Blood Memory

Chapter 51

The Natchez City Cemetery is one of the most beautiful in the world, but today it brings me no peace. I’m driving my mother’s car down one of its narrow asphalt lanes, Mom in the seat beside me, looking as anxious as I’ve ever seen her. She has aged visibly since Ann’s death. Her skin is drawn and pale, and her eyes look cloudy.

“I don’t know why you want to come here,” she says quietly. “We’ll be here soon enough to bury Ann.”

“I want to see Daddy’s grave. I want our family to be together when I talk to you. The three of us.”

“What has gotten into you?” Her eyes stare through the windshield. “You’ve got the FBI searching for you. You’ve got Daddy and Pearlie in an uproar. Daddy’s got a very sensitive deal cooking to try and save the city, and he’s terrified you’re going to ruin it by causing all this trouble.”

I continue down the lane through a tunnel of oaks, rolling between long wrought-iron fences and mausoleums hidden among the trees. Our family plot lies in the old section of the cemetery, where the gnarled limbs of giant oaks reach to the ground and Spanish moss drapes everything in shadow.

“Do you visit Daddy’s grave very often?” I ask.

Mom doesn’t answer.

If Michael hadn’t stranded me at Mom’s shop-as I requested-I would never have gotten her to the cemetery. But by offering to drive her home, I got control of the car and-for now at least-her.

“Mom, have you taken a sedative?”

She cuts her eyes at me. “You’ve got a lot of nerve. You’ve been drinking your sedative every day of your life.”

“Yes, but I’m clean today. I have been for a week, believe it or not.”

Mom says nothing.

“I only ask because I’m curious. Did you take it on your own, or did Grandpapa give it to you?”

A huff of anger. “Where else would I get it?”

I pull her Maxima onto the grass beside a low brick wall. The DeSalle family plot lies just beyond it. No mausoleums for us, just fine Alabama marble behind wrought iron that dates to 1840. You can’t see the river from here-that view is reserved for the relatives of those buried on Jewish Hill-but the air smells of cedar and sweet olive, and the shade more than makes up for the panoramic view from the bluff.

A good portion of five generations of DeSalles lies behind this fence. Grandpapa would have preferred that Luke Ferry be interred elsewhere, but my mother-to her credit-insisted that he be buried here. It may be the only time that she stood up to her father and won. If I try to drag Mom through the gate, she’ll resist me, so I simply walk through on my own and don’t stop until I’m standing before my father’s simple black headstone.

Before long, I hear the gate creak. Then a shadow falls across mine on the ground.

“Why are we really here?” my mother asks softly.

I reach out and find her hand with mine. “Momsomehow I’ve reached the age of thirty-one without you and me sharing much more than small talk. I blame myself as much as you. I want us to do better in the future. But after today, you may never want to talk to me again.”

“You’re scaring me, honey.”

“I won’t say you shouldn’t be. I want to exhume Daddy’s body.”

Her indrawn breath might as well have been an explosion. I know the turmoil inside her is almost more than she can bear. How did I raise this crazy woman beside me? she’s wondering. Before she can scream or burst into tears, I push on.

“I need a sample of his DNA, but I also want another autopsy done. And I want Lena out of the coffin.”

“That raggedy old stuffed animal?”

“Yes.”

Her hand pulls out of mine. “Catherine? What’s happened to you? Are you out of your mind?”

“No. I think I’m close to not being out of my mind for the first time in my life. I need your help to do this, Mom. I’m asking you to help me.”

She’s looking at the gravestone, not at me. “But why? What are you trying to do?”

“I’m not sure you want to know.”

“If you’re talking about digging up your father, I’d better know what you think you’re up to.”

I step onto Daddy’s grave, then turn and face her. “Mom, I was sexually abused when I was a child.”

She blinks several times quickly.

“Ann may have been molested, too. I don’t know. And I won’t know until I see Daddy’s body and get Lena out of that coffin.”

Mom has begun to shake. From her head to her toes, she’s shivering as though stranded on an arctic glacier. Even her fitted linen suit is shivering, though the summer air is still as death. “Oh, dear Lord,” she says, her voice almost a whimper. “Who put this nonsense in your head? Was it that psychiatrist Ann was seeing? The one who was murdered?”

“How do you know about him?”

“I spoke to the FBI, dear. An Agent Kaiser called me. He was very personable, and very concerned about you, too.”

A sense of threat brings the hair on the back of my neck erect. “When was this?”

“Now, Cat, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Did you tell Kaiser I’m in town?”

“I didn’t tell anyone anything, baby. Daddy said our family business is none of their business.”

Jesus “Did Grandpapa talk to Kaiser?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Mom, there’s so much to tell and not enough time to tell it. My whole life I’ve had problems with sex. With men, with alcohollots of things.”

She steps toward me, relief evident in her face. Now I understand the problem, she thinks. “That’s not your fault, honey. Anybody who lost their father the way you did was bound to have some problems.”

“No! It wasn’t that. I always thought it was, but it wasn’t.”

“Baby, of course that’s it. You suffered so much pain-”

“Mom, please! There’s so much you don’t know. Grandpapa tried to protect you the same way he tried to protect me. Only he didn’t protect either of us.”

The anxiety returns to her face. “What are you talking about?”

“I hoped I wouldn’t have to tell you this, but there’s no other way. Mom, the night Daddy was shot, there was no intruder at Malmaison.”

“Of course there was. I told you-”

“No,” I say firmly. “You never saw one, and there never was one. Grandpapa told me that himself. He made up that prowler to keep from having to tell you what really happened.”

“What really happened?” she echoes, her eyes as wary as a timid dog’s.

“Yes. Grandpapa said he caught Daddy molesting me in my bed that night. They fought, and Grandpapa shot him.”

The blood has drained from my mother’s face. She’s so pale that I can’t believe she hasn’t fainted.

“I know that’s a shock, Mom. But that’s what he told me.”

“I don’t believe you.”

I shrug. “I’m telling you the truth. Only I’m not sure anymore that Grandpapa was telling me the truth. There’s a chance it could have happened the other way around-that Daddy caught Grandpapa abusing me. Only Daddy still got killed. And that’s what I’m trying to find out. Not who killed whom, but who molested me. If it was Grandpapa, he probably did the same to Ann.”

My mother has clapped her hands over her ears like a child, but I keep talking. “Ann killed herself in the clinic with Thomas the Turtle beside her. Did you know that? Did you know she had Thomas there?”

“She did that because of her infertility,” Mom says almost defiantly. “She blamed it on the appendectomy she had there. Daddy said as much several times, as I recall. That the infection might have made her sterile.”

“I’m not even sure that operation was an appendectomy, Mom. I’m afraid Ann might have been pregnant.”

My mother’s mouth is a cartoon O. “Ten-year-old girls don’t get pregnant! My God, that alone should tell you how crazy this is!”

“Maybe she wasn’t pregnant,” I concede, recalling the unanimous opinions of Michael Wells, Hannah Goldman, and Tom Cage. “But something very bad happened to Ann in that clinic. And somewhere deep inside, you know that.”

At last Mom realizes how foolish she must look, and she drops her hands to her sides. As she stares at me in silence, I cross the final, unspeakable line. “Mamahow could you not know? How could you not know that was happening to me? How could you let someone do that to me?”

Tears pool in the corners of her eyes, then slide down her face. “You need help, baby. We’ll find somebody, somebody really good this time.”

“No,” I say, my voice breaking. “You can’t pawn me off anymore. Nobody can help me through this except you. You, Mama. I know you’ve had problems with sex-just like I have-only they’re different problems. I know there are things you can’t do.”

Her mouth begins to quiver.

“I spoke to Louise, Mom.”

She flinches as though from a blow. “Take me home, Catherine. Don’t say another word.”

“I’m begging you, Mom. I’m standing here on Daddy’s grave begging you to help me find the truth. I’m afraid if I don’t, I may not live much longer.”

“Don’t do that to me,” she snaps, angrily raising a forefinger. “Don’t put that on me! Ann did it too many times already. Take me home, or I’m leaving you here.”

“I have the keys,” I whisper.

“Then I’ll walk.”