“Don’t be such a suck-up, Jacky-boy. It makes you look squirrellier than you already are,” she shot back. Jack gave Ophelia alook like he couldn’t believe Ophelia had shamed him into coming in here. Ophelia realized then that Delphine’s funeral must have been torture for him.
After a quick visit over sweet tea, Jack left, promising to pick Ophelia up on Sunday after lunch. Ophelia settled into the guest room upstairs while Lucille helped Mawmaw get ready for bed. The guest room used to be Ophelia’s mother’s old room, and it looked out to the thick pine forest in the backyard. After an appropriate amount of time to let Mawmaw get settled, Ophelia walked down the hallway to the master bedroom and knocked on the cracked door of her grandmother’s room.
“Can I come in?” she said, peering into the room lit by a bedside lamp.
“Come on in, hun.” Mawmaw patted the side of the bed. “Sit.”
“So when are you going to tell me about all this Traiteur stuff?” Ophelia asked impatiently.
“Well, tomorrow, of course. We can’t possibly discuss this now when I’m half asleep.”
“Fine, fine.” Ophelia sheepishly grinned and nodded as a million questions bubbled to the surface. “Why me, though? Why not my mother, Aunt Susan, or my sisters? And why now?”
Mawmaw nodded tiredly as if expecting these questions. “It’s just a feeling I have about you, my Ophelia. I’ve always been drawn to your feisty spirit and yours to mine. You have my name, after all. And why now? Well, this old bat is tired, and it’s time to pass the gift on.” Mawmaw looked at her with pride, hope, and a sliver of bittersweet sadness. “We’ll talk all about it tomorrow, I promise. For now, though, I gotta get some rest.” Mawmaw patted Ophelia’s hand and kissed her on the cheek.
“Thank you, Mawmaw, for asking me. I love you. Sleep well.”
Ophelia left the room with her stomach growling uncomfortably. She needed the keys to her Mawmaw’s car if she wanted to eat at all. Her grandmother was no longer allowed to drive, so Ophelia asked Lucille, who was packing up to leave, where the car keys were hidden. Ophelia chuckled when Lucille told herthey were under the hallway bathroom sink behind a tampon box, another unused item.
Her grandmother’s 1982 beige Lincoln smelled of stale gasoline and leather. She maneuvered the giant piece of metal toward the center of town, where she knew a pizza parlor would be open. It was mediocre pizza, but that would do the trick. As she walked into the restaurant, which was situated between a nail salon and a notary at the Sunshine Strip Center, Ophelia took in the pleather royal blue and red booths, the greasy burnt-orange tile floor, and the handful of patrons eating. Sometimes, small towns like Oakdale made Ophelia depressed. She wondered about the lives of the people who lived here. What did they do?
She stood in line at the counter to order and realized the woman in front of her, a box-dyed blonde lady dressed in a Kelly-green sundress, looked very familiar. Ophelia tapped her on the shoulder.
“Aunt Susan?”
“Oh, my goodness! Ophelia!” she screeched, wrapping Ophelia in her plump arms.
“Jack just dropped me off an hour ago. So funny running into you.”
“Oh my goodness. This is so embarrassing. I didn’t have time to cook today,” she said, shaking her bleached curls.
“I totally understand. I arrived past Mawmaw’s suppertime, so I’m fending for myself,” Ophelia said with a smile. “By the way, how has Mawmaw been? Health-wise, I mean.” Aunt Susan was her caretaker when Lucille and the other nurses weren’t around, so she would know if anything was amiss, like Jack seemed to think.
“Can you believe it? She’ll be ninety in November. She’s doing fine, darling. Spritely as ever. Gotta watch that mouth of hers, though,” tsked Aunt Susan. “She has the occasional cough that we have to keep an eye on to make sure it doesn’t turn into pneumonia, and her arthritis is just terrible, but that’s it, thank God.”
Before Ophelia had a chance to press further, her aunt wassummoned by the cashier for payment. After paying, she grabbed her giant box of pizza, kissed Ophelia on the cheek, and headed out in a hurry.
Ophelia couldn’t shake what Jack had said on the drive over. Had Mawmaw really lost it? Had this whole Traiteur thing been an embarrassment for the family this entire time? Something they all shook their heads at and chalked up to Mawmaw being a little crazy? Her mother rarely spoke of her grandmother’s gift. And why? Ophelia found it to be fascinating. The whole family knew about it, but it wasn’t something that was brought up often. It just was.
If Mawmaw had really lost it, this trip would be very awkward for Ophelia. She couldn’t enable her by going along with everything. But these thoughts placed in her head by Jack just didn’t sit right. She’d never doubted her grandmother’s abilities once. Mawmaw had healed plenty of her scrapes as a child. Her mother brought her to a regular doctor, of course, but she remembered times when her mother would ask Mawmaw to heal her headaches. Jack’s story wasn’t matching up with her lived experiences. She wondered if his more conservative beliefs made him more reticent to accept Mawmaw as a Traiteur.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The next morning, Ophelia woke later than she had anticipated, rolling out of bed at nine. Mawmaw was already dressed and sitting in her recliner downstairs, tapping away on her iPad.
“Well, good morning,” Mawmaw grunted, looking over the tops of her silver-rimmed reading glasses. “’Bout time.”
“Sorry. I didn’t realize I was so tired,” Ophelia said, stifling a yawn and plopping down on the tweed couch.
“No matter. I had things to do this morning anyway.”
Lucille walked into the living room and hovered next to Ophelia. “Ophelia, honey,” Lucille said, gently touching her shoulder. “Your aunt Susan told me you would be taking care of your grandma today. I’ll come in tonight for bedtime, but I’ve left my number on the fridge if you have any questions.”
Ophelia nodded with a smile.
“Finally,” Mawmaw said, exasperated. “I’ve been waiting for the helicopter to leave.”
Ophelia let out a snort. “Well, tell me how you really feel.”
