remember being in here once before . . . when you tried some of Gisselle's pot, remember?'
'Don't remind me,' I said, smiling for the first time in a long time. 'Except I do remember you were a gentleman and you did worry about me.'
'I'll always worry about you,' he said. He kissed my neck and then the tip of my chin before bringing his lips to mine.
'Oh Beau, don't. I feel so confused and troubled right now. I want you to kiss me, to touch me, but I keep thinking about why I am here, the tragedy that has brought me back.'
He nodded. 'I understand. It's just that I can't keep my lips off you when I'm this close,' he said.
'We'll be together again and soon. If you don't get up to Greenwood during the next two weeks, I'll see you when we return for the holidays.'
'Yes, that's true;' he said, still holding me close to him. 'Wait until you see what I'm getting you for Christmas. We'll have great fun, and we'll celebrate New Year's together and—'
Suddenly the door was thrust open and Daphne stood there, glaring in at us.
'I thought so,' she said. 'Get out,' she told Beau, holding up her arm and pointing.
'Daphne, I . . . ?
'Don't give me any stories or any excuses. You don't belong up here and you know it.
'And as for you,' she said, spinning her gaze at me, 'this is how you mourn the death of your father? By entertaining your boyfriend in your room? Have you no sense of decency, no self-control? Or does that wild Cajun blood run so hot and heavy in your veins, you can't resist temptation, even with your father lying in his coffin right below you?'
'We weren't doing anything!' I cried. 'We—'
'Please, spare me,' she said, holding up her hand and closing her eyes. 'Beau, get out. I used to think a great deal more of you, but obviously you're just like any other young man . . . You can't pass up the promise of a good time, no matter what the circumstances.'
'That's not so. We were just talking, making plans.'
She smiled icily. 'I wouldn't make any plans that included my daughter,' she said. 'You know how your parents feel about your being with her anyway, and when they hear about this . . .'
'But we didn't do anything,' he insisted.
'You're lucky I didn't wait a few more moments. She might have had you with your clothes off, pretending to be drawing you again,' she said. Beau flushed so crimson I thought he would have a nosebleed.
'Just go, Beau. Please,' I begged him. He looked at me and then started for the door. Daphne stepped aside to let him pass. He turned to look back once more and then shook his head and hurried away and down the stairs. Then Daphne turned back to me.
'And you almost broke my heart down there before, pleading to have me let you attend the wake . . . like you really cared,' she added, and closed the door between us, the click sounding like a gunshot and making my heart stop. Then it started to pound and was still pounding when Gisselle opened the door a few moments later.
'Sorry,' she said. 'I just turned my back for a moment to get something, and the next thing I knew, she was charging up the stairs and past me.'
I stared at her. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if the truth wasn't that she really had made herself quite visible so Daphne would know she and Beau had come up, but it didn't matter. The damage was done, and if Gisselle was responsible or not, the result was the same. The distance between Beau and me had been stretched a little farther by my stepmother, who seemed to exist for one thing: to make my life miserable.
Daddy's funeral was as big as any funeral I had ever seen, and the day seemed divinely designed for it: low gray clouds hovering above, the breeze warm but strong enough to make the limbs of the sycamores and oaks, willows and magnolias wave and bow along the route. It was as if the whole world wanted to pay its last respects to a fallen prince. Expensive cars lined the streets in front of the church for blocks, and there were droves of people, many forced to stand in the doorway and on the church portico. Despite my anger at Daphne, I couldn't help but be a little in awe of her, of the elegant way she looked, of the manner in which she carried herself and guided Gisselle and me through the ceremony, from the house to the church to the cemetery.
I wanted so much to feel something intimate at the funeral, to sense Daddy's presence, but with Daphne's eyes on me constantly and with the mourners staring at us as if we were some royal family obligated to maintain the proper dignity and perform according to their expectations, I found it hard to think of Daddy in that shiny, expensive coffin. At times, even I felt as if I were attending some sort of elaborate state show, a public ceremony devoid of any feeling.
When I did cry, I think I cried as much for myself and for what my world and life would now be without the father Grandmere Catherine had brought back to me with her final revelations. This precious gift of happiness and promise had been snatched away by jealous Death, who always lingered about us, watching and waiting for an opportunity to wrench us away from all that made him realize how miserable his own destiny was eternally to be. That was what Grandmere Catherine had taught me about Death, and that was what I now so firmly believed.
Daphne shed no tears in public. She seemed to falter only twice: once in the church, when Father McDermott mentioned that he had been the one to marry her and Daddy; and then at the cemetery, just before Daddy's body was interred in what people from New Orleans called an oven. Because of the high water table, graves weren't dug into the ground, as they were in other places. People were buried above ground in cement vaults, many with their family crests embossed on the door.
Instead of sobbing, Daphne brought her silk handkerchief to her face and held it against her mouth. Her eyes remained focused on her own thoughts, her gaze downward. She took Gisselle's and my hand when it was time to leave the church, and once again when it was time to leave the cemetery. She held our hands for only a moment or two, a gesture I felt was committed more for the benefit of the mourners than for us.
Throughout the ceremony, Beau remained back with his parents. We barely exchanged glances. Relatives from Daphne's side of the family stayed closely clumped together, barely raising their voices above a whisper, their eyes glued to our every move. Whenever anyone approached Daphne to offer his or her final condolences, she took his hands and softly said
