They never did tear down Lafayette No. 1. The tourists liked it too much. And so did the families of the Garden District. Instead they cleaned it up, repaired the whitewashed walls, planted new magnolia trees. But there were still enough broken-down tombs for people to get their peek at the bones. It was a “historical monument.”
Mr. Lonigan took Rita through there one afternoon, showing her the famous yellow fever graves where you could read a long list of those who had died within days of each other during the epidemics. He showed her the Mayfair tomb-a big affair with twelve oven-size vaults inside. The little iron fence ran all the way around it, enclosing a tiny strip of grass. And the two marble vases stuck to the front step were full of fresh-cut flowers.
“Why, they keep it up real nice, don’t they?” she said. Such beautiful lilies and gladiolus and baby’s breath.
Mr. Lonigan stared at the flowers. He didn’t answer. Then after he’d cleared his throat, he pointed out the names of those he knew.
“This one here-Antha Marie, died 1941, now that was Deirdre’s mother.”
“The one who fell from the window,” Rita said. Again he didn’t answer her.
“And this one here-Stella Louise, died 1929-now that was Antha’s mother. And it was this one over here, Lionel, her brother-‘died 1929’-who ended up in the straitjacket after he shot and killed Stella.”
“Oh, you don’t mean he murdered his own sister.”
“Oh, yes, I do,” Mr. Lonigan said. Then he pointed out the other names going way back. “Miss Mary Beth, now that was the mother of Stella, and of Miss Carl, and now, Miss Millie is actually Rémy Mayfair’s daughter. He was Miss Carl’s uncle, and he died at First Street, but that was before my time. I remember Julien Mayfair, however. He was what you call unforgettable, Julien was. Till the day he died, he was a fine-looking man. And so was Cortland, his son. You see, Cortland died that year that Deirdre had that little baby. Now I didn’t bury Cortland. Cortland’s family lived in Metairie. They say it was all that ruckus over the baby that killed Cortland. But that don’t matter. You can see that Cortland was eighty years old besides. Old Miss Belle was Miss Carl’s older sister. But Miss Nancy, well, she is Antha’s sister. It will be Miss Millie next, you mark my words.”
Rita didn’t care about them. She was remembering Deirdre on that long-ago day at St. Ro’s when they sat on the side of the bed together. The emerald necklace had come to her through Stella and Antha.
She told Red about it now, and it didn’t surprise him at all. He just nodded, and said, yes, and before that the emerald necklace had belonged to Miss Mary Beth and before that to Miss Katherine who had built the house on First Street, but Miss Katherine was really before his time. Monsieur Julien was as far back as he could recall …
“But you know, it’s the strangest thing,” Rita said. “Them all carrying the Mayfair name. Why don’t they take the names of the men they marry?”
“Can’t,” Mr. Lonigan said. “If they do, then they don’t get the Mayfair money. That’s the way it was set up long ago. You have to be a Mayfair to get Mayfair money. Cortland Mayfair knew it; knew all about it; he was a fine lawyer; never worked for anybody except the Mayfair family; I remember once he told me. It was legacy, he said.”
He was staring at the flowers again.
“What is it, Red?” Rita asked.
“Oh, just an old story they tell around here,” he said. “That those vases are never empty.”
“Well, it’s Miss Carl who orders the flowers, isn’t it?” Rita asked.
“Not that I know of,” Mr. Lonigan said, “but somebody always puts them there.” But then he went quiet again the way he always did. He would never really tell you what he knew.
When he died a year after that, Rita felt as bad as if she’d lost her own father. But she kept wondering what secrets he’d taken with him. He’d always been so good to Rita. Jerry was never the same. He was nervous afterwards whenever he dealt with the old families.
Deirdre came home to the house on First Street in 1976, a mindless idiot, they said, on account of the shock treatments.
Father Mattingly from the parish went by to see her. No brain left at all. Just like a baby, he told Jerry, or a senile old lady.
Rita went to call. It had been years since she and Miss Carlotta had that awful fight. Rita had three children now. She wasn’t scared of that old lady. She brought a pretty white silk negligee for Deirdre from D. H. Holmes.
Miss Nancy took her out on the porch. She said to Deirdre:
“Look what Rita Mae Lonigan brought, Deirdre.”
Just a mindless idiot. And how awful to see that beautiful emerald necklace around her neck. It was like they were making fun of her, to put it on her like that, over her flannel nightgown.
Her feet looked swollen and tender as they rested on the bare boards of the porch. Her head fell to one side as she stared through the screens. But otherwise she was still Deirdre-still pretty, still sweet. Rita had to get out of there.
She never called again. But not a week went by that she didn’t walk back First just to stop at the fence and wave to Deirdre. Deirdre didn’t even notice her. But Rita did it nevertheless. It seemed to her Deirdre got stooped and thin, that her arms weren’t down in her lap anymore, but drawn up, close to her chest. But Rita was never close enough to make certain. That was the virtue of just standing at the fence and waving.
When Miss Nancy died last year, Rita said she was going to the funeral. “It’s for Deirdre’s sake.”
“But, honey,” Jerry had said, “Deirdre won’t know you’re doing this.” Deirdre hadn’t spoken a single syllable in all these years.
But Rita didn’t care. Rita was going.
As for Jerry, he didn’t want to have anything to do with the Mayfairs. He missed his daddy more than ever.
“Why the hell can’t they call some other funeral home?” he had said under his breath. Other people did it now that his daddy was dead and gone. Why didn’t the Mayfairs follow suit? He hated the old families.
“Least this is a natural death, or so they tell me,” he said.
Now that really startled Rita. “Well, weren’t Miss Belle and Miss Millie ‘natural deaths’?” she asked.
After he’d finished work that afternoon on Miss Nancy, he told Rita it had been terrible going into that house to get her.
Right out of the old days, the upstairs bedroom with the draperies drawn and two blessed candles burning before a picture of the Mother of Sorrows. The room stank of piss. And Miss Nancy dead for hours in that heat before he got there.
And poor Deirdre on the screen porch like a human pretzel, and the colored nurse holding Deirdre’s hand and saying the rosary out loud, as if Deirdre even knew she was there, let alone heard the Hail Marys.
Miss Carlotta didn’t want to go into Nancy’s room. She stood in the hallway with her arms folded.
“Bruises on her, Miss Carl. On her arms and legs. Did she have a bad tumble?”
“She had the first attack on the stairs, Mr. Lonigan.”
But boy, had he wished his dad was still around. His dad had known how to handle the old families.
“Now, you tell me, Rita Mae. Why the hell wasn’t she in a hospital? This isn’t 1842! This is now. Now I’m asking you.”
“Some people want to be at home, Jerry,” Rita said. Didn’t he have a signed death certificate?
Yes, he did. Of course he did. But he hated these old families.