“No sooner had that lid come down than Patsy broke into sobs. That painted mask of a face just broke into pieces. She just cut loose. It was the most heartrending chorus to hear, as she cried and cried and called out ‘Mamma’ as the pallbearers lifted the coffin to carry it out. ‘Mamma, Mamma,’ she kept crying, and that idiot Seymour held her, with a stupid face and a limp hug, saying ‘Hush’ of all things, as if he had the right.

“I took hold of Patsy and her arms came around me very tight. She cried all the way out to Metairie Cemetery, her body shaking violently as I held her, and then she said she couldn’t get out of the car for the graveside ceremony. I didn’t know what to do. I held her. I stayed there. I could hear and see the folks at the graveside, but I stayed with Patsy in the car.

“On the long drive back home, Patsy cried herself out. She fell asleep with her head against me, and when she woke up she looked up at me—I was already about six feet tall at that point—in a kind of sleepy way, and she said softly:

“ ‘Quinn, she’s the only person who’s ever been really interested in me.’

“That night, Patsy and Seymour played the most deafening music yet to come out of the back-shed studio, and Jasmine and Lolly were in a rage. As for Pops, he didn’t seem to hear it or care.

“About two days later, after spreading out her suitcases to be packed once more, Aunt Queen told me that she wanted me to go to college. She was going to look for another teacher for me—someone as brilliant as Lynelle who could prepare me for the finest schools.

“I told her I never wanted to leave Blackwood Manor, and she only smiled at this and said I’d soon change.

“ ‘You don’t have a beard yet, my baby,’ she said, ‘you’re growing out of that dress shirt as we sit here talking, and your shoes must be size twelve, if I have any knack for guessing such things. Believe you me, there are exciting things to come.’

“I smiled at all this. I was still feeling the dazed elation, the cruel excitement that surrounded Sweetheart’s funeral for me, and I didn’t really care about growing up or anything else.

“ ‘When that testosterone really hits your blood,’ Aunt Queen proceeded, ‘you’ll want to see the wide world, and Goblin won’t seem the fascination that he is now.’

“The next morning she left for New York to catch a flight to Jerusalem, which she hadn’t visited in many years. I don’t remember where she went after that—only that she was gone a long while.