"Mr. Fletcher," she replied.
For a moment I thought I had imagined hearing it. That name, that family, their very existence, had been erased from the pages of our memories and censored as vigorously and firmly as profanity. Once -- well, mare than two years ago-- I mentioned seeing Betsy Fletcher with a boy parked at the beginning of our driveway. Mama went into a rage, forbidding me even to think of the Fletcher family. I was never to go anywhere near their property line.
I said nothing. I stared and waited, holding my breath.
"He was sitting on his front porch reading his newspaper when I reached the front of his property," Mama continued. "I heard him greet me and I paused and looked his way. The moment I did so, he rose and bounded off that porch like someone who hadn't seen a living soul for decades. His boyish enthusiasm actually made me laugh."
"What did he want?" I asked in a throaty whisper.
"Oh, he was very nice. He wanted to see how I was, how you were. He spoke so quickly I had no time to respond to one question before he asked another. He told me he had been hearing good things about my remedies and wanted to assure me that even though he was a pharmacist dispensing chemical medicine, he had a great deal of faith in what he called old-time panaceas. He told me his mother had a cold cure in fact that had been passed down from generation to generation. Its ingredients included nutmeg and honey, milk and old bourbon."
"But why was he so friendly? Wasn't he still angry about my not telling the police when I had last seen Elliot? You remember how angry the police were at me."
"No, no, nothing unpleasant came up in the conversation, except of course, his problems with that dreadful young girl."
"What do you mean?"
"His daughter. Betsy. You know what I mean. Noble. You know what kind of a girl she has turned out to be and how she has brought her father nothing but heartache. I actually felt sorry for the man. A man needs the sympathetic ear of a woman when he wants to confide in someone about the troubles he has with his children. If he has no wife, as Mr, Fletcher doesn't, he will look for the first sympathetic female face.
"And besides," she continued. "we can comfort each other for we have both lost a child.
But this was Dave Fletcher she was talking about. Elliot's father. I wanted to blurt. This was the man and the family you often told me were
surrounded by dark evil. These were the people you had forbidden me to speak to, to know. This was the man you told the police was at fault for the problems of his own children. How could she say and believe one thing for so long and just as suddenly change?
More important. why?
"Don't look at me like that. Noble. It's sinful not to have compassion for others who are in pain. Besides. I never really met the man before, spoke to him long enough to appreciate his wit and
intelligence."
I glanced at Baby Celeste. What about her? What about the fact that she was Dave Fletcher's granddaughter, a granddaughter he had no idea existed, a granddaughter we were keeping from him?
"He's a very polite man. too. He was so concerned about my walking back in the dark that he insisted over every objection that he drive me home. He practically begged me to permit him to do it.
"I can't imagine why his wife deserted him. You would have thought a man like that would have found another woman by now, wouldn't you?"
She made her eyes smaller and leaned toward me. "Why do you suppose he hasn't, Noble?'
I tried to swallow, but couldn't. I shook my head. "I don't know, Mama."
She nodded, smiled, and sat back. "I do. I do."
She looked off her eyes drifting toward someone else.
"What do you mean. Mama?"
"What do you mean. Mama?" she mimicked. "The first Celeste was so much brighter than you are, Noble. I used to be surprised at her insights and how fast they were coming as compared to your own, but I'm not surprised any longer. You don't concentrate enough. You question too much."
Tears came to my eyes, tears that were so confused they didn't know which way to travel on my face. Was I crying as Noble, his feelings hurt by the comparison, or was I crying for myself, lost forever in Mama's mind, buried forever in that grave?
"I don't mean to question too much, Mama. I just... don't understand."
"You don't have to understand. Just do what I tell you to do and accept what I want you to accept," she snapped, and stood. "Take the baby into the living- room. I want to be alone." She began to clear the table.
I rose slowly, scooped up Baby Celeste, and carried her out of the room quickly. While she played. I listened and heard Mama's murmuring. At one point I heard her laughing and then grow quiet. When she was finished in the kitchen, she went upstairs without even looking in on us. It was very unusual. Even Baby Celeste realized that something was very different by now. She stopped playing and came to me, lowering her head on my lap and then raising it to look into my eyes.
I listened for Mama's return, but she didn't come back down the stairs. so I picked up Baby Celeste and went up. Once again. Mama was in her bedroom. This time the door was closed. I stood there listening. She was talking softly. I knocked and she stopped.