“I swallowed, I remember that, but I don’t remember how long it was before I could answer her. Then I remembered that I had Pops’ money clip in my jeans. They’d given it to me, along with his keys and his handkerchief, at the hospital.

“I took it out and I looked at it. It was a wad of twenty-dollar bills, but there were also more than several hundreds. He always saved those hundred-dollar bills just in case something came up. I counted it all out—one thousand dollars—and I gave it to her.

“ ‘You telling the truth about being HIV?’ Jasmine asked.

“ ‘Yeah, and I see you’re all crying buckets,’ said Patsy. ‘He blew his stack when he heard. You’re just one big sympathetic family.’

“ ‘Anybody know outside of us?’ Jasmine asked.

“ ‘No,’ Patsy said. ‘I just told you not to tell anybody, didn’t I? And why are you asking me, you worried about your precious bed-and-breakfast? There’s nobody left to run it, case you haven’t noticed. Unless you all are taking over.’ She shot a mean glance at each of us in turn. ‘I guess Little Lord Tarquin here could become the youngest bed-and-breakfast owner in the South, now, couldn’t he?’

“ ‘I’m very sorry, Patsy,’ I said. ‘But it’s not a death sentence anymore, being HIV. There are drugs, lots of drugs.’

“ ‘Oh, save it, Little Lord Tarquin!’ she shot at me.

“ ‘Is that going to be my name from now on? I don’t like it,’ I fired at her. ‘I was trying to tell you about medicine, advances, hopes. They have a special clinic for research at Mayfair Medical, that’s all I’m trying to say.’

“ ‘Oh, yeah, research, fine with your wonderful education, you know all about those things,’ she hammered. ‘Lynelle’s little genius. You haven’t seen her ghost lately, have you?’

“ ‘Patsy, you’re not working any gig tonight,’ declared Big Ramona.

“ ‘Are you getting decent treatment?’ Jasmine asked. ‘Just tell us that much.’

“ ‘Oh, yeah yeah, I know all about decent treatment,’ Patsy said. ‘I’m a musician, remember. You don’t think I never shot up? That’s probably how I got it, needles, not being tacked to the mattress. And all it takes is one time and all that, and I never shoot up except when I’m drunk, and so there we are, Miss Patsy Blackwood’s not long for this world, ‘cause she got drunk and shot up with somebody else’s needle, but so far she’s not symptomatic.’

“She shoved the money in her shoulder bag and stood up.

“ ‘Where are you going, girl!’ Big Ramona said, standing up to block Patsy from the back door. ‘You’re not working a gig with your father dead.’

“ ‘The hell I’m not, and I’m working it in Tennessee so I got to get on the road. Seymour’s waiting.’