The Hunt Club_ A Novel - Bret Lott [61]
There at the far end of the room, surrounded by huge arrangements of flowers, sat a shriveled woman in an overstuffed chair. She was tiny, the glasses on her face thick, her eyes bleary behind them. She had white hair, a blue dress, and sat with her hands in her lap.
She had on white gloves.
“Mr. Leland Dillard,” she said, and put out a hand.
Unc walked across the room to her. He tucked his Braves cap in his back pocket, and without my telling him her hand was out to him, he put both his out, moved them a few inches one way and the other.
Mrs. Dupree did nothing to help him find hers, only held her white-gloved hand out, steady.
Unc found her hand, bowed to her.
“I am deeply sorrowed at the passing of your daughter,” Unc said. I’d never seen him like this, never heard him talk this way: formal, sorry. “She will always hold a special place in my heart,” he said, still holding her hand.
“And I am sorry at the passing of your own sweet Sarah,” Mrs. Dupree said, “though I am these many years late in offering these words.”
“Thank you,” Unc said, and it seemed his hands on hers quivered, as though she were holding him together with just that tiny gloved hand of hers.
She let go, said, “Won’t you please sit down?” and motioned to the sofa on my right, carved wooden arms and legs, blue-and-gold striped silk material. At either end of it were more flowers, baskets on the floor and on the marble-topped end tables. Across from the sofa was a small, shallow fireplace, baskets of flowers in front of it.
I led Unc to the sofa, where we sat, the two of us on the very edge. We were silent a few moments, and I couldn’t help but look at my watch: six forty-five.
“This is the parlor,” Mrs. Dupree said, and I looked up. She had a glass in her hand, a dainty one, half filled with a light brown something. “This is the room in which one brought the family member to have passed, let him or her lie in state while mourners could pay their respects. Much as you are doing now, Mr. Leland Dillard.”
She took a sip at the glass. “I am afraid my manners have escaped me in the midst of my loss,” she said. “May I offer you a glass of sherry?” She held up the glass. “It has certainly helped me to remain calm these last three days. We can have Miss Esther bring you in some, if you wish.” She turned, with her free hand reached for a small silver bell on the end table beside her. She picked it up, ready to ring.
“No, thank you, Mrs. Dupree,” Unc said, “as we have to be going.”
“So soon?” she said, and put the bell back.
And beside it, there on the end table, sat a paperweight. Brown glass, the size of a Coke-bottle bottom, rough edges.
I felt my hands go hot, my palms start to sweat, all in a second.
She took another sip, pinky extended, the other hand set perfectly in her lap. “My mother, when she passed in April of ’26, was presented in this room, as was my father, in September of ’39.”
I glanced at Unc, as though he’d noticed it too.
“I have now outlived my only child,” she went on, her voice a sharp, thin fact in the room, her eyes closed. “My daughter, Constance. And my wish for her passing was that she too would have had the honor of lying in state here in the parlor as well. But they tell me these things are no longer allowed. That this is no longer considered proper.”
I wanted to hold it up, see if there was inside it a sweetgrass coil. If she kept her eyes closed, then I might be able to stand, just reach over, pick it up.
But then she opened them, tipped up the glass, drained it, turned to the end table.
“It is my desire, indeed will be my last request, to be presented here in this room, and a curse will be upon those who do not honor this request,” she said, and now she was looking at me, her mouth straight, eyes open.
She said, “Who is this young upstart, Mr. Leland Dillard?” and nodded at me.
Unc sat up a little straighter. “My apologies, please, for not introducing him,” Unc said. “This is my nephew, Master Huger Dillard.”
I nodded. “Ma’am.”
“Imagine,” she said to me, “if I