Big Easy Bonanza

sister even knew LaBelle existed.

2
    Bitty had a deal with herself—all she had to do was make it through the service (including the grueling trip to the cemetery), and then she could drink her miserable heart out. The house would be full of people, but Bitty, as its chatelaine, could withdraw to her private chambers and comport herself as disgracefully as she chose.
    She couldn’t allow herself either alcohol or drugs until afterward because of all the damn getting up and down. It was hard enough if you were sober.
    As the priest mumbled on (it didn’t occur to Bitty to listen), she saw her father’s mouth draw tight in an effort not to show feeling. He might have been remembering the talk they had all had before the wedding about whether the children would be raised Catholic or not. The Mayhews were adamant that they would not be. If they expected opposition, they didn’t get it. Chauncey was happy to be married to a Protestant, to raise his children as Protestants, probably would have been happy to convert if anyone, including himself, had given a damn. He’d never bothered much with religion at all, and so had remained formally if not very devotedly a Catholic. Which meant they were all having to contend now with the unfamiliar ritual, the strange prayers.
    André stirred next to her. She wondered if Marcelle had been wise to bring him, but he was such a grown-up boy for his age. Would André hold her hand, she wondered? What a little man, with his hair combed back like that. She started to inch her hand toward his but felt intimidated. He didn’t need her. Marcelle never had, and André was just like her.
    Marcelle had come into the world fully armored, like Athena, it seemed to Bitty. She was a beauty from the first and, by three had mastered all the social graces. Perfection itself was Marcelle. Never a moment’s trouble. Cleverer, more practical than most of the adults around her almost from the start.
    When Henry cried that he was afraid of the dark, Bitty would lie down with him. Marcelle went out and bought him a night-light with her own allowance. Bitty hadn’t even thought of it.
    When she thought of the golden pleasure of those few early years, once the children started coming, she forgot where she was, what had happened to Chauncey, that it had all been over for nearly a quarter of a century.
    At first being with Chauncey was enough for her. But during the years she couldn’t get pregnant, their lives became incomplete, marred with worry and failure. Then Henry came and he and Bitty fell in love.
    Three years later, when she tucked Marcelle into Chauncey’s arms, his eyes lit up in a way they hadn’t when he first saw Henry: “This one’s pretty.”
    “She looks like you,” said Bitty.
    He was shocked. “She does. She looks exactly like me.”
    Bitty said, “Of course she does. Did you think I was cheating on you?”
    He kissed her forehead. “Don’t say that.”
    She loved him so absurdly, so ridiculously—beyond human imagining, that was all. And beyond human endurance, which was where her good friend booze came in.
    As she sat now, defeated, shoulders bent in her black suit, the memory washed over her like morning sun. It was a forgotten time, another life, someone else’s.
    The one she had lived before that seemed more real to her now, was easier to call back, to feel. Remembering, she felt tears start to destroy her careful makeup, and thought it ironic that she was crying at her husband’s funeral over the shards of her childhood.
When do we grow up?
she wondered, sobbing into one hand, fumbling for a tissue with the other. Is it ever over? Any of it? For any of us?
    Her father put his arm around her. She shivered, thinking she’d prefer the embrace of a boa constrictor. The touch of her bourbon-smelling, blunt, ruthless father was loathsome, and she was usually extremely good at avoiding it. But at the moment she could hardly get up and move. She sank down, unable to bear it.
    And now he put both arms around her, trying to hold her up. She was going to scream. She couldn’t stand this. She could feel the scream rising in her throat. Oh, thank God. The congregation was getting to their feet.
    “Are you all right?” he whispered.
    “Yes. Let me go, please.”
    The Christmas Henry was two, he had a wonderful time and got tired out. But he didn’t want to give up his wonderful time. He raced screeching through the house, trying to make it last, trying not to get caught