back a sob.
Beau knew but asked anyway. 'What happened?'
'She died this morning.'
He shook his head and released a deep sigh. I felt his hand on my shoulder. We both sat silently for a moment, digesting the reality of what had happened.
'At least it's over,' he said. 'Finally.'
I turned to him. 'Oh, Beau, it's so strange.'
'What?'
'Their thinking it's me who died. I couldn't bear the sadness and the anger in Jeanne's voice.'
'Yes, but this seals it forever. You and I, just as I told you, as I promised. We've defeated Fate.'
I shook my head. These were words that should be making me happy, but all they did was fill my heart with heavy dread. I had felt Fate's surprising and unexpected stings before. I didn't have Beau's confidence and probably never would have.
Despite all the terrible things Gisselle had done to me in the past, and despite her jealousy and her way of looking down at me because I had been brought up in the bayou, a Cajun, I couldn't help but recall the softer moments when I would look at her and see her desire to be loved and to be a real sister. I know Beau would tell me I had a heart so soft it must be made of marshmallow, but I couldn't help shedding tears for the Gisselle I saw longing to be wanted.
Later in the afternoon, I called and spoke to James. He was very polite, but cold, too. I couldn't think of anything stranger than attending my own memorial service and burial. When we arrived at Cypress Woods on the day of the funeral, we found the pallor of death and gloom had settled over the grand house and grounds. The leaden sky had grown swollen and turgid, the thick overcast stretching from one horizon to another. The darkness stole the blush from the petals of flowers and put shadows everywhere I looked. Grounds staff, the bereaving, everyone looked weighted down by the tragedy. People whispered, glided, touched and hugged each other as if to join in a circle to keep the melancholy at bay. I thought the servants looked the saddest, their eyes bloodshot, their shoulders slumped.
It was hard, if not impossible, for me to accept expressions of condolence and sympathy. I felt horrible about deceiving people in grief and turned and walked away as quickly as I could. But once again, people mistook my feelings for Gisselle's indifference and selfishness.
Paul's parents, his sisters, Toby and Jeanne, and Jeanne's husband stationed themselves in the living room, where they greeted people. I felt Gladys Tate's eyes fix on me with a cold glare the moment I entered, and then I thought I saw a sneer in her knife-sliced mouth when I greeted her. She made me feel so uncomfortable, I left the room as quickly as I could.
Paul kept himself secluded most of the time. We understood he was drinking heavily. The only people he would see were his immediate family, mainly his mother. He even shut his door to Beau and me. Toby, who went up to inform him that I was there, returned to tell me he said it was too painful for him to gaze at me since I resembled Ruby so much. Beau and I looked at each other with surprise.
'He's really overdoing it now,' Beau admitted in a whisper.
I was very worried and went up to his suite anyway. I knocked on the door and waited, but he didn't respond. I tried the handle, but the door was locked.
'Paul, it's me. Open the door. We have to talk. Please,' I begged. Beau stood back to be sure no one overheard my pleas.
'It's no use,' he said. 'He doesn't want to see you. Wait until later.'
But I didn't see him until it was time to attend the services. Despair had washed the radiant color from his face until it resembled a death mask. He gazed at me with vacant eyes and moved like someone in a trance. I squeezed Beau's hand and shot him a troubled glance and he nodded. He tried to approach Paul before me and speak to him, but Paul didn't acknowledge him. He barely acknowledged his own parents, and with people all around him continuously, it was difficult for me to say the things I wanted to say to him.
The church was filled to capacity, not only because of the people the Tates knew and did business with, but because of the people who knew and remembered my Grandmere Catherine. My heart nearly burst when I saw their faces. Beau and I sat up front in the pew behind Paul and his family and listened to the priest deliver the eulogy. Every time I heard my name, I winced and gazed around. There wasn't a dry eye in the church. Paul's sisters were crying openly, but Paul was like one of Nina Jackson's zombies, his body stiff, his eyes so empty, they sent chills down my spine. Who in his or her right mind would look at him and not believe it was really Ruby in that coffin? I thought. It gave me a sick, empty feeling in the base of my stomach.
I'm watching people cry over me, listening to a priest talk about me, and gazing at a coffin that is supposed to have my body in it, I thought. It made me feel absolutely ghoulish. It was all I could do to keep myself from fainting.
It was worse at the cemetery. It was I who was supposedly being lowered into the ground; it was I over whose coffin the priest was saying the final words and giving the last rites. My name, my identity, was about to be buried. I thought to myself that this was the final chance, the last time for me to cry out and say, 'No, that's not Ruby in the coffin. That's Gisselle. I'm here. I'm not dead!'
For a moment I thought I had actually spoken, but the words died on my lips. My actions had made them forbidden. The truth had to be buried here and now, I realized.
The rain started and fell relentlessly, colder than usual. Umbrellas sprouted. Paul didn't seem to notice. His father and Jeanne's husband, James, had to hold his arms and keep him standing. When the coffin was lowered and the priest cast the holy water, Paul's legs folded. He had to be carried back to the limousine and given some cold water. His mother gave me a scathing glance and followed quickly.
'He's going to win the Academy Award for this,' Beau said, shaking his head. Even he was beyond amazement; he was in awe and, from the look in his face, as frightened by Paul's behavior as I was.
'You're right,' he whispered to me as we walked back to our vehicle. 'He was so disturbed about losing you, he went a bit mad and accepted the illusion as reality. The only way he could accept the fact that you had left him was to believe it was you who was sick and now you who died,' Beau theorized, and shook his head.
