In her mind’s eye, Alafair saw the big, ubiquitous black woman in the starched white uniform who constantly attended Timothy Abelard in his home and took him everywhere he went. What was the rumor about her? That she was Abelard’s illegitimate daughter?
“Mr. Timothy axed if you’d come out to see him,” Jewel said.
“Then ask him to call me, Miss Jewel,” Alafair replied.
“He’s embarrassed.”
“Excuse me?”
“By the way you were treated by Mr. Robert. He knows all about it.”
“Miss Jewel, you’ve called me and done your job, so this isn’t a reflection upon you. But if Mr. Abelard wants to talk with me, he needs to call me personally. You tell him I said that, please.”
“Yes, ma’am. He said to tell you his son and Mr. Robert aren’t there right now.”
“I understand. Thanks for calling, Miss Jewel. Good-bye,” Alafair said. She replaced the receiver and went back to her room and began work on her manuscript again. Through the back window she could see the shadows growing in the trees, the afternoon sun ablaze like a bronze shield on the bayou. The phone rang in the kitchen once more. This time she checked the caller ID. It was blocked. “Hello,” she said, hoping it was not who she thought it was.
“Oh, hello, Miss Robicheaux. It’s Timothy Abelard. I hope I’m not bothering you,” the voice said.
“Miss Jewel gave me your message, Mr. Abelard. I appreciate your courtesy, but no apology is necessary regarding Kermit.”
“That’s very gracious of you. But I feel terrible about what’s occurred. I don’t know your father well, but I was quite an admirer of your grandfather, Big Aldous. He was an extraordinary individual, generous of spirit and always brave at heart. It saddens me that any member of my family or an associate of my family would offend his granddaughter in any fashion.”
Timothy Abelard’s voice and diction were as melodic and hypnotizing as branch water flowing over stone. The syllabic emphasis created an iambic cadence, like lines taken from an Elizabethan sonnet, and the r ’s were so soft they almost disappeared from the vowels and consonants surrounding them. If an earlier development of technology had allowed the recording of Robert E. Lee’s voice, Alafair suspected, it would sound like Timothy Abelard’s.
“How can I help you?” she found herself saying.
“Jewel is only a couple of blocks from you. Let her drive you to my home. My son and his friend Robert are away right now. We’ll have a cup of tea, and I promise Jewel will return you to New Iberia before dark.”
“I don’t know how that will serve any purpose, Mr. Abelard.”
“I’m elderly and bound to a wheelchair, and I don’t have many possessions I consider of value except the honorable name of my family. I feel, in this instance, it’s been sullied. I ask you to visit me for no more than a few minutes. I will have no peace until you do so.”
She thought about driving herself to the Abelard home, but her car was being serviced at the Texaco station down the street. “I’d be happy to come out,” she said.
Moments later, the nurse pulled a Lincoln Town Car into the
driveway, the oak leaves drifting out of the sunset onto the shiny black surface.
TIMOTHY ABELARD was on the lawn in his wheelchair when Alafair arrived on the island where his home seemed to rise out of its own elegant decay. He was dressed in a beige suit and an open-necked crimson shirt, one that had a metallic sheen to it, his black tie-shoes buffed to a dull luster. Since Alafair’s last visit there, a landscape architect had hung baskets of flowers from the upstairs veranda and lined the walks and pathways with potted palms and orchid trees and flaming hibiscus, as though trying to import the season to a place where it would not take hold of its own accord. Against the backdrop of stricken trees in the lagoon and the termite infestation of the house, the transported floral ambience on the property made Alafair think of flowers scattered on a grave in an isolated woods.
“I’m so glad you could come,” Mr. Abelard said, extending his hand.
Someone had already placed a beach umbrella in a metal stand on the lawn, and under it a chair for her to sit in. Timothy Abelard was sitting in the shade of the umbrella, a photo album open on his lap. When Alafair sat down, she found herself unconsciously pinching her knees together, her hands folded. Mr. Abelard smiled, his eyes examining her, one eye a bit smaller and brighter than the other. “I was just looking at some photos taken when I was a bit younger,” he said. “In Banff and at Lake Louise, in Alberta. Here, take a look.”
He turned the scrapbook around so she could see the photos in detail. In one, Abelard was standing on a great stone porch of some kind, perhaps on the back of a hotel. Behind him were banks of flowers that were so thick and variegated in color that they dazzled the eyes. In the distance were dark blue mountains razored against the sky, their snowcapped tops so high they disappeared into the clouds. In another photo, Abelard was eating on a terrace not far from a green lake surrounded by golden poppies. A glacier stood at the headwaters of the lake, and at the table where Abelard was dining sat a man with patent-leather-black hair. He was suntanned and wearing shades and a black shirt unbuttoned on his chest.
“That’s Robert Weingart,” she said.
Abelard turned the scrapbook back around on his lap. “No, you’re mistaken. That fellow is someone else.”
Before she could speak again, he said, “You have your father’s features.”
“Dave is my foster parent. He pulled me from a submerged airplane when I was very small,” she said. “I think I was born in El Salvador, but I can’t be sure. My mother died in the plane crash.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Are you a citizen today?”
“In my opinion, I am.”