Queenie dropped her hands and looked over at Doll. “Girl, why you think? He ain’t interested in no ladies.”
Doll couldn’t help but let out a laugh. Mr. Rainold must have heard her because he glanced her way. Doll eased the door closed an inch or two, not wanting to be seen.
“Nothing has changed, Fannie. The law is the law,” Mr. Rainold said.
“Emile, are you sure?” Fannie squinted one eye.
“Miss Fannie looks like she wants to jump right up out of her chair and wring Mr. Rainold’s neck. I wonder why?” Doll said to Queenie.
“On account she don’t like it when he tells her no.” Queenie shrugged. “They been in there a good two hours before Miss Ibby got home from school, arguing about something. What’s Miss Ibby doing?”
“She’s just sitting in her chair, listening,” Doll said.
Fannie spoke to him in a stern voice. “Vidrine left Ibby here and never came back. She hasn’t once corresponded with her daughter in four years. Can’t we do something?”
Emile Rainold peered over his glasses. “The only way to gain legal custody is to petition the court and ask it to declare Vidrine an unfit mother by proving she poses a threat to Ibby.”
“Well, she did abandon Ibby,” Fannie said.
“That’s not the issue. The issue is whether Vidrine poses a threat. She hasn’t been around her daughter in years. The only way to claim she might be a threat is to say she left her daughter with someone who might be a threat.”
“You mean me?” Fannie balked.
“I’m just telling you the way the courts might see it, should you try to pursue it.” Mr. Rainold tapped his pipe in the ashtray and filled it with more tobacco. “The court wouldn’t view leaving Ibby with her grandmother as abandonment, in light of the fact that you agreed to take her for an unspecified amount of time. We just had no idea it would be indefinitely.”
“Why don’t we file a petition anyway and see what happens?” Fannie asked.
“The problem is, I have to know where Vidrine is living in order to serve the papers.”
Mr. Rainold’s empty coffee cup clicked against the saucer.
“Mama,” Doll whispered. “Mr. Rainold needs more coffee.”
She grabbed the silver coffeepot and brushed past Doll into the dining room.
“It appears Vidrine has gone peripatetic,” Mr. Rainold said.
“Yeah, pathetic,” Queenie said as she refilled his cup.
Mr. Rainold grinned. “Perhaps pathetic is right, Queenie, but what I said was peripatetic. It means Vidrine doesn’t appear to have a permanent address.”
Queenie turned to go, stopping just short of the kitchen door. “That’s what I said. Pathetic.”
Fannie crossed her arms and sat back. “So what you’re telling me is that Vidrine could walk in that door any minute and take Ibby away.”
“I’m afraid so. The law remains on the side of the mother.”
“So if I died tomorrow and left this house to Ibby, it would fall into the hands of her legal guardian until she’s eighteen, and as of right now, that’s Vidrine.”
“Yes, Fannie, that’s true, but . . .” He tapped his pencil on the table as if he were about to make a point.
“Then I better not die anytime soon.”
He puffed on his pipe. “Not for at least two years, Fannie.”
Doll stifled a laugh and whispered to her mother, “Mr. Rainold’s trying to make a joke, but Fannie’s not laughing.”
Mr. Rainold looked over at Ibby. “There’s something your grandmother and I were discussing before you got here, something I think you should know.”
“Please, Emile. Is this really necessary?” Fannie asked.
“I feel I have an obligation to tell her,” he said to Fannie before turning his attention back to Ibby. “One of my detectives thinks he may have spotted your mother recently.”
Ibby’s hand flew to her mouth. Her elbow accidentally hit a pedestal, sending a vase crashing to the floor.
“Lawd,” Doll whispered.
“What was that?” Queenie asked.
“That ugly old Chinese vase,” Doll said. “Done broke into a thousand pieces when Mr. Rainold told Ibby about her mama.”
“Don’t matter,” Queenie said. “Miss Fannie always hated that vase. It came with the house.”
“I wish you wouldn’t have said anything, Emile,” Fannie said.
“Ibby, I want you to take a look at this.” Mr. Rainold slid a photograph across the table. “One of my detectives took it a few days ago. We’re not a hundred percent positive it’s your mother. Could be someone who just looks like her.”
“You mean my mother is here, in New Orleans?” she asked.
Mr. Rainold said, “That photo was taken on Ursulines Street in the French Quarter, in front of a building owned by a middle-aged woman named Maude Hopper, who calls herself Avi. She’s well known around the French Quarter, a flamboyant nutcase who runs a sort of free-wheeling boardinghouse for transients.”