water against the seawall, soughing in the tops
of tall pines against a black sky.
She pressed hard on the starter in the old Triumph. It
ground, coughed, and was silent. "Oh, my God," she said, and
hit the steering wheel with her fist. If it wouldn't start, she
would just have to have Everett paged at the New Orleans
airport. Tell him to get on a Greyhound bus for Mississippi.
He should have done that in the first place or flown into
Jackson. "Start!" she growled and pressed again, and it did.
She floored the accelerator, in neutral, and the engine roared
underfoot, confident and, as always, a little arrogant for so
small a tiger. The beam of the headlights crawled across the
wall and the screened porch as she slowly backed out of the
carport and turned toward the street.
"I'm out of my mind," she said aloud. "I'm just out of my
ever-loving mind." She had begun talking to herself after Chris
died two years ago. They had had such a good time talking
that when he was no longer there she just kept on talking. "I
am my own best company," she sometimes said, picking figs
or surveying herself at the full-length mirror, ready to go out.
She slowed and looked at her watch under the corner street-
light. Ten o'clock.
"Seventy-five-year-old fool heading to New Orleans at ten
o'clock at night." She braked, shifted the gear, and rounded

the corner, leaving Lakeshore Drive. "A damn fool." The
lights beamed across the spray-painted command on the wall
of the high school gym: LADY OF MERCY STOMP HOLY GHOST
FRIDAY NIGHT!

Scarcely aware of thunder to the south, she drove slowly,
peering intently through her glasses and the flat little wind-
shield. She had decided not to drive at night over a year ago,
and she felt that her dear old car might be better able to make
it across the twenty-six-mile causeway than she was. "Old
cars can be overhauled." As this one had been recently. A big
car rushed up to an intersection and slammed to a stop. Star-
tled, she swore.
"Just tell me one thing good about being old. Just one
thing!" She simply hadn't felt this way as long as she had
Chris. Any woman who claimed she didn't need a strong man
didn't know what she was talking about. She drove on toward
the causeway, through a tunnel of night-darkened oaks be-
tween the streetlights of Ste. Marie, Louisiana. "I just have to
do it," she said, tears in her voice. Everett hadn't changed a
bit. She hadn't seen him for nearly ten years and never ex-
pected him to fly down for Ann's services. And what did he do
but call her at nine o'clock tonight out of the blue, from the
New Orleans airport.
"Can you pick me up?" he said, like he was down at the Ste.
Marie bus depot and it was twenty years ago.
"Do you know how old I am?" she wanted to scream at him.
"Brat. Sixty-year-old brat." He hadn't come for the other
funerals-Dora's, Tom's, Margaret's. Not since their parents'.
Well, Ann was his twin. Maybe there still was something
special there, dormant, come to life at the incident of death.
And some burst of confidence and energy had made her say,
"I'll pick you up. Just sit tight." The call had given her an
illusion of vigor, the big sister again, always there, ready. She
had to do it.
When she thought of Ann she began to cry and had to pull

over to the curb and hold her face in a handful of tissues. "I
thought I was through crying," she sobbed. "Ann, Ann! I
could kill you for leaving me high and dry like this." Then she
began to laugh at what she'd said. Ann would have laughed.
She took another tissue from the box on the dash and cleaned
her glasses and blew her nose. As she drove back onto the
wide highway, wind gusts swept overland from the lake,
bringing the first raindrops.
"Don't rain! Don't rain!"
By the time she approached the causeway she was in a
downpour, windshield wipers working fast and noisily. She
pulled up to the toll booth and handed the man a dollar.
Reflected lights blurred on the choppy water of Lake
Pontchartrain. Red lights and white lights nearby, and far
ahead a smoldering luminescence in the low, heavy clouds
over New Orleans.
"Bad night to be headin' for Sin City," the man said.
"Mission of mercy," said Lucia, and moved forward, chin
high.
Chris's apple-green Triumph was in fine shape for its age.
Duffy Peek had just been all over it, spent three days like he
and Chris used to do together. She loosened her tight grip on
the steering wheel, arthritis grinding out its pain in knobby
knuckles, hurting like the devil. For that matter it hurt in her
shoulders, neck, back. "Just a dilapidated old bag of bones."
But she could quickly call up one of those lovely healing
memories of Chris's voice: "Cut that out, you beautiful babe.
You're in great shape, and you look like a million dollars," and
she saw that wide smile, white teeth, tanned face. Fine old
face. The car seemed more cozy and safe while rain pounded
the canvas top, windshield, and danced on the hood.
Then Ann pushed back into Lucia's thoughts. Ann and
Everett had been her real-live dolls. She was fifteen when they
were born, she was the eldest of six, the tallest, the child-
lovingest, the chauffeur, Mother pro tem, Daddy called her.

She adored the twins and simply took them over, rocked two
cribs at once, changed diapers, warmed bottles-old-fash-
ioned bottles with rubber nipples that Everett learned to pull
off in his crib. Lucia carried them around, baby legs straddling
both her hips. She dressed them in their little matching
clothes for Myrt to roll them down to the Methodist Church
corner in their double stroller, where all the nurses gathered
in the afternoons with their charges, little white children
fresh from their bathtubs. Ann became her love, and they had
remained close for the rest of Ann's life.
"I never could believe she grew up. How did she get to be
sixty years old? She barely made that. Why did she have to die
before me? Emphysema, like the others. And Daddy. Ann
didn't even smoke." Lucia had spent the last months going
back and forth between Ste. Marie and Sweet Bay, sitting with
Ann at home or in the hospital, at whichever place Ann lay
propped up, crowding words between breaths, oxygen tank
nearby, plastic tubes in her nostrils. They reviewed their
whole lives. "And I made you my executor!" Lucia said ac-
cusingly, and they laughed like fools, as they -always had, no
matter how bad off Ann was. No matter how hard it was for
Lucia. Almost to the end. They weren't together when she
died in her sleep.
"I can't believe things are ending this way. I've buried all of
them. All but Everett. God knows he'd better outlive me. I'm
sick of sitting on the edges of graves in that plot." She would
talk to Everett about that, about his place now. Thank God for
him. A good dependable younger family member. "Perhaps
he will come back home with me for a few days, and we can
relax, visit, talk about the future..." The wind and rain
came on hard from the lake, almost blindingly. She couldn't
possibly drive the minimum speed. Traffic was blessedly
light.
An enormous white semi was overtaking the green
Triumph, fast. "Slow down, idiot." How could he see to drive

that fast? The white hulk rumbled past, rocking the small car
fearsomely.
She remembered the day Chris drove it into her driveway, a
tiny motor-roaring thing, the top down, unfolded his long
legs, and rose from the brown leather seat. "Are you Mrs.
Collins?" he asked, and his smile was as arresting as his
apple-green car.
"I am," said Lucia, removing her gardening gloves and drop-
ping the bamboo rake on the leaf pile. She took hasty note of
his appearance, thatch of white hair, rumpled by the wind,
plaid well-tailored shirt, good suitably faded jeans, and white
deck shoes. He had a newspaper under his arm. He was the
boater who had called in answer to her ad.
"My name is Neilson, Chris Neilson. I called about your
ad. Let's see, you have a lantern, Coleman stove, rope, fishing
tackle. Got an anchor?"
"That and more." She smiled politely.
"May I see them?"
"Certainly. They're right back here in the storeroom. I'll
get the key." She fetched the key off the kitchen hook, and
Chris Neilson followed her to the dark green door off the
carport. She switched on the light. "I have a 50-horsepower
motor, some seats, life preservers, quite a few things. Go in
and look them over."
He stayed in the storeroom a while. She could tell what he
was examining by the familiar sounds of wood, metal, canvas.
When he stepped out he smiled again and said, "You all lost
interest in boating?"
"My husband died several years ago, and I'm just now get-
ting rid of some of his things."
"I know how that is. Been through it. I'm going to try living
on my boat."
"I see. Well, do you see anything you need in there?"
"I surely do. Are those two new deck chairs for sale? I could
use them. And the lantern I could use. How about the radio?"

"Any of it or all of it." She reached in her shirt pocket and
handed him a typewritten list with prices.
"Good," he said. "Tell you what. I live in New Orleans, but
I'll be back in a pickup this afternoon late if that's okay."
"That's fine. I'll be here."
He smiled again and slid into the car.
"You have a-an interesting car. I don't believe 1 ever saw a
sportscar that color."
"Probably not. I had this one painted. Gaudy, isn't it?"
"It's bright springlike," she laughed like he wasn't a
stranger. She was the stranger.
After he left she picked up her rake and poked it around in
the leaves. What an interesting man. She hadn't noticed an
,, interesting man" since Henry died. She embarrassed herself.
Lucia realized she was handling the car well despite every-
thing. She felt a ripple of pride in her spine. The Triumph was
so small, not even comfortable, really, but she couldn't part
with the crazy little thing. First she had sold Chris's pickup,
then finally her sedan. Sentiment. What made men love their
cars so? She had loved the man, and the car was the most
tangible thing she had left of him. "Oh, Chris." She was mar-
ried to Chris for eight years - a fling and a lark for an old
couple. Old in birthdays. She couldn't remember either of
them being sick for a day together. "It was more than a fling
and a lark."
"You look like a smart woman. What do you do?" he said
later when he dropped by with no excuse.
Confronted with such a question, she blurted, "I work like
a dog in this house and yard. I make fig and mayhaw preserves
and green-tomato pickles. I read a couple of books a week. I
'do' book reviews." She stopped, aghast at her ready biogra-
phy to a stranger. That was the beginning. He was interested.
Lucia loosened her hurting hands. "What we did was laugh
and talk." And live a little. A lot. Like she had not thought
possible. For eight years. Sometimes she still found it hard to
believe that they had had the good fortune to find each other.

"Right there in your own backyard," he would say and put his
arms around her.
One night eating their own catch on the deck of his boat,
rocking ever so gently on the Tchefuncte River. he said,
"Marry me and come live on my boat."
"Marry you! You want to get legally hitched to a sixty-five-
year-old crone?" It was as good as "Yes."
"I want your money."
"My dowry consists of my medicare."
"I'll accept that." More seriously, "So, we're sixty-five years
old. Let's see how much fun we can have."
So they were married. By a New Orleans judge they both
knew. They lived in her house on the lake, but she became a
boat person, too. It was an unruffled transition, becoming a
married woman again. Chris was an affectionate man. To her
naive surprise, he was a tender and passionate lover, and to
her greater surprise, her pleasure with him was more intense
than she had ever known. "You're some woman," Chris
would say. And "Back from the dead!" That was lagniappe.
They drove to New Orleans for Saints games at the Super-
dome and for shows at the Saenger. They dined with friends at
home, in the city, and in restaurants around the lake. They
cooked on the grill, and they played gin and sipped wine in the
evening.
Occasionally Chris would have an extra evening drink or
two, on the boat anchored a mile or so from the north shore.
He would tell her ribald stories and sing noisily from an end-
less repertoire of war songs, using his glass for a baton.
Creeping along in the night through wind and rain over
Lake Pontchartrain, Lucia shook her head remembering
Chris singing one night, "Bless em all! Bless em all! The long
and the short and the tall! There'll be no promotions this side
of the ocean. So cheer up, my lads, Fuckem all!"
"Hush up, Chris! Your voice carries across this water like
you have a microphone." She was interrupted by a baritone
from a winking light a quarter mile farther out. "Fuckem all!

Fuckem all! The long and the short And then they could
all hear the laughter bounce over the light chop and under the
sparkling stars in a blue-black sky.
Lucia pulled into a turnaround area and stopped the car.
She rested her head on the steering wheel. "It won't be long,
now. I'm doing fine. But thank the Lord Everett can take the
wheel for the two hours to Mississippi." Their aged cousins
sisters, both in their late eighties, were putting them up.
"What a treat! What a treat!" Cousin May had chirped over
the phone, "Having you children with us again." Then she
caught herself. "Oh my dear. I'm forgetting myself. We are all
in grief for dear little Ann. She was like a sister to me. And
Lucia knew Cousin May was getting Ann mixed up with their
mother Ann.
Lucia lifted her head. The last day of his life Chris had said
to her, "You're a youthful handsome woman, Lucia. I love
that thick white hair and those gorgeous legs."
"You're crazy," Lucia had said, pinching his bottom as he
walked past her toward the stern. A few moments later he had
a heart attack and without a word fell overboard. She went
down after him with life preservers, but he was dead, his
white hair washing back and forth like anemones between his
fishing line and the stern.
She put the Triumph in drive and moved out behind a state
trooper. "Halleluja, I've got me an escort!" But the white car
wove away at high speed and was lost to her. "Well. I'm on
my own again." The rain had slowed to a drizzle when she
turned toward the airport. The speeding cars and trucks in
the six-lane interstate unnerved her, and she addressed her
maker reverently each time she moved farther left, lane by
lane. "Christ," she murmured when she spied the metal sign
New Orleans International Airport that directed traffic to a
new overpass she didn't know about. Her heart in her mouth,
she managed to move back to the far-right lane. And the
Triumph roared up the ramp and back over the traffic she had

just left. Not daring to feel giddy, she found herself traveling
parallel to jet runways. Strobelights marked the airport drive.
"That keeps those huge things from thinking this is an-
other runway." Then she saw the sign telling her how to get
short-term parking directions, and she was able to park on the
first level. "I made it on instruments," she gasped, as she took
the keys from the car. She was extremely stiff and in pain
when she stood beside her car. "I'm too old for this." Two
teen-aged boys looked backward at the old car. its classic body
glittering in a coat of raindrops under the endless rows of
fluorescent tubes. They grinned but looked concerned as they
saw her effort to straighten her back and walk toward the
elevator.
"I've never been in here unescorted."
"I beg your pardon?" said a young woman.
"Nothing. Nothing. Just talking to myself. Do it all the
time." She wanted to get to a rest room.
Inside she began walking and scanning the crowd, looking
for her tall younger brother. She was surrounded by a shifting
sea of people speaking Spanish, French, Indian, and no telling
what else, all under the nasal drone of the PA speaker. Her
eyes, tired, swept over young, old, babies, nuns, sailors,
people in wheelchairs, obese men and women waddling to
and from the concourses. One very fat gray-haired man was
bearing down on her, looking into her eyes, smiling. The
smile caught her eye. Only that-that crooked half-smile.
"Everett?"
"What's the matter, Lucia? Don't you know me?" He was
carrying a dark blue suit bag.
"Everett! I didn't" She closed her mouth with effort. "Ever-
ett," she said again.
He leaned forward and laid his cheek against hers briefly. "I
reckon I have put on a little weight since you saw me last."
"Yes. Yes. I'm glad to see you, Everett. It's good you could
come."

"I hate to put you out. Hope you didn't have any trouble.
Was the weather good? I've been in here so long, I don't know
what it's doing outside."
"The weather?" Oh yes, well, it rained a little. Nothing
uh . . . let's go in here and order a cup of coffee or a Coke,
maybe. I need to find a rest room. Are you hungry?"
"No. I just had a couple of hamburgers and a malt. I'm
ready to roll. Ready to hit that interstate. Get on up to Cousin
May and them's for some shuteye. I've been here over three
hours."
"Well, I need something." And Lucia steered them into a
coffeeshop. She went ahead and ordered coffee and a ham
sandwich before going to a rest room.
"Oh, I guess I'll have one, too," said Everett. "And an order
of fries. Traveling makes me hungry." Bulk made sitting diffi-
cult for him. "Have to fly first class. More room to spread out,
you know."
"Excuse me, Everett," she murmured. "I'll be right back."
She got up painfully
"Why you're all crippled up!" He seemed surprised.
Lucia pressed her lips together and walked to the rest room.
Inside a booth she sat down and began to laugh and cry. "This
is hysterics. What am I going to do? I'm too tired to drive on.
My God, he won't fit into the car."
"Is anything wrong?" came a voice from the next booth.
"Do you need help?"
"No. Oh, no. Thank you. I just talk to myself. Sometimes
what I say is funny, so I laugh . . ."
Silence.
The floodgates of Lucia's bladder opened, and for a moment
she reveled in the greatest relief she had felt in days. She
didn't say anything more aloud, but as she went out she pat-
ted her white bangs at the mirror and took a quick and satisfy-
ing look at her figure.
Everett was waiting for her. "I hate to see you so crippled
up."

"Everett, what do you weigh, honey?"
"Three-twenty-five, right now." Then he gave one of his
famous ha-ha-has. "Haven't you ever seen a fat man, Lucia?"
"It's just that I've never seen a 325-pound man in this fam-
ily. You know, we all have tended to be slim. Slender." She
wished she hadn't asked his weight.
"Well, you've seen one now," he said, steadying himself with
the chair beside him. "These sure are little bitty old chairs."
Lucia laughed. They ate their sandwiches. "We may have a
problem, Everett," she said, blotting the corners of her mouth
with the stiff paper napkin.
"What's that?"
"Well, I drive a very small car. I'm just not perfectly sure
you can get comfortable, completely comfortable I was
counting on you to drive us home She wanted to cry.
"You haven't gone and bought one of those little bitty old
Jap cars have you?"
"No. No. Actually it's English. Belonged to my hus-
band . . . it's small Her voice trailed off.
"Oh-oh." Everett's voice boomed, "I drive a Cadillac. Have
to have a heavy car. Just kills my legs and back to ride in one
of . . ,"
"I really was counting on your driving. I'm not crazy about
driving at night."
"Looks like you made it over here all right."
"Yes. Well, it wasn't easy."
"If I'd felt like driving, I'd have driven myself down in my
Cadillac. We'll do okay. You got a pillow in it so I can stretch
out?"
Chris's voice loomed in her ear. "Lucia, honey, you're being
a fool. Tell that sonofabitch to get a taxi to a hotel."
Everett's face blanched when he saw the apple-green
Triumph. "Lucia! Why in hell is an old lady like you driving
this thing?"
Lucia was indignant. "Look, Everett, try to squeeze in. If
you can't get in, we'll have to get you a room across the

Airline at the Hilton. This happens to be the only car I have."
He put his bag in the small trunk, muttering, "Ruining my
good clothes," and stuffed himself into the little bucket seat.
"Goddamn, Lucia. You'll have to bury me too when we get
home. I still say 'home' even though the house is gone. And
everybody is gone. Everybody but us. I can't believe Ann is
gone. I kept thinking I'd come down to see her. We were close.
A long time ago. Did she suffer much?"
"She suffered plenty. But she died peacefully."
"I'm glad to hear she went out easy." Then Everett began to
wheeze. "I've got it too. We got it from Daddy. I quit smoking
two years ago. Don't drink a drop," he added.
Lucia turned toward Baton Rouge.
"Here now. We're not going to Baton Rouge are we
"Of course not. We turn north on 1-55." Lucia hurt all over.
She was getting a headache, and her eyes were too tired to cry.
"Lord give me strength. What a fool I am."
"How's that?" Everett shouted over the engine.
She shook her head.
Everett tried to shift his bulk, but it was like trying to move
a grapefruit in a demitasse spoon. "My circulation is going. In
my legs," he hollered. He didn't have to shout.
"Mercy, Everett. Let me get out of this heavy traffic, and I'll
stop every little while and let you get out and walk a bit."
But he grunted negatively. and she knew it was because it
wasn't worth it to him trying to get out and back in. She
turned north off the spillway interstate and drove in silence
all the way to Lake Maurepas. "Let's stop at Heidenreidt's and
get another cup of coffee. You can walk around."
"Okay, Lucia."
She parked the car near the door of the seafood restaurant
which had been there as long as she could remember. "Make
you nostalgic?"
"Yeah," said Everett, managing to extricate himself from
the passenger seat. Lucia felt a terrible sadness over this baby

brother she had once carried about like a ragdoll, who came
home tall and thin and hurt from the long battle for the hills
of South Korea and began his own battles in civilian life. A
succession of jobs, two failed marriages, the loss of a young
child. Poor boy.
In the old restaurant on the shore of Maurepas, Everett sat
on a stool and ordered a dozen raw oysters. "Don't you want
some, Lucia? My treat."
"No thank you, Everett."
"Remember how Daddy used to stop here in his way
home from New Orleans and pick up a gallon of oysters? He
and Mama would get in the kitchen and meal 'em up and
season 'em and fry 'em in that big black iron skillet? Drain
em on brown paper? Remember that big old white platter of
Mama's? Heaped up, hot and crisp. Whooce!" He began dip-
ping crackers in catsup and horseradish while an old black
man shucked the oysters. "Y'all got any boiled crawfish?" he
asked the sleepy waitress.
"Yeah. Want some?"
"Everett," said Lucia, "I'm afraid you'll be sick. And we
need to be on our way pretty soon."
"Okay. Lord Jesus, I hate to think of stuffing myself back
into that little bitty old car. How come you're driving that
thing, hon? Now tell me the truth. You having a hard time,
Lucia?"
"I've got some problems, Everett, but they don't have any-
thing to do with my car or money. It was my husband's car,
and I chose to keep it. Ordinarily. I just use a car to go to the
post office and the A&P."
"Well, you made a mistake. You ought to get yourself a
good heavy sedan."
"I'm sorry you re uncomfortable."
"I'm not complaining. I just hate to see you in such reduced
circumstances."
"My circumstances are not reduced."

Everett dispatched a baker's dozen large raw oysters, lifting
each, dipped red in the catsup mixture, to his mouth, and
uttering a sound of appreciation of the taste.
They drove a long time on I-55 without talking. As they
passed the Tangipahoa exit he said, "Was Ann right with her
maker?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Was she saved? Was she born again?"
"What in the hell are you talking about, Everett?"
"Don't blaspheme. She never was religious, Lucia. I wasn't
either. Way back there. I'm just asking if you think my sister
got right with the Lord."
Lucia was livid. "Yes," she said calmly, "I'm sure she and
the Lord were on good terms."
"Well, I'm glad to hear it. After my last divorce I turned
myself over completely to Jesus Christ, and I faithfully sup-
port Him."
"What church are you a member of? I know your last wife
was Catholic."
"Don't belong to any. That is churchhouse. I support the
Lord's work through several television ministries. They're
saving souls like all getout all over the world. Did you ever
think about how many souls are in hell, went there before the
television came along and took the gospel to the farthest
corner of the planet? Some people are going to rot in hell for
persecuting these dedicated servants of the Lord who pack
food to all those starving little boogers in Africa and all."
Lucia took her eyes off the highway for a split second to
look at her brother. "You wouldn't possibly be including
Louisiana's own, would you?"
"Most particularly. The Lord has simply put that poor fel-
low through a baptism of fire with Satan. The man 's coming
back. Just listen to him on the TV."
"I ran across him one time looking for a Saints game." They
crossed the state line. "You're back in Mississippi, Everett."

Lucia tried to help her backache by pressing harder against the
back of her seat. Since they had turned onto I-55 they had both
been aware consciously or unconsciously that they were back
in the world they knew best, the marshland above New Or-
leans, that edge of Louisiana that slid toward the state line,
into the slow gentle sweep of low hills that meant Mississippi.
Oh, it was different. A few miles made all the difference in the
world.
"Yeah," he said. "I do appreciate your holding Ann's body
till I could get here for the funeral."
"Body? I don't think you understand, Everett."
"Don't understand what?"
"This is to be a memorial service at the church. Ann's
remains were cremated."
"Cremated! Cremated! Who is responsible for that?"
Rain was falling again. Lucia turned on the wipers. "It was
Ann's wish."
"So! She wasn't saved! Of all the unholy, pagan things to do
to my sister. You mean she's already . . . already burnt up?"
"Her remains are ashes."
"Well, I'll be goddamned."
"Now, who's blaspheming?"
"Why have I gone to all this trouble and expense and dis-
comfort coming all the way down here from West Virginia?
Huh? Tell me that?"
There just wasn ' t room in the little car for him to blow up.
"I assumed you wanted to attend your twin sister's memorial
service. We'll have an interment of the ashes in the plot.
What's the difference?"
"Difference! I thought I was going to get to see her. See how
she looked."
"I'm sorry you feel cheated." Lucia's head was split-
ting. Her eyes were cloudy. and she cursed herself for where
she was and wept inside for her baby sister and for Everett,
who in no way resembled the boy or the man she remem-

bered. She still had miles to travel. It must be nearly two
o'clock. "What's a seventy-five-year-old fool doing on a high-
way this time of night? Morning."
"How's that?"
"Nothing, Everett. Just talking to myself."
"How long you been doing that?"
"Doing what?"
"Talking to yourself."
"A good while now. It was a deliberate decision. To talk to
myself, I mean."
"For crying out loud. Are you bonkers?"
When Lucia saw Aunt May's porch light she moaned softly
with relief.
"Listen, Lucia. I appreciate what you did-driving to New
Orleans to get me. But I'll get a ride to Jackson and get a plane
out of there to Charleston. Tomorrow afternoon, I guess.
Late. Whenever this is all over-whatever it is we're having.
Whatever you re having. Hell, I don't care. I mean . .
Lucia opened her door. The dome light cast a weak glow in
the small space of the car. Her fingers held the cool metal of
the handle as she searched Everett's profile, softened by age
and shadow. Her only family. now. And she his. She smiled
and laid her hand on his arm. "I understand. I know you'll be
more comfortable in a big car. Wish I'd had a Cadillac just for
tonight. Because I love you, Everett. I mean that."
"I know."
They walked through the fragrant, dewy grass toward Aunt
May's porch.
In Aunt May's guest room, Lucia lay in the big four-poster
she had first slept in and fallen out of before she could walk.
Now, three quarters of a century later she did her deep-
breathing exercise to relax. Deep, deep till her lower ribs
bowed upward. The old house was quiet in the predawn
darkness. Listening, remembering, as old houses do. Lucia
let out a long breath. Such profound silence seemed to hold

out a mystical beckoning. It wasn't the first time she had
quite calmly thought she might die in her sleep. She inhaled.
The night after Chris died she had gone to bed in a friend's
guest room, believing the enormous weight of sorrow would
stop her heart as she slept. She had carefully arranged her
arms on the covers so she would not be in disarray when they
found her in the morning. But she had waked up in daylight,
grateful to be alive and able to meet the day.
She exhaled and whispered to the dark room, "No. Twenty-
four hours from now I'll be sound asleep in my own bed." The
mattress pressed up against her as her body grew heavier, ever
heavier, then moved weightlessly into the warm engulfing
arms of sleep.