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"What?" I inquired.

"Can you imagine what I went through?" Pasty asked. "I was sixteen years old when that happened. "

"Ah," I replied, "but you're not sixteen years old now, that's what matters. "

"And I'm dying," Patsy said. "And no one in all my life has ever loved me the way that people love you. "

"You know, that's really true," I responded, "but I'm afraid I hate you the way that you hate me. "

"Oh, no, Quinn, no," said Cindy.

"Get away from me," Patsy said.

"That's what I was doing when you stopped me," I answered.

Chapter48

48

BEFORE I COULD so much as think about what I'd heard I had to hear it from Big Ramona and from Jasmine as well, and so I went down the stairs and found them in the kitchen with Jerome and Tommy and Nash. They were around the oak table having a late supper of red beans and rice, and of course invited me to join them.

"I have to know something," I said, not accepting the chair that was offered. "Patsy just told me I had a twin brother who was buried in the Metairie Cemetery. Is this true?"

Immediately I received my answer. I could see it in their faces and read it from their minds. Then Big Ramona said,

"Patsy's got no call to be telling you that now. She's got no call at all. " She started to get up.

I gestured for her to sit down.

"And Goblin," I said. "Did you never think Goblin could have been the ghost of that little twin brother, Garwain?" I asked.

"Well, yes, we thought it," said Big Ramona, "but what would have been the good of saying that to a little child, and then to a growing boy, and then to a young man who was off in Europe having a fine time, with Goblin disappeared and not making any more trouble, and then to a fine man come home to a peaceful household?"

I nodded. "I understand," I said. "And it was a smaller twin? A little tiny one?"

"She's got no call for worrying you with all of that," said Jasmine sharply. "Everything's an excuse with that girl. An excuse or a lie. Only reason she carried on about that tiny twin is she wanted everybody to feel sorry for her. "

Nash rose to take Tommy out, but I gestured for them to go on with their supper. I could see that Tommy was curious but I didn't see the harm in it. Why keep the secret a moment longer? Nash looked concerned, as he so often did.

"And nobody did feel sorry for Patsy?" I asked.

There was silence all around. Then Big Ramona said,

"That Patsy, she's a liar. Sure, she cried over that little twin. She knew it was going to die. It's easy to feel sorry for something that doesn't have a chance, something that's not going to live a week. It's a lot harder to be a real mother. And Aunt Queen did feel sorry for her and gave her money to start her band. And then she didn't stick around to --. "

"I understand," I said. "I just wanted to know. "

"Aunt Queen never wanted you to know," said Big Ramona gently. "Like I said, there was no call for anybody to tell you. Pops and Sweetheart didn't want you to know either. Pops always said it was best forgotten. That it was morbid, and he used another word too. What was that other word?"

"Grotesque," said Jasmine. "He said it was morbid and grotesque and he wasn't telling you about it. "

"He just never found a good time to tell you," said Big Ramona.

"Sure we thought Goblin was that twin's ghost," said Jasmine, "some of the time, at least, and some of the time we didn't. And I guess, most of the time, we didn't think it mattered. "

Big Ramona got up to stir the pot of beans on the stove. She heaped some onto Tommy's plate. My son, Jerome, had peach cobbler all over his face and his plate.

"Now, if when you'd come home from Europe," Big Ramona said, "Goblin had been a big nuisance again, maybe we would have told you about that little twin -- you know, to have some sort of exorcism. But you never mentioned Goblin again. "