She glanced at him sideways, unsure how to answer. “No, I am.” Then she trudged off down the street, muttering to herself as rain pounded her face, “This was a stupid idea.”
By the time she got to the stop on Canal Street, one of the buses was just leaving. Drenched and filled with disappointment, she decided to walk home. As she made her way down Tchoupitoulas Street near the edge of the river, she took the picture of her mother from her purse. She stared at it for a moment, then tore it up and tossed it into the gutter. She wiped the rain from her face as she watched the pieces float away like a shattered memory, until they eventually disappeared down the storm drain.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Doll was in the kitchen with Queenie when the doorbell rang.
Queenie looked up from the sink. “You expecting somebody?”
“No, Mama. Probably just Omar the Pie Man, or maybe one of them other street vendors who come by every week trying to sell us something. I’ll go see.”
When Doll answered the door, she found a woman sitting on the front steps, her back toward the door. Doll stepped out onto the porch and shut the door behind her. “Can I help you?”
A warm breeze passed across the lawn. The woman wrapped a tattered shawl around her shoulders as if she were chilly.
Doll tapped her on the back. “You need something?”
The woman glanced up. Doll could tell from the haggard face and bulging eyes that she was sick.
“Fannie here?”
The voice was weak and raspy, but there was something familiar about it. Doll couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
“You know Miss Fannie?” Doll asked.
“You might say that.”
The woman’s loose linen dress was faded, and her toes had worn holes clear through the top of her sneakers. For the life of her, Doll couldn’t figure out who this woman was, or how she would know Fannie.
“You want something to drink?” Doll asked, thinking perhaps the woman was a vagabond.
She shook her head. “Ibby here?”
Doll took a step back. There was only one person who would ask such a question. She tried to think of a quick answer. “Why no, she ain’t here. Miss Fannie . . . she done . . . sent Ibby off to camp for the summer.”
Vidrine began to cough, a deep wet cough that lasted for several seconds. She peered up at Doll. “That’s good. I don’t want her to see me like this.”
Doll went down the steps. The woman was so thin, her head looked as if it might topple off her spindly neck. Her hair was sparse and wispy, and several of her teeth were missing. She looked nothing like the Vidrine Doll had once known.
“I’m dying, Doll,” Vidrine said flatly. “I don’t have much longer to live.”
“What you want? Money?” Doll knew Miss Vidrine must be mighty desperate if she was asking Miss Fannie for money.
Vidrine buried her face in the crook of her arm.
“You wait right here,” Doll said.
“Listen.” Vidrine reached up and grabbed Doll’s arm. “I didn’t mean for it to turn out this way. I meant to come back for Ibby. You’ve got to believe me. But then I got sick. I just need enough to get by for a few more months, that’s all. Just a few more months.”
The way Miss Vidrine was looking at her, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for the woman. “Where you living?”
Vidrine began to shake. “Wherever I can find a bed.”
“You homeless? That why Mr. Rainold ain’t been able to find you?”
Vidrine covered her face with her hands.
“You stay right here. Don’t move. You hear me? Don’t move.”
Doll ran inside, down the hall, and into Fannie’s bedroom, where she closed the door and locked it. She paced up and down trying to decide what to do. Should she ask Vidrine in? Should she let her stay until Miss Ibby came back? What would Miss Fannie do if she found Vidrine sitting in the house when she returned? Doll tussled with these questions for several minutes, then put her hand on her hip and looked up at the ceiling.
“Please forgive me, Lawd, but I don’t see no other way. You know something better, you better tell me right now. Show me the way.” She waited for a sign, anything, to let her know she was doing the right thing. “So unless you got something to say, this is the way it’s gone be.” When all she heard was the whirring of the overhead fan, she said, “Well, all right then.”
She opened the door to one of the massive armoires. The two upper shelves were filled with shoeboxes, but she’d learned long ago that these boxes didn’t contain shoes. Like many who had lived through the Depression, Fannie didn’t trust banks, preferring instead to stuff her mattress, cut holes in the floor, and hide cash wherever it suited her, sometimes even in places she’d forgotten about. These shoeboxes were just one of her many hiding places.