When the door opened, the shadowy entryway surrounded a very tiny woman with gleaming skin the color of polished mahogany, and a cap of short white curls. She wore a short-sleeved white cotton dress that swallowed her slight frame, her wrists delicate and bony, hands crossed with raised veins. Her skin was shiny and smooth, but the deep lines pressed beside her mouth and eyes told the story of her age. She could have been eighty, or sixty, or anywhere in between. She stood up very straight and studied them through the lenses of her glasses.
“Miss Barbara,” Mercy said, his tone polite, “it’s Felix. Dee’s son.”
She studied him another moment. “I guess it is you.” Her voice was pretty: soft, heavily Cajun, a warmth to it. “Lord, you sure got big. I don’t even know if you’ll fit in the door.”
Mercy made a face that wasn’t quite a smile. “I got married,” he said, “and I brought my wife to town. I thought I’d introduce her to Dee.”
Ava felt Barbara’s eyes come to her. “Married? To this pretty thing? Honey, you’re too big for her. You’ll kill the poor girl.”
This time, Mercy really did smile. “I’m gonna try real hard not to, Miss Barb. Can we come in?”
“Oh, sure, sure.” She stepped back and waved them in. “It’s hot out there on the street.”
By contrast, the dim interior of the house was a blessed ten degrees cooler, the humidity kept at bay by the air conditioning. As Barb closed the door behind them, Ava took a fast look around. This shallow foyer opened up into a sitting room with an Oriental rug laid over the old scraped hardwood, dainty Victorian couches and chairs perched around the room on their slender wooden legs. The fireplace was a gas retrofit, a flat-screen TV mounted above it.
To their immediate right was a small alcove where a desk and chair sat in a bay window overlooking the neighbor’s siding. A bad view, but a cozy place, easy to miss on the way into the sitting room.
In the foyer, a claw-foot table sat beneath a silver-framed mirror, boasting an orchid in a china pot and a small silver business card dish stacked with white cards printed with “Miss Dee” in black script.
Barbara came to stand in front of them. “Now, Felix,” she said, hands going into her dress pockets. “You know your mother’s real sick, don’t you?” She peered up at him over the tops of her glasses.
“Yes, ma’am. I heard the doctors haven’t given her much time.”
“They haven’t.” Barb glanced away with atsk. She dropped her voice a notch. “I always told her to be careful, but did she listen to me? No. And now the poor thing’s…” She shook her head. “Well, you can see for yourself.”
She turned and led them deeper into the house.
The sitting room fed into a galley kitchen, and then dead-ended in a T-shaped hall at the back. They turned to the right and passed the open doorway of a bathroom on their way to the closed door at the end.
Barb paused and turned back to look at them. “She doesn’t look good. Be prepared.” Then she rapped once and went in. “Dee, I’ve brought you visitors. You wanna sit up and see who it is?”
There was a murmured response from the bed as Barb walked toward it.
Ava was struck by how ornate and old-fashioned the bedroom was, though she guessed she shouldn’t have been, given that this was New Orleans. The dressing table, stool, highboy and bed were all a dark wood carved with fleur-de-lis and curlicues. The bed was a big four-poster, and the frame of the dressing table mirror was an elaborate shape that curved and twined, the top corners covered with wide-brimmed hats that had been hung on the wooden points. The table itself was a sea of colored perfume and cosmetics bottles. The window was draped with intricate white lace. A trio of framed photos on the wall just to her left evidenced Dee when she was younger, in her prime, each photo of her in a different lingerie getup, flexing and flaunting for the camera, showing off her goods. Two nightstands flanked the bed; both held lamps, ashtrays, and little china boxes, the contents of which Ava didn’t want to investigate.
And then there was the woman herself, Barb helping her sit up against a stack of white pillows.
Wasted, was Ava’s first thought. The smiling, round-cheeked blonde in the photos was now this thin, frail creature who’d wasted away to yellow skin and straggling hair. Her large eyes had sunk deeper into her head, her cheeks thinned and grown lined and dry. Her hands, as she plucked at the covers, were nothing but skin stretched over bone, the nails dark and unhealthy. This was a woman who was dying, and she looked the part.
Visibly weak, she was strong enough to laugh. “Look at little Felix,” she said. “He finally grew into those stork legs.” She waved Barb away as the woman tried to straighten her bed-limp hair for her. “Go get us something to drink, Barb, while I catch up with my son.” Through the heaviness of fatigue, her smile was mocking.
Ava felt Mercy stiffen beside her and took hold of his hand as Barb left the room and shut the door. Mercy’s fingers closed tight around hers.
“Felix,” Dee said, clasping her hands together in her lap in a girlish gesture. “Itisgood to see you. I was starting to think I’d never set eyes on you again.”
“I heard you were dying,” he said, voice flat.
“I am. But I don’t have to do it in an ugly way.” She gestured to the pretty room around them, and her clean white nightgown.
“It’ll get ugly. Just wait for it.”
Dee ignored him; her gaze came to Ava, smile becoming one that Ava found somehow threatening. “Did you bring me a present, Felix? Something new to add to my collection?”
Mercy’s arm came around her waist again. “This is my wife,” he said, voice dropping, hardening.
“Ohhh.” Dee’s eyes widened in obvious delight. “I have a daughter-in-law? How nice.” She smiled again, even wider. “You’re young,” she told Ava. “Real young.” Her eyes cut over to Mercy, sly, knowing. “You always thought you were too good for me, but look at you, just like every other man. A young, tasty little slice to make you feel like a big man.” She laughed. “Do yourself a favor,” she said to Ava, “and leave him before he gets you knocked up. You won’t ever be able to get away from him after that.”
Ava opened her mouth to say something, the anger boiling up like always, but Mercy gripped her hip, asking her to keep quiet.
