Jazz Funeral

“Patty. Think about what you’re doing.”
    “Ham was my father! My own mother slept with her stepson and lied to everybody for the next seventeen years. Did you ready think I’d go away quietly, Mother? I’d just take your money and go? Just because I had no father and no mother either?” She spat out the last sentence as if it were poison she’d somehow ingested.
    Skip was terrified. This was guaranteed to push Patty over the edge. She spoke in the calmest voice she could muster. “Melody, we can talk about all that later. For right now, let’s just—”
    But Patty interrupted as if mother and daughter were alone. “I had to, goddammit! You think I wanted to? I had a sick mother and a family to support, and a husband who was too drunk to get it up. What the hell was I supposed to do?” Skip made a quick calculation: Ham had been thirty-four when he died, and Melody was now sixteen. Allowing for pregnancy, that meant Ham must have been about seventeen at the time—and rather a geeky kid, according to Alison. Patty had been twenty-three and must have looked like a Christmas package to a boy like that. If she’d wanted him, she could certainly have had him. But the question was, why would she want him? By all accounts she was devoted to George and always had been.
    “I loved your father very very much. Melody.”
    “Which father, Mother?”
    “You selfish little bitch—you wouldn’t know what it’s like to love anybody but your own bony little self. I had a whole family to take care of. And you know what? Your father hated me. We know now it was the booze, but he swore at me, he called me names—I’m going to tell you something you should know, young lady—he even raised his hand to me.”
    “My father wouldn’t hit anybody.”
    “He threatened me! He threatened to divorce me!”
    “Oh.” The look on Melody’s face said she finally understood why her whole world had been destroyed. It was so wise and so sad, tears sprung to Skip’s eyes, the last thing she needed now.
    “But he wouldn’t,” said the girl, “if you had a baby. George just wouldn’t do that. You were going to lose your meal ticket.”
    If she had a baby, legally George would have to support the child. But there was probably more to it than that. Patty had probably calculated—quite correctly—that he would want the baby even if he didn’t want her; and so he’d stay married to her.
    “You don’t understand a lot of things, little girl, and this is one of them. I loved your dad more than anything. I sometimes think I use my mother and family as an excuse because I wanted to keep him so bad.”
    A wised-up woman a moment ago, Melody was now the jeering teenager. “Oh, sure you did! Oh, sure! And my dad saw right through your game. He wasn’t nasty to you ‘cause he was a drunk, Mother. He was trying to get rid of you because he saw through you! He saw what a money-grubbing, gold-digging bitch you were!”
    Skip said, “Melody, why don’t we—”
    But it was too late. Patty had fired and Melody was lying on the floor; Skip couldn’t tell if she’d been hit or dropped down for protection. Patty took a step back.
    Skip held out her hand. “Patty, it’s okay. We’ll get some help right away. Just give me the gun and it’ll all be okay.”
    She fired again. Knocked off her pins, either by the impact or the shock, Skip hit the floor as well, aware of searing, burning pain. And blood. Lots of it, pouring out of her, pouring onto the floor.
    Melody screamed, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” and sat up. She seemed fine, hadn’t been hit.
    Skip stared up at her executioner, wondering if she’d keep firing, one shot after another, to make sure she was dead.
    But Patty pointed the gun at Melody. Her eyes looked red, as if she’d been crying, and her hands were shaking. She kept staring at the girl, losing her grip a little more and a little more, her hands getting shakier and shakier. Skip didn’t say a word. This was a woman capable of shooting her own daughter, at least at that moment. She was having trouble with it, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t do it. Hoping Melody would have the sense to keep her mouth shut, Skip held her breath. She saw Patty bunch her muscles, gathering her strength, and braced herself for the report. But Patty didn’t move. A tear fell from her left eye.
    And then she turned and bolted, dropping the gun.
    Skip scrambled up, ignoring the pain, and ran after her, chased her down