"Because I'm not an idiot. You're back in the news, kid. They were running a picture of you on Channel Three, talking about that crazy boy shooting the girl and thinking it was you."
"Oh. Crap."
"Naw, it was a good picture. So what brings you looking for me, anyway? I mean, more than the obvious. You want to know about Pine Breeze, that's a given. They done tearing it down yet? I'll be . . . relieved when they do. Yes, relieved."
"Is that what you really mean? You say it like it's not."
She spent a second or two too long with the cigarette at her mouth. When she moved it aside to speak, there was a faint smudge of coral lipstick on the white filter. "It's what I mean. It's a closed chapter—it's been one for me, for years. I'll feel better when it's gone to the rest of the world, too."
"It isn't gone, not all the way, not yet. It will be before long, though. They've got all the equipment up there, and a couple of the buildings are torn down. The rest aren't far behind."
"Good. Glad to hear it. You went there, then?"
"Yeah, I went there."
"Creepy, isn't it?"
The way she said it, I wondered if she knew more than she was saying. I wondered if she'd felt the same thing I'd felt out there on the overgrown hills and in the decrepit buildings. I wondered if anything had spoken to her like it had spoken to me. But I didn't ask. Instead I just said back, "Yeah, it's creepy."
"You were born there. It was a mess. A big mess. The whole thing. It never should have gotten so out of hand."
"It," I echoed, again thinking of the word's corollary, our problem.
She caught it too. "You," she amended. "Not your fault, though. Do they treat you like it was? I hope not. Your grandmother meant well, in her own way, but I never thought she was kind. Do you know what I mean? She was looking out for her own, in the way that seemed best to her, but I thought it was too bad for a baby to be caught in the middle."
I held the tea, not drinking it, just feeling the condensation drip down over my fingers and onto the knee of my jeans. "My grandmother?"
"Your grandmother, yes. Tall woman. Angry. Furious, even. I knew her kind. Enraged at her offspring, but determined to protect them such as she could."
"Them?" I was down to monosyllables, now.
"Them, yes. All three of those girls. When the one—your mother—went off and got herself in trouble, she did it in a big way, or so I was led to understand. If the news can be believed, her mother knew what she was doing to try to keep you all away from them." Marion crushed the cigarette into an ashtray on the coffee table, briefly rousing the gray tomcat, and prompting an ear twitch in the orange one.
"But wait." I wiped the side of the glass and took a swallow of tea to wet my mouth, but didn't taste it. "My grandmother knew, then? She knew my mother was pregnant?"
"Of course she knew. What kind of establishment do you think I was running? Your mother was a minor; I couldn't provide her with any kind of medical treatment at all without a parent or guardian's consent."
"But Lulu said she didn't know. She said nobody knew."
"Lulu? One of the other girls?"
"My aunt, yes. She raised me, her and her husband. She said nobody knew Leslie was pregnant."
"Don't go looking all betrayed, now. Your aunt probably told you the truth so far as she knew it. She told you the important part, anyway. Neither of the other two girls knew. Grandma saw to that. She was good and vague—she stonewalled the entire family. Those other two girls were madder than hell when they found out, too."
"That makes sense," I admitted, nodding so hard I startled the tea and its melting ice. "I've never known much of my grandmother. Lulu took me when I was little. She and Dave adopted me legally at some point, but I don't remember my grandmother caring one way or another. For that matter . . ." I thought hard and made sure I was remembering right before I said the rest out loud, "I don't think she was even there at Malachi's trial, either. I could barely tell you what she looks like. She's never had much interest in me, or if she has, Lulu kept it from me."
Marion—or Rhonda, whichever she preferred—laughed. "I bet she did. I saw your aunt once, if Lulu's the one I'm thinking of, at a hearing investigating your mother's death. She wasn't supposed to be there. But she was a fireball of a thing. Spitting image of her mother, or how I figured her mother must have looked as a teenager—damn, but you all look alike. Tall and angry. And not at all intimidated by anyone, or anything. I half thought she was going to jump the table and throttle the poor man asking the questions. She was out for blood, she was. And she took you?"
"She took me."
"Then I'm glad to hear it. She made a home all right for you, it looks like. You've grown up into a tall girl yourself, and healthy looking. People may've given you a lot of grief as a little girl, but they'd think twice before it now, I bet. You're one of them, plain as day. All the women in your family, cut from the same cloth. Intractable bitches—all of you. And I mean that in the good way."
She paused to light another cigarette, and I took another draught of tea, deciding to agree that it was a compliment. "Thanks," I said.
Marion tipped her head to me. "Is this something like what you had in mind?"
"What?"
"You came here, wanting to talk to me. Is this what you wanted to know?"
"I guess. I went to Pine Breeze looking for—well, for more,really. I don't know much about my mother and no one wants to talk about her. And I don't know who my father is at all, but it may have something to do with my crazy cousin. You know—the one who keeps shooting at me every fifteen years or so."
"What did you find there?" She leaned forward, her forearms against her knees. "Did they ever clean that place out? When I left, the police closed the place up and called it an ongoing investigation. They wouldn't let me in after anything at all, not even a sweater I'd left hanging on the back of my chair. Damn shame about that sweater. One of those angora cardigans that looks so nice with everything, but costs so much to replace."
"If I'd've known, I would have taken a look around for you—but I don't think you'd want it back, now. It's all there, inside, but everything is rotted or rusted. I even found some filing cabinets full of stuff in one of the back buildings. There were medical records, prescriptions, people's names and social security numbers—but the place was trashed, as you might assume."
"Christ," she swore. "The board of directors kept telling me that I was going to get them sued with the way I handled things; they even tried to fire me, if you can imagine that. They tried to fire me from a hospital that the state had formally closed. I didn't have a job to get fired from. And then they went and left everything there? Idiots, all of them. They should have at least let me clean the place out. All that junk should have been shredded decades ago. It isn't fair to the kids we kept there, or to the adults they are now. Sons of bitches."
"Sons of bitches indeed."
"But you found what you were looking for?"
I shrugged. "I found things that put me on the track to finding what I need. And I found you."
"Fat lot of good I am to you, dear."
"I don't know, this is a pretty good glass of tea."
She smiled, like I hoped she would. "Then it hasn't been for naught. But I have to tell you—I don't know who your father was. I think your grandmother might have known, but I don't know if you'll ever get it out of her."
"Since she's dead, that's a pretty safe bet."
"I'm sorry to hear that. It's as I told you: she was trying to do right, even if she didn't go about it in the best way. I got the feeling she didn't know her own children very well at all, and it confused her and made her mad. I hope your aunts learned that—and they learned to forgive her for handling Leslie the way she did."
I didn't know how to answer that, so I didn't. I don't know about Aunt Michelle, but Lulu hung on to her grudge with a death grip, and I don't think that grip eased up any with my grandmother's passing.
"But I do want you to know, I liked your mother. She was an old soul, as they say sometimes. Older than her years. She was a child, yes, but she was a wise little thing, and she knew she'd screwed up. Even though she was shut away there, out in the hills, she never acted like she was a prisoner. I think she felt better for being there, as strange as that sounds. Like she was relieved to be free of the drama." Marion finished off the tea and the cigarette in two separate breaths.
"Thank you," I said, since nothing else seemed appropriate.
"Thank you for what?"
"For this, all of it. You told me more about her in a couple of paragraphs than Lulu has ever managed to share. She doesn't like to talk about her, or her mother either."
"Oh, you're welcome, then. And don't hold it against your aunt; it hurts her to remember, that's all. Leslie was . . . Leslie was something else." She rose from her seat to take both of our glasses into the kitchen. "Pine Breeze wasn't the happiest place to be. It was someplace that kids went when the rest of the world didn't know what to do with them anymore. It was a place where kids went to cry."
Marion retreated to the kitchen, and I heard the glasses clink into the sink where she set them down. "But Leslie was there, and I liked her, because she could still laugh."
III
Next night, after spending an evening with a couple of friends who knew their way outside the city better than I did, I came home with a resolution to leave. Marion was a neat lady and I appreciated her time, but she'd given me everything she knew in a couple of paragraphs. If I was going to get any real answers, I was going to have to head south and hope for the best. I did not anticipate that Lulu would let me do this without a fight, though, and she was unprepared to disappoint me. She was waiting at the door when I pulled in; it was late, but not so late that she could pretend the sound of my car had roused her.