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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.

"About a week after the funeral, Pops produced a handwritten will from Sweetheart's dressing table drawer that left all her personal jewelry to Patsy along with all her clothes.

"We were gathered in the kitchen when he read out the words, 'For my only girl, my dearest, sweetest girl. ' Pops then gave the will to Patsy and he looked away, and his eyes had that same flat metallic look which I had seen in Big Ramona right after Little Ida died.

"That look never went away.

"A trust fund was also left to Patsy, he mumbled, but there was a formal bank paper to deal with that. He produced an envelope of little Polaroid photographs which Sweetheart had made of her heirlooms, identifying each with writing on the front and back.

" 'Yeah, well that trust fund is next to nothing,' Patsy said, shoving the photographs and will in her purse. 'It's one thousand a month and that might have been big money thirty years ago but now it's small change. And I can tell you right now, I want my mother's things. ¡¯

"Pops took the pearl necklace out of his pants pocket and pushed it towards her, and she took it, but when he drew out the wedding ring, he said, 'I'm keeping this,' and Patsy just shrugged and left the room.

"For days and nights Pops did little or nothing but sit at the kitchen table and push away the plates of food set before him, and ignore the questions put to him, as Jasmine and Lolly and Clem took over the running of Blackwood Farm.

"I had a hand in the running of things also, and very gradually, as I conducted my first tours of Blackwood Farm and did my best to exert a charm over the guests, I realized that the crazy elation which had carried me through Sweetheart's vivid funeral was breaking up.

"A dark panic was reemerging. It was right behind me, ready to take over. I kept myself as busy as I could. I went over menus with Jasmine and Lolly, tasting hollandaise sauce and b¨¦arnaise sauce, and picking patterns of china, and chatting with guests who had come back to celebrate anniversaries, and even cleaning out bedrooms when the schedule demanded it, and driving the tractor mower over the lawns.

"As I watched the Shed Men lay in the late spring flowers -- the impatiens and the zinnias and the hibiscus -- a desperate sentimental fury possessed me. I clung tight to the vision of Blackwood Manor and all it meant.

"I went walking down the long avenue of pecan trees out front, looking back at the house to treasure the sight of it and imagine how it struck the new guests.

"I went from room to room, checking on toilet articles and throw pillows and porcelain statues on mantelpieces, and the portraits, most definitely the famous portraits, and when the inevitable portrait of Sweetheart arrived -- done from a photograph by a painter in New Orleans -- I took down the mirror in the back right-side bedroom for the portrait to go up in its place.

"I think, in retrospect, it was a cruelty to show that portrait to Pops, but he looked at it in the same dull way in which he regarded everything else.

"Then one day he said in a low voice, after clearing his throat, Would Jasmine and Lolly take all of Sweetheart's clothing and jewels out of their room and put them in Patsy's room above the shed? 'I don't want what belongs to Patsy in my room. ¡¯

"Now, Sweetheart's clothing included two ranch-mink coats and some beautiful ballgowns from the days when Sweetheart had been young and single and had gone to Mardi Gras balls. It included Sweetheart's wedding dress and other fashionable suits that were years out of date. As for the jewelry, there were many diamonds and some emeralds, and most of it had come down to Sweetheart from her own mother, or her grandmother before that. There were pieces that Sweetheart had worn when she hosted weddings at Blackwood Manor, and favorite pieces -- pearls, mostly -- that she had worn every day.

"One morning, early, while Pops was in his half slumber at the table over a cold bowl of oatmeal, Patsy quietly loaded all these possessions into her van and drove away. I didn't know what to make of it, except that I knew, as everyone did, that Seymour, Patsy's bum of a backup band and a sometime lover, had a crash pad in New Orleans, and I figured she meant to take these clothes there.

"Two weeks later, Patsy came home in a brand-new van. It was already painted with her name on it. She and Seymour (the bum) unloaded a new drum set and a new electric guitar. They shut the door of the studio and began practicing at full volume. New speakers too.

"Pops was aware of all this, because Jasmine and Lolly were at the screen door commenting on all of it, and when Patsy came through the kitchen after supper he grabbed her by the arm and demanded to know where she'd earned the money for all the new things.

"His voice was hoarse from not speaking and he looked sleepy and wild.

"What followed was the worst fight they had ever had.

"Patsy was up front about the fact that she'd sold everything Sweetheart left her, even the wedding dress and the heirloom jewelry and the keepsakes, and once again, when Pops came at her she grabbed up a big knife.

" 'You threw that stuff into my bedroom!' Patsy screamed. 'You had them cart it out and shove it into my closets like it was trash. ¡¯

" 'You sold your mother's wedding dress, you sold her diamonds!' Pops roared. 'You're a monster. You should never have been born. ¡¯

"I ran between them and pleaded with them to stop, claiming that the guests in the house could hear them; this had to come to an end. Pops shook his head. He went out the back door. He went towards the shed, and later I saw him out there in a rocking chair, just smoking and looking into the dark.

"As for Patsy, she moved some clothes of her own out of the upstairs front bedroom, where she stayed from time to time, demanding that I help her, and when I demurred -- I didn't want to be seen with her -- she called me a spoilt brat, a Little Lord Fauntleroy, a sissy and a queer.

" 'It wasn't my bright idea to have you,' she said, and then she headed for the spiral stairs. 'I should have gotten rid of you,' she hollered out over her shoulder. 'Damned sorry I didn't do what I wanted to do. ¡¯

"At that precise moment, she appeared to trip over her own feet. In a flash I saw Goblin near to her with his back to her, smiling at me. She let out a loud 'Ow!' The clothes fell down on the staircase, and with great difficulty she caught herself at the top step. I rushed to steady her. She turned and glared at me, and the dreadful realization came over me that Goblin had pushed her, or in some other manner made her trip.

"I was horror-struck. I picked up all the clothes quickly and I said, 'I'll go down with you. ' The expression on her face, the combination of wariness and excitement, of morbid respect and detestation, is something I'll never forget. But what was in her heart I don't know.

"I was afraid of Goblin. Afraid of what he might do.