Ibby shook her head.
“Lawd Almighty.” Queenie fell back down onto a stool.
“I really hate to leave, but I have an exam at eight. I’ll come straight back when I’m finished.” She saw the way Doll was looking at her. “Maybe I should skip it. I’ll see if I can get in touch with the professor.”
“No, no. We here in case she come home. You go on. Hope we have good news when you get back,” Queenie said.
Ibby had trouble concentrating on the exam. All she could think about was Fannie. It had been almost twenty-four hours and no news. She put down her pencil and rubbed her eyes. This was a dumb idea. She handed in her exam early and left. When she got back to Prytania Street, there was a car in the driveway, but it wasn’t Fannie’s.
As she opened the back door, she heard voices in the dining room. Queenie and Doll were sitting at the table with Emile Rainold.
Queenie came barreling over. “Oh Miss Ibby! Miss Ibby!”
She hugged Ibby so hard she almost knocked the wind out of her. Ibby had never seen her so distraught.
Please let Fannie be all right, Ibby was praying as she took a seat at the table.
Emile reached over and put his hand on hers. “I’m afraid I have some bad news. The police found a car in Lake Pontchartrain this morning.”
Her arms fell to her sides when the gist of what he was saying slowly sank in.
Mr. Rainold paused before continuing. “There is no way of knowing for sure, but they believe Fannie may have stepped on the gas instead of the brake, accidentally plunging the car into the lake. I’m so sorry.”
Ibby imagined her grandmother looking at her watch, realizing that it was time to go home and have supper, and then hitting the gas pedal hard, the way she always did when she backed out of the driveway, only this time the car would lunge forward, hurdling over the seawall and into the water.
“Miss Ibby?” Doll said. “You okay?”
“I’m sorry.” Ibby sighed. “I was just thinking about Fannie, out there . . . all alone.” Her voice trailed off and she hung her head. Why couldn’t I have been there to help her?
“She may have had a heart attack,” Mr. Rainold said after a while. “There was no sign of struggle.”
“Where is she now?” Ibby asked, her voice almost a whisper.
“Bultman’s Funeral Home is taking care of the arrangements. She’s evidently built a sizable tomb for the family out at the cemetery.”
“Yes, I know all about that,” she said.
“As per her wishes,” he said, “there is to be a small service at the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, then the burial for family only out at the cemetery.”
Mr. Rainold must have noticed the puzzlement in her face. Ibby had never heard Fannie mention any kind of religious affiliation.
“Fannie gave quite a bit of money to the Holy Trinity Church over the years,” he added.
No one said anything for quite some time.
“I expect the earliest the funeral can take place is Thursday. This is such a shock to all of us,” he said. “Ibby, you know I was a great admirer of your grandmother’s. She was quite a woman.”
When no one spoke, he picked up his briefcase and stood up.
As soon as he left, Ibby’s head fell into her hands and she began to sob.
Queenie came over and put her arm around Ibby. “It gone be all right, Miss Ibby.”
She sank her face into Queenie’s chest. Queenie rocked her as if she were a baby. She could hear Doll sniffling close by.
“Well, you knew she weren’t just gone die in her sleep,” Doll said after a while.
Queenie looked over at her. “Ain’t that the truth. No, not our Miss Fannie.”
Doll and Queenie always did know how to make Ibby laugh, even in the worst of times.
The next morning Mr. Rainold came back with some papers for Ibby to sign.
“Bultman’s Funeral Home has placed the obituary in the newspaper. Fannie wrote it herself years ago.” He handed a copy to her.
Ibby glanced at it. The obituary was so lengthy it must have taken Fannie years to write. It included things Ibby hadn’t known about Fannie, such as that she had a baby sister who had died when she was only three and that she’d missed a beloved dog named Max she’d found as a stray when she was eleven. Then it listed about fifty charities she’d given money to over the years. “I had no idea,” Ibby said after a while. “Fannie never mentioned these things.”
Emile Rainold nodded. “She was a very mysterious but generous woman.”
“And where did this picture come from?” Ibby asked. “I’ve never seen it.”
“She had a photographer take it several years ago. It’s quite becoming, don’t you think?” he said. “She was a handsome woman.”
Queenie came in to serve coffee.
“It says she was sixty. Did she write that?” Ibby asked, squinting over at Mr. Rainold.