“Cheerful old Allen had also come to collect the luggage in the pickup and I fell to embracing and kissing him, but then came a moment of truth when Terry Sue appeared in a candy pink suit, much like the last one I had seen her wearing over three years ago, with a new baby on her hip (the last one had not been fathered by Pops); and Tommy ran to her, putting his arms around her and kissing her.

“It took a moment for me to recognize the slender and beautiful teenaged girl beside her, and then I realized it was Brittany.

“Tommy looked to us as to what to do, and I, drawing him aside, asked what I should have asked before we had come to this juncture: ‘What do you want?’ ‘To stay with you,’ was his answer.

“ ‘I then went to Terry Sue and put it to her that Tommy wanted to finish out the trip with a spell at Blackwood Manor if only she would allow it, and I told her and Brittany how wonderful it was that they had come to the airport. I slipped Terry Sue all the twenties I had in my wallet, and that was plenty.

“ ‘All right, you behave yourself, Tommy Harrison,’ she said. And she gave him a big kiss.

“ ‘Brittany, I’ll call you tonight,’ he said to his sister.

“ ‘You’ve grown up to be a beautiful girl,’ I told her.

“Of course Aunt Queen was showering her with compliments, and had even taken off her cameo—one of the new ones from the town of Torre del Greco—and given it to her.

“These tender emotions I had anticipated, and, tired as I was, I let them grip me, and was glad of them, but as we drove away in Aunt Queen’s big car, as I sat back, exhausted from our long flight, and looked out the window, I was totally unprepared for the tremendous feeling that swept over me at the sight of the verdant grasses growing unkempt along the highway and the swaying oleanders in full bloom and the occasional oak trees, which meant we were truly home.

“I felt Louisiana all around me, and I loved it. And by the time we had reached the pecan tree drive before the house I was so choked up I could hardly speak into the intercom to ask Clem to stop the car.

“I got out and looked down the long vista at the house. It was inexplicable, the feeling in me. It wasn’t happiness. It wasn’t sorrow. Yet it was rendering me helpless and bringing only the sweetest tears.

“Nash helped Aunt Queen from the car and she stood beside me. We both looked at the distant white columns.

“ ‘That’s your home,’ she said. “It will be yours forever,’ she continued. ‘You must take care of it after I’m gone.’