'Anything my family has to say to me, they could certainly say without calling a meeting.' Her voice wavered.
'I'd like you to promise to listen to them.'
There was a long silence.
'Why, of course.' She lowered herself into the chair that Daddy held for her, holding her eyes to that same invisible spot.
I only remember snatches of what was said, but it was excruciating to watch. When I was a child, Tootie once took me to a revival meeting at the state fairgrounds. It was truly a terrifying experience, waves of people springing to their feet and singing out feverish confessions, weeping and wailing like a pack of lunatics. I remember feeling like I was being drowned, my lungs filling up with other people's tears.
My family are lapsed Episcopalians and not practiced in such ritual displays of emotion, but for amateurs, they put on quite a show. Lizann stumbled over her lines; Maybelle cried in jagged fits and starts; Duke squirmed and twitched like a dog plagued with fleas. Daddy, looking like a man sentenced to die, paced a slow circle behind his wife, plucking at his chin and wiping his eyes.
Throughout, the Queen Mother perched rigidly in her chair and stared off into space, not betraying for a minute that she was aware of the bedlam surrounding her. It was unnerving, as I'm sure she intended it to be. Excepting an occasional flinch, she held herself as still and dignified as the portrait on Daddy's desk.
When my turn came around, I stared at the pad in my hands, covered with the angry words of the previous night. She'd heard it all before, every last sniveling complaint. I wondered how, after all these years, we had thought that a confrontation was going to get us anywhere. One more go around the block wasn't going to make a difference.
'Mama, I think I'm going to just pass.' In the corner of my eye, I saw Henry lean forward apprehensively. Passing was obviously against the rules; we weren't playing bridge. I turned back to the Queen and pushed on.
'I don't even know why I came down here. I really don't have anything left to say. I thought I did, but I don't. If you decide to stop drinking, fine. But it's your own life, and I'm tired of messing in it.' I could hear the water rising over my voice. 'I was tired of it years ago, Mama.'
The Queen Mother continued to gaze impassively at the window.
When Daddy had said his piece, Henry quietly explained to the Queen that there was a bed open for her at Serenity Lane and that, with her permission, the family would drive her over there. He asked her if she had anything to say.
The room fell silent. We all waited on her. I guess everyone was still hoping she would give herself up, break down in sobs of relief or repentance or whatever. But when she did speak, her voice all cool and satiny, we came to our senses quick enough.
She rose to her feet and fastened her eyes on Henry.
'I can just imagine how difficult this must be for you, Mr. Bujone. I have always wondered how those psychiatrists did it. Day in, day out, mucking around in the private lives of complete strangers. Myself, I would simply die of shame. I hope your superiors will not regard this as a failing on your part. I would be happy to write a note expressing my sincere admiration of your abilities. Victoria, would you be so kind as to drive me home now?'
With that, she nodded shortly to me and walked out of the room. We remained behind, slumped in our chairs like a bunch of balloons with the air let out. Henry Bujone, unwilling to admit defeat, launched into his stock of dim-witted platitudes, reminding us that we each had personal victories to take home with us that day. Some people should just be taken out and shot.
When I came out to the parking lot, I saw her sitting in the backseat of Daddy's Lincoln. I slipped into the driver's seat and gripped the wheel to steady the tremor in my hands. If I had been wondering why I was selected to chauffeur, she solved the mystery for me.
'I'll thank you to remember that you have nothing more to say to me.'
We drove silently through town, until I started to turn onto Hundred Oaks Avenue.
'No, stay on the Acadian until Broussard.' It had been years since I'd lived there, but I still knew the way home. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the Queen sunk low into the plush velour seat, staring out the side window. I drove on, the windshield wipers clicking away the drizzle. When we got to Broussard, she commanded a left turn and then, just before City Park, 'On the right here, please, Victoria.'
It was the clinic I had been to the previous night. In the daylight, it looked shabbier: a sagging old Victorian house with a newer two-story wing grafted awkwardly onto its side. There were no identifying signs, just the red paint at the curb that spelled out Emergency Vehicles Only.
I shut off the engine and raised my eyes to the rearview mirror. Her powdered face was streaked with tears. When I turned around, her eyes met mine for the first time that day, really for the first time I can remember.
'You may tell everyone I have decided I need a rest. Your father and I were planning a week in Biloxi, but tell him I've changed my mind. It's become such a touristy place, and I really feel I need some peace and quiet.'
There wasn't a quieter place on the planet than the inside of that car. Peace is harder to come by.
'Mama,' I said. 'I love you.' Just like that, like exhaling after too long a time underwater. And then it was quiet again. I listened to the clock on the dashboard ticking away, the sound of tires swishing by on the wet pavement. My eyes followed a drop of rain as it slid slowly down the length of the windshield, welding to another drop and then sliding again.
The Afterlife Of Lyle Stone
Lyle had been going to the records storage room and somehow had gotten lost, taken a wrong turn somewhere and was wandering down long gray-carpeted hallways with no doors. Music pulsed through the walls, an interminable cello rendition of 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine'; the fluorescent lights overhead buzzed a backbeat. He turned down one passageway after another, thinking eventually he would find a door or a familiar landmark or a person who could direct him back to the offices of Stickel, Porter, Rathburn amp; Webb. Then at the end of a particularly long corridor, there loomed a door, heavy double doors actually, with a brass plaque that said Conference Room J. He poked his head into the room and saw maybe a dozen people seated around an enormous mahogany conference table. Apparently he had interrupted a meeting, for the conversation ceased and all heads turned toward him. He was about to apologize when he recognized the faces: Chad Rathburn and two of the attorneys from Estate Planning, and his wife, Jen, was there also, looking very cool and pretty in a pink wool suit. Next to her, Dave Whitsop, Lyle's biology class partner in the ninth grade, squeezed Jen's arm and leaned in to mouth something in her ear. Around the far end of the table, he saw his friend Bill, a woman he had dated briefly in college, and his father, which was puzzling because the latter had been dead for eight years. He started to say something, but his father pursed his lips and shook his head almost imperceptibly, and suddenly it occurred to Lyle that he had done something wrong.
'Lyle' – Chad Rathburn broke the silence – 'come in.'
There were no empty chairs around the table so Lyle shut the door behind him and remained standing obediently just inside it.
'We'd hoped to give you an opportunity to explain yourself, but frankly' – here Chad glanced meaningfully at his watch – 'frankly, we've already wasted a lot of time here and I've got a three o'clock. And I think your actions pretty much speak for themselves.'
'Actions?'
'Well, not to put too fine a point on it, it's certainly not the kind of performance we expect.'
'I, I don't understand.' Lyle felt panic like heat rash prickling over his body; he couldn't remember preparing for this meeting.
'Okay, I won't mince words. After giving a good deal of consideration to the question of your future, and I think I speak for everyone here' – Chad slicked a palm over his balding skull – 'there's not much evidence.'
The room rippled and swelled as though underwater. Lyle's eyes darted around the table; the faces, lit from beneath by small banker's lamps, glared back green and implacable. He noticed his daughter, still five or six years
