“It’s going to be Ground Zero here for family politics,” Leon told Judy as he set out the glasses. “Better have a drink before they get here. Be prepared, like the Boy Scouts say.”

Judy had come away from the cemetery feeling drained and empty, and the last thing she wanted was a drink. Alcohol made her feel stupid and she hated that.

“But we just had a funeral,” she said. “Exactly.” Leon smiled wryly at her.

“First thing I learned at Tulane when I studied estate law; there’s nothing more explosive than a family after the death of a parent.” He sighed. “And we’re more volatile than most at the best of times.”

He went out to the bar on the deck to get more bitters.

Marion came in looking preoccupied, as she always was before guests arrived.

When they entertained the Dudays always had Reba stay and serve, but both Marion and Leon had been emphatic that this evening was “Family. Only family.” Judy thought extending that to the maid was going a bit far, but it wasn’t her house, after all.

“What can I do?” she asked.

“Let’s start on the food,” Marion said. “We need to take some things out.”

“I just hope,” Marion said, as they walked to the kitchen, “we can get through the night without anyone yelling or throwing a drink.”

“You don’t really think that will happen, do you?” asked Judy.

Marion glanced at Judy and smiled. “We already had one thunderstorm,” she said.

“But that was just Gwennie,” said Judy.

Gwennie, after spending most of the funeral stretched out on the pew sobbing, occasionally kicking, her head in her mother’s lap, had fallen into pale, exhausted silence at the cemetery. Her second wind had come in the form of an icey glare when they got back to the house and she learned the rest of the famliy would be coming for the evening. She was now pouting in the back yard.

“A lot of time, children are just doing what the adults want to do,” said Marion, as she pulled out a cutting board and set it on the counter. “I wouldn’t have minded letting out a few kicks and screams at the service.” Then she muttered “especially when that Abbot woman showed up.”

“Mayor Abbot wouldn’t try to come here, would she?”

“God no. Just the family is enough, thanks. Wish I had time for a drink. Could you start on the dip while I chop these?”

Judy thought as she reached for bowl that, really, Leon and Marion might be surprised to learn how much they actually agreed with each other when they were in different rooms.

***

The sun was going down, and that meant the night was beginning, and the night was going to take forever because Mama and Daddy were throwing a party. Grandpa was dead, and they were throwing a party. Everyone was coming to the house. The thought made Gwennie so angry she felt like crying again.

She hated crying as much as she hated throwing up, and she’d cried all through that horrible funeral. Everybody had cried. Even Daddy. Probably even Great Grandmere, though you couldn’t tell because she wore that black thing over her head. But her shoulders keep shaking.

Great Grandmere wouldn’t come to the house. Great Grandmere had gone back to her castle. “She wants to be alone,” Mama said.

Gwennie understood that. She wanted to be alone, too. Except for Grandpa. She wouldn’t mind at all if Grandpa were there. She sat down on the swing, fighting the lump in her throat.

Being mad helped, and so she made herself even angrier by looking down at her feet and giving the dirt a kick that swayed the swing every time she counted off who’d be coming. She didn’t mind Cousin Judy so much, or Grandma, but also Aunt Brigitte and Uncle Bill and Cousin Elisha…

She heard some cars pull up, voices in the front yard.

…and Tante Laurette, and Uncle Artiste, and those other people she’d never seen before in her life, no matter what Mama and Daddy said, Uncle Greg and Cousin Lee and Cousin Derek and Cousin Laney, who were all creepy-creep creeps…

They better stay inside, she thought, gritting her teeth. They better not come out. The back yard was her place. “It’s going to be dark, soon” a voice said. She looked up.

Goony cousin Elisha was standing with his back to her, looking at the pool. He always liked to stare at the pool, even though he had one at his own house. Gwen thought he looked weird in that black suit, like he was pretending to be somebody else. Elisha was about halfway to grown-up, but not really halfway — like he was off the path from kid to adult and going somewhere else entirely.

She began swinging, hoping he’d take that as a sign she didn’t want to talk.

He turned towards her, frowned, and walked over to stare at her more closely. “Do I look mean?” he asked.

“No, stupid,” she said as she swung. “You look like a goon, like you always look.”

“So why do you look mean when you look at me?”

“Because I want you to go home,” she said as she swung past him.

“Oh.” Elisha, being Elisha, looked relieved instead of offended. “I want to go home, too. But Mother won’t let me. I hate it here,” he added, as if he were commenting on the weather.

“Why?” she asked as she whooshed past him, just inches away. If she wanted, she could kick him so he’d land on his butt, butt, butt.

“Because nothing is what it should be. And because your Dad is insane.”

“He is not!” She said on the backswing.

Then, just as she whooshed past him, she added, “You’re crazy!”

Elisha thought for a moment. “Okay. But he’s crazier,” he said. “Hey, it’s getting dark and we’re going to have to go in with everybody soon. Want me to push you while we can?”

Lish was good at pushing her on the swing. He always got her just high enough to make Mama nervous. “Yeah.”

He stood behind her “Whoopsie doooooo!” he yodeled. Elisha gave her a push, and for a moment she forgot about Grandpa being gone forever.

She yodeled back at him, imagined herself flying through the strange-colored sky.

***

Judy knew before turning around that Cousin Laney had come into the kitchen.

The California people were so mainland she could hardly believe they were family. Well, maybe not Uncle Greg, whose accent practically screamed “Islander,” but definitely Laney and Lee and Derek. They sparkled with new, golden, sharp-edged West Coast wealth, not at all like the faded, slightly salty money of the Bonneys and the Costellos.

And the Dudays, for that matter.

“Is there anything else I can carry out?” Laney asked.

“Oh yes, hon, thank you,” said Marion, holding out a plate of stuffed mushrooms. Put this on the sideboard in the living room. Did your mother find the red wine?”

“She’ll have some later. Mom’s at the castle, right now.”

Judy thought she could not have heard Laney right. She looked out the window at great-grandmere’s distant house. Hadn’t she seen Cousin Lee standing on the landing outside the kitchen looking out at the castle just five minutes ago?

“It’s nice of her to check on Great-Grandmere,” said Marion. She didn’t sound surprised at all. She sounded relieved. Judy didn’t blame her. Cousin Lee was nice, but there was something formidable about her that went beyond the imperiousness of a rich, confident woman.

Every time Lee had come into the kitchen to help, Judy could swear she felt a strange pressure against her eardrums, as if she’d been diving too deep in Sanctuary Bay.

Judy told herself she was losing track of time, that’s what it was. Everything was going by too fast. Night had already fallen. Any minute now, Elisha would come running in the house yelling that it was dark. Strange that he hadn’t already done it.

But then, everything was strange. Strange that the house was filled with the sound of a party when it came on the heels of a funeral. Footsteps, voices, the rattle of ice-cubes, quiet music from the hi-fi, even an occasional subdued laugh from the other room.

Strange to see Laney jumped up to a grown woman her own age when Judy remembered her as a little girl. Most of the people around Judy had stayed on the Island and aged slowly with her, incrementally.

And strange in a terrible way that seemed to squeeze her heart into a crumpled ball, that Grandpa was truly gone. It was as though the sun or the moon had disappeared from the sky.

Grandmother wasn’t the same at all. She would respond when people spoke to her, but she didn’t take part in the conversations around her. Every now and then, she’d look around as if she’d just been awakened. Then she’d look away.

Mother had changed. Judy was worried about her, and she could tell Dad was worried, too.

Mother looked as if she had turned to stone, but when she spoke, her voice was soft with tears that seemed very close to the surface and could appear at any moment.

And she was so passive, so uninterested in everything. If only Mother would get angry. That, Judy thought, would mean she was going to be all right.

Elisha was going to need to be fed. Most of the time he wouldn’t eat anything unless it was prepared by either Judy or Mother, and if he got too hungry he’d get fractious. As she turned on the stove to grill a sandwich Judy looked again out the window. “A light’s on at The Castle,” she commented.

“There’s always a light on there,” said Marion, as she wiped down the counter.

“This one’s on the top floor.”

The floor she and Elisha had visited, the one with the strange tables. Was Cousin Lee exploring the way she and Elisha had?

“Hmmmm.” Judy heard Marion rinsing the cutting board. “I wonder what those two are up to tonight.”

“It’s dark,” Elisha was shouting now in the back yard, his voice panicked. “DARK! We need to go inside!”