“You see, Miss Ibby, we always have been your family. And we always gone be your family, whether you like it or not.” Queenie leaned over and nudged Doll. “So, what you want Miss Ibby to call you? Auntie? Taunt? Tee-tee Viola? Mamou?”
Doll waved her hand in the air, in just the same way Fannie used to. “No, Mama. Dollbaby will do just fine.”
Chapter Forty-Three
After Ibby left Queenie’s house, she went for a drive out by Lake Pontchartrain and parked near the spot where Fannie’s car had plunged over the seawall a few days earlier. She put down the top of her Volkswagen Beetle and rested her head on the back of the seat, enjoying the clear day as pelicans dipped down in the lake, searching for fish fluttering in schools near the surface of the dark, glassy water. A small airplane flew by overhead, leaving a thin trail of smoke across the sky. It was hard to believe that Fannie had been doing the same thing just a few days ago, right here, in this same spot.
She reached into her pocket and took out the photograph of Fannie, the one she’d taken when the tree came crashing through the front window and pinned her on the sofa like a caged animal. In the picture, Queenie was standing behind Fannie, pointing at her and making a face. Fannie was grimacing with her arms folded across her chest. It made Ibby laugh every time she looked at it.
She held the photo up in the air in a sort of tribute to Fannie and thought back to the day she’d met her. At first, she didn’t quite know what to make of her, but in the end, Fannie had proven to be like a majestic ship moored eternally to the same spot—unsinkable, unmoving, and totally misunderstood. Ibby had come to grips with the woman who was her grandmother, and with the two other women in that house on Prytania Street who irrevocably shaped and nurtured Fannie past the ghosts she left behind. If Ibby had known then what she knew now, perhaps things could have been different, but as Queenie would tell her, that’s just the way it was, and just the way it should be.
Doll had told her that you can’t choose the day or time when you will fully bloom. It happens on its own time, when you least expect it. Like today, when Ibby had thought she was alone in the world. Then Queenie told her the story of Dollbaby.
A breeze from the lake caused the photo to slip from her fingers. A pelican swooped down and caught it in its bill, looking back briefly before gliding out over the lake. Fannie had once remarked that Norwood had gone out with the pelicans. In a way, it seemed fitting that Fannie had, too, and that they were now together for eternity.
Ibby looked out into the lake and thought about something else Fannie used to say.
It went something like this.
Whenever there’s a loss, there’s bound to be a gain somewhere else. You just have to know where to look for it.
And she knew, at least this time, Fannie had been right.