to help her, wanting to do as she said, thinking she was soft and young and pretty.
“Are we headed south?” Mother asked, sick again, almost unable to speak. The pain wrapped around her, and wrapped around Emaleth too. OOOOOh…this was the worst Emaleth had ever felt. She kicked at the world. But she did not mean to kick at Mother.
Father’s voice had long ago died out in the rumble of cars, in the glare of lights. The world was huge all around them.
“We are going south now, lady,” he said. “We’re going south, now, all right, but I wish you’d let me take you to a hospital.”
Mother closed her eyes. The light went out of her mind. Her head fell to the side. She slept; she dreamed. The money lay on her lap, on the floor of the truck, all over the pedals. The man reached down and picked up one bill at a time, trying not to take his eyes off the cars that zoomed along the road in front of him. Cars, road, signs, freeway; New Orleans, south.
“Michael,” Mother said. “Michael Curry. New Orleans. But you know, you know when I think about it, I think the phone is listed under Mayfair. Mayfair and Mayfair. Call Mayfair and Mayfair.”
Sixteen
THEY FIGURED THAT Alicia CeeCee Mayfair had miscarried at about four p.m. She’d been dead for over three hours when Mona came to see her. They had checked on her, of course. They had shone the light on her, and the nurse said that she hadn’t wanted to wake her up. And Anne Marie had been in and out, both before and after the time of death.
Nobody had seen anyone else go to that room. It was strictly private.
Leslie Ann Mayfair was making calls to all the women in the family. Ryan was making calls from downtown. His secretary, Carla, was making calls.
Mona, when she finally got free of their hugs and kisses, bolted the door of her room against them. Then she tore off the white dress and the ribbon in a fury.
Of course she couldn’t call Michael and tell him, ask him to come. The phone was all tied up, naturally.
In her slip and bra, she pyrooted through the closet for better clothes. There were none. She unlocked the door, and crossed the hall to Mom’s room. No one even noticed her. All the conversation came up the stairwell like a roar. Car doors were slamming outside. Ancient Evelyn was crying somewhere loudly and terribly.
CeeCee’s closet. CeeCee had been only five foot one, and Mona was almost that now. She pyrooted through the dresses and coats and suits until she found a little skirt, too short, Mom had said, Well, that’s just fine, and then one of those frilly blouses CeeCee wore between about nine and eleven each morning before drinking lunch and putting on her nightgown to watch the afternoon soaps in the living room.
Well, CeeCee wasn’t going to do that anymore, was she? Mona’s head was spinning. These clothes smelled like Mother. She thought of that smell in the hospital. No, it wasn’t here, nowhere here. Or she would have caught it.
She looked in the mirror. She looked like a little woman now, well, sort of. She picked up CeeCee’s brush and caught up her hair in back, the way CeeCee used to do, and put a barrette in it.
And just for an instant, no more than that, like the blink of an eye, she thought she saw Mother. She groaned. She wanted so badly for it to be true. But there was no one in the mirror but Mona, with her hair clipped back, looking very grown-up. There was CeeCee’s lipstick, the soft pink kind, ’cause she wasn’t sober enough anymore to do anything fancy with bright red unless she wanted to look like a clown, she said.
Mona put it on.
OK, now back across the hall, slam the door, and boot the computer.
The WordStar Directory came up, big and bright and green and full of the classic menu. Mona punched R for Run a Program and commanded the program to make subdirectory \WS\MONA\HELP.
At once she changed to that new directory and hit D to make a file named Help, and then she was in it.
“This is Mona Mayfair, writing on March 3rd. And this is for those who come after me and may never understand what happened. Something is preying upon the women in our family. They are being warned, but they think it is