Louisiana Lament

guilt.”
    “You sound as if you don’t like him.”
    “Under the circumstances, do you?”
    Talba thought about it. “His pain is real. So far, I believe him when he says she was withdrawn the last few weeks—that she was the one who changed the relationship. But you’d know about that. Was it true?”
    The redhead’s face lost some of its defiance, its cocksureness. She stared at the street, through the window behind Talba. “I’m ashamed to say I don’t know. You know how women grow apart when one gets in a relationship? You assume the other person doesn’t have time for you; you don’t call her as much.”
    Talba laughed. “It’s usually true.”
    “Well, maybe it wasn’t this time. Maybe I was the person who wasn’t there for
her
. I’d forgotten how depressed she could get—I just assumed everything was going great between Jason and her. And all the time the bastard—”
    “He says it wasn’t like that—that he thought she was trying to dump him.”
    The woman’s temper flared. “Why couldn’t he be a man about it?”
    Yes. Why couldn’t he? It was the question women always asked when men behaved like boys—naughty boys, especially—and Talba had no answer for it.
    She said, “I liked Babalu so much. But there was a lot I didn’t know. I had no idea about the depression.”
    Mary Pat rocked her body back and forth. “Oh, yeah. She had it. Listen, Talba, she was capable of killing herself—if that’s what you came here to ask, I hate to tell you, but she was. And her taste in men was horrible. It was one of the things that always got her down.”
    “I’ve met the husband.”
    Mary Pat shuddered. “At least Jason was better than Robbie Robineau.”
    “I found her will. Did Jason give it to you?”
    “Yes, I remember when she made it. She feared for her life at the time—darling Robbie was knocking her around. We finally had to get her to go to a women’s shelter.”
    “Do you know about the drugs?”
    Mary Pat looked down, avoiding the subject. “Yes.” She raised her eyes. “We’ve been through a lot together, Clayton and me.”
    “How far back do you go?”
    “College. She was an English major—all that poetry had to come from somewhere. I was into math, would you believe it?” And for the first time she laughed. Talba recalled that Jason had said she “laughed a lot.” When she did, it made you feel good. “Various things got us both into the healing arts—most of them you don’t want to know about.”
    It was the opening Talba was hoping for. “She said she took the name Babalu because of what she called ‘the wounded healer’ aspect.”
    Mary Pat gave a curt nod. “Oh, yes. She told everyone that—talk about wearing your heart on your sleeve.”
    “What was the wound, Mary Pat? What was she talking about?”
    The woman snorted. “What wasn’t she talking about? Heroin, abuse, divorce, you name it.”
    “Nothing else?”
    “She hated her family, if that’s what you mean.”
    “Why?”
    Mary Pat only shrugged.
    Sensing the end of the redhead’s patience, Talba thanked her for her trouble and said her good-byes. She left feeling depressed, touched by Mary Pat’s anger. Sure, Babalu had had it hard—yet she’d fought and come out the other end. To Talba, she seemed strong; to Mary Pat apparently she didn’t. Her best friend still saw her as having a broken wing, still in need of protection. Perhaps that’s what their friendship had been about. No wonder the two grew apart when Babalu finally had a good relationship.
    Semi-good,
Talba reminded herself.
Only semi-good. He’s not St. Jason yet.
    She was surprised, though. She hadn’t liked Mary Pat as well as she expected to.
    She and Jason went to the funeral in separate cars. It had occurred to Talba that she might have work to do in Clayton afterward. She didn’t need excess baggage.
    It was a gorgeous day for a funeral. The little town of Clayton had a “historic district” and trees old enough to lend dignity. Under other circumstances, Talba would have enjoyed it. Today, it was as if she looked at it from a distance, as if it weren’t really she who was there but a spy she’d sent to report back to her. She knew what this was about. It was part of the reaction she called turtling out—withdrawing into a shell when things got tough. Sometimes it took the form of going to bed and staring at the ceiling; today it was this feeling of distance. She wanted to fight it, but that might