Ibby fingered the dashboard. It was full of fancy new features, such as automatic temperature control and an eight-track tape player. “What made you go out and buy a new car?”
Fannie gave out a sigh. “When I got off the train from Mamou all those years ago, just a starry-eyed young girl with no money in her pocket, the first thing that caught my eye was a beautiful red Packard convertible. I promised myself that one day I’d buy myself a big red convertible just like that one. When I woke up this morning, I knew this was the day.”
“Why today?”
Fannie shrugged. “I don’t know. I probably should have done it a long time ago.”
“Will I ever get to drive it?”
“All in due time, dear,” Fannie said, flicking her cigarette out of the car.
They were passing through Mid-City, where the Victorian houses and Arts and Crafts bungalows soon gave way to dozens of cemeteries.
“They call these cemeteries ‘cities of the dead’ because the raised tombs resemble miniature houses from a distance.” Fannie turned in to one of the cemeteries lined by an old iron fence. “When the Spanish first settled in the city soon after the French, they found that when they buried the dead, the water table pushed the bodies back up from the graves. Burying the dead above ground seemed the only way. Look at that one there, with the pillars. Isn’t it lovely?”
They meandered through the cemetery on a narrow lane and eventually parked in front of a small gray marble tomb with a domed top, the entrance flanked by two columns. On either side of the steps leading up to the tomb were copper vases that had faded to a pleasing green patina. Ibby noticed there were fresh flowers in the urns, white lilies, Fannie’s favorite. Above the entrance to the tomb, Ibby could make out two names—Balfour and Norwood. Queenie had told her never to ask Fannie about her grandfather Norwood. And the last time Balfour’s name was mentioned, the day hadn’t ended so well.
Fannie wandered over to a stone bench nestled beneath an oak tree.
“Come sit by me.” Fannie undid her scarf. “Isn’t it nice here? I planted this tree when Balfour died. It must be almost thirty years old now.”
Ibby waited to see if Fannie’s hand would shake at the mention of Balfour’s name, the way it often did when she was thinking about someone she loved who’d died, but Fannie seemed calm, almost at peace in the cemetery.
“Do you come here often?” Ibby asked.
“Whenever I can,” Fannie said. “See those pelicans circling overhead? They’re always here when I come. I often wonder if they followed Norwood from the river.” She was quiet as she watched the birds glide across the sky. “He was a tugboat captain, you know.”
“No, Fannie. You’ve never told me much about Grandfather Norwood.”
“He knew the river like the back of his hand.” She looked away, as if gathering the strength to talk. “Your grandfather had names for all the pelicans on the Mississippi River. Oh, how he loved those pelicans. Sometimes I used to think he loved those pelicans more than he loved me.”
A few days after they were married, Norwood took Fannie down to the river, to see his tugboat. They stood on the pier, admiring it together.
“Isn’t she a beauty?” He waved his hand at the boat, the Pelican II.
Fannie had seen the tugs only from a distance, on the river, where they were mere specks behind the massive barges they pushed. She’d never been on one and was surprised at how big it was and how low it sat in the river, only three or four feet above the water.
“Over a hundred feet long and thirty feet wide. The wheelhouse sits way up high like that so you can navigate the river. You feel like you’re in a crow’s nest when you’re up there. Come on. I’ll take you for a ride.” He jumped into the boat and dangled his hands over the side. “Give me your hand, and I’ll pull you up.”
He lifted her up as the breeze from the river tousled her hair. The wake from a passing ocean liner jostled Fannie. She reached behind her, looking for something to hold on to.
“Be careful, honey.” He grabbed her elbow to steady her. “I’d sure hate to lose my bride the first week we were married.”
She followed him across the deck to the wheelhouse, then up the steep metal steps. He held open the wheelhouse door for her as she stepped inside.
“This is my home away from home,” Norwood said as he plucked his captain’s hat from a shelf and placed it on Fannie’s head. He took her hand and pulled her over to the podium where the wheel was mounted. “You want to drive, honey?”
“Oh, no. I’m not even good at driving a car,” she said, fingering the pearls around her neck, the ones Norwood had given her as a wedding present. She took the captain’s hat and placed it on Norwood’s head. “You show me how.”
A few seconds later one of the deckhands appeared at the wheelhouse door.
“Captain Woody, I brought you them bucket of fish you asked me to. Left it up against the side of the wheelhouse in the front of the boat.”