Part Fifty-Three

(Continued from Part Fifty-Two. Peggy and Raoul are in New Orleans. It is Thursday evening, August 25, and they have just left the hospital where Fran's best friend, Agnes, has died.)

The tiny house that was the home of the late Agnes Lambert of Metairie, Louisiana, was chaotic. Children and adults were in constant motion, the phone rang repeatedly, the television was on but someone had muted the sound. Peggy poured juice into plastic cups for several children. The refrigerator door was plastered with photographs of family members at various stages of their lives: there were infants, toddlers, baseball players, high school prom goers, brides, grooms, First Communion receivers, new car owners, new house owners. She saw several pictures of Fran and Agnes.

Jeanette looked bewildered as she held up a scrap of paper. "I found a note Mom was writing. It has an address and a phone number."

"And she was drinking coffee out of this cup," said Shirley, holding up a delicate green and white coffee cup containing a brown, sticky residue. "It was probably her last cup of coffee."

Rita and Annie joined them and began rummaging around the kitchen, finding things that Agnes had been in the middle of doing before she went to the doctor's office.

"Do you think she knew she wasn't coming back?" asked Fran.

"We solved one mystery when we got here," said Jeanette. "Her car was parked right out front. She must have taken a cab. She never took cabs."

"And something else," said Shirley. "The cross she always wore around her neck was placed carefully on the side table next to the wedding picture of her and Dad."

Fran gasped and raised her hand to her mouth. "She knew. Oh my God."

Peggy felt a chill go through her.

Hulie came in with a large bag from which he handed out tube-shaped objects wrapped in white paper. The household revved up once again to its previous decibel level.

"Who had the large roast beef dressed? Medium oyster no tomatoes? Large shrimp dressed? Large shrimp pickles and lettuce? Medium oyster dressed?" He continued the litany until the food had been handed out. Then he passed around bottles of Abita beer to the adults and root beer for the children.

Peggy sat in a corner and unwrapped the paper on her knees. Inside was a small loaf of crusty bread stuffed with fried shrimp, lettuce, pickles and tomato. It smelled delicious.

"Do you know why they call it a po-boy?" asked Annie, sitting next to Peggy.

"No, not really."

Before Annie could continue, a child came up and said, "Can I have ice cream in my root beer?"

"Eat your dinner first," said Annie.

"It's short for poor boy," she explained. "It was originally a working man's lunch. The traditional size was half the length of a man's arm."

Peggy bit into hers and found it so tasty that she devoured it in a few bites.

"I must have been hungry," she said with a little embarrassment, but it appeared that no one even noticed because they were too busy eating and talking.

Hulie was trying to gain consensus on a time to meet at the funeral home the next day. A range of times were offered up for consideration and then rejected for one reason or another: a certain relative was coming over to pay respects, someone had to be picked up, someone had to be dropped off.

"I need to receive an overnight package," said Joe, the brother from Texas. "We were in the middle of refinancing our house when we postponed the settlement to come here."

"I gave them your Mom's address," said his wife, Vivian, who spoke with a distinct Texas twang.

"Couldn't you have put it off?" asked Shirley.

"Now can I have ice cream in my root beer?" said Annie's son, pulling on her leg.

"We lose our lock-in if we don't settle tomorrow," said Joe.

"We'll probably have to sign in front of a notary," said Vivian.

"There's one at Wal-Mart," said Annie.

"Isn't there a Wal-Mart right down West Esplanade?" asked Vivian.

"Can we please talk about the funeral planning?" said Hulie. "What time should I tell the lady we're coming."

"Are you going to call her now?" asked Fran. "Isn't it getting late?"

"It's an old family-run operation," said Hulie. "They handled my father's funeral, and my mother's parents, and all of my mother's aunts and uncles. I was supposed to call her at home an hour ago."

"I can meet at eleven," said one sibling.

"I can meet at twelve."

"Twelve-thirty works for me."

"How about two in the afternoon?"

Peggy cleared her throat. "Maybe you should see what time the funeral person is free," she offered.

They all stopped and looked at Peggy like she had made a profound observation.

"You got a point there," said Hulie. He then dialed a number and went into another room to talk.

The next day was Friday, August 26th. The group went in different directions. Hulie and his siblings went to the funeral home for an eleven o'clock meeting, some of the spouses took the grandchildren swimming, the remaining spouses stayed home to receive visitors and packages, and Peggy, Fran and Raoul went to uptown New Orleans, across from Tulane University, to walk beneath the oak trees in Audubon Park. Even though temperatures were in the nineties, it was tolerable in the shade, especially with a slight breeze coming off the Mississippi River. As they walked along a wide path and saw the huge curly strands of Spanish moss drape almost to the ground, Peggy began to feel like the trip was a welcome and unexpected treat. She looked forward to seeing other parts of the city.

By Friday evening the funeral plans were set: there would be an open-casket wake on Sunday evening followed by a funeral Mass and burial on Monday. Fran told Peggy and Raoul that they could go back to Seattle if they wanted to, that she would be okay.

"Are you sure?" said Peggy. It had seemed to her that Fran was having a hard time with the loss. "We can fly out Monday evening. It's only another day off work. Besides, I would like to see more of New Orleans."

Raoul agreed, and it was decided that they would stay through Monday.

The first hint of any obstacle to their plans came later on Friday evening, after everyone had returned to Agnes's house following dinner at a local restaurant.

Rita hung up the phone and said, "Guess what? "

They all looked at her. "I was talking to the Bienvenus, remember Trish and Betsy? Well they said, 'have you made your evacuation reservations?' and I said 'what are you talking about?' Turns out they already have reservations at a hotel in Tennessee."

"Why?" asked Fran.

"Apparently there's a chance that Hurricane Katrina will hit New Orleans," said Rita.

Jeanette scoffed. "Of course there's a chance. We're in hurricane season! What do people expect?"

But Rita wanted news. Suddenly the television, which had been more or less ignored, sprang to life after a frantic search for the remote control. They found the Weather Channel and everyone fell silent.

Katrina was in the Gulf of Mexico, still on a southwesterly course. The intensity of the storm was picking up. There was a chance it could be pushed toward Florida or Louisiana by a weather system that was moving north from Mexico.

"When you live on the Gulf Coast, it's like spinning one of those big wheels at a casino in Biloxi," said Hulie. "Those hurricanes could hit anywhere."

On Saturday morning, August 27th, things became more chaotic. The sisters went to a nearby mall to shop for a dress for Agnes to wear in her casket. Shirley's husband, George, went along to occupy the children by getting them beignets at the Café Du Monde stand in the mall. Joe and Vivian went to Wal-Mart to have their document notarized. Fran and Peggy monitored the hurricane while Raoul went out to get gas. He called on his cell phone to say that lines for gas were already very long and that anyone with a car should gas up.

At some point Hurricane Katrina made a turn from southwesterly to westerly, and maybe even a tad northwesterly. Peggy was startled from a cup of tea she was drinking when Joe and Vivian burst into the house with Vivian saying, "We're leaving on the next plane. We changed out reservations."

"What about the funeral?" asked Fran.

Joe shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes. "It's just a hurricane. It's not like it's the first one we've ever had."

"It's coming this way," said Vivian hotly. "I saw it on the television at Wal-Mart. Why do you think all those people were buying every bottle of water and every tank of propane in the store? Do you think they were going to have a barbeque?" She drew out the word barbeque so that it had at least five syllables.

Then Vivian said, "I'm going to get Jake. He went with Shirley and George to the mall and I can't reach them on their cell phone."

She left the house. Joe stood for a moment in front of the television listening to the forecast. Then he went into the other room.

Raoul came back from getting gas and slumped into a chair and fanned himself. "It's like an oven out there." He sat with them and had tea. It was relatively quiet for a few moments.

Since the mall was only a short distance away, Vivian returned quickly with their son, Jake. Joe came into the room. "I watched the news for a few minutes and it didn't look that bad to me."

"What do you mean?" asked Vivian.

"It looks like it might hit Florida," said Joe.

"Why are you telling me this? Have you packed?"

"I, uh, changed our reservations back to Tuesday."

"You what!?!"

"I think we can still have the funeral."

"There's a Category Five hurricane coming! It's going to be our funeral if we don't get out of here." Vivian was livid. "Give me that phone." She snatched it from his hand and stormed out of the room.

Joe scratched his head. "She's not used to hurricanes."

Then the entire mall contingent returned with a dress for Agnes. The house was crowded again.

"It's getting serious," said Annie. "A lot of people are evacuating."

"Better get gas now," said Raoul. "The lines are long."

"Should we make reservations at a hotel?" asked Shirley.

"Might be too late," said Jeanette.

"We can all stay at my place in Columbus, Georgia," said Rita.

Vivian returned with a look that caused Joe to wilt like an old azalea blossom. "Now everything's booked. We can't fly out of here."

"Uh, why don't we step outside and talk about it?" said Joe. They went out to the patio. Peggy could hear their voices through the walls.

"In the old days we would never evacuate," said Hulie. "We didn't evacuate for Hurricane Betsy in 1965. And that was a bad one."

"Oh no, look at the traffic," said Jeanette.

They all turned and saw video footage of bumper-to-bumper cars stopped on the interstate highway leading out of town.

"I think we'd better call the funeral home," said Hulie. "For one thing, nobody's going to fly in for a funeral with this going on."

Suddenly there was quiet in the room. "When are we going to have the funeral?" asked Annie.

No one had answer.

By late Saturday afternoon the Mayor of New Orleans was calling for voluntary evacuations, and was strongly encouraging people to leave. The storm was officially a Category 5 hurricane and the probability of a direct hit on New Orleans was extremely high. To facilitate the mass exodus, all lanes of the interstate highways were flowing outbound.

But still the siblings fretted about what to do. They worried about leaving Agnes's house. Those who lived in the area worried about their own houses and wanted to be around to recover from water damage and protect their property from looters.

"How long is the power likely to be out?" asked Peggy.

"Could be weeks if it's a real bad one," said Hulie.

Peggy began to feel worried. She and Raoul were glued to the television while the siblings debated. Suddenly Peggy saw new images of Interstate 10 heading west and what she saw made her sit forward excitedly.

"The traffic is moving," she pointed out. "Look. The evacuation plan is working."

They all paused and looked at live footage of cars speeding out of town. "Well I'll be," said Jeanette.

Peggy looked at Raoul and Fran. "I think it would be wise to leave while we can. We can always come back if things are okay after the storm."

Raoul looked at Fran. Fran looked at Hulie and Jeanette. "You won't have the funeral without us, will you?"

"Not a chance."

"Well heck if they're going then I'm going, too," said Shirley. "C'mon George."

Rita looked at Peggy. "You won't find a hotel for two hundred miles. Why don't you just come to Columbus, Georgia, with us? We have a big house."

Peggy shrugged. "Sure. If you have room."

"It'll be cozy, but fun."

The house turned chaotic once again as everyone began preparing to leave at the same time. Peggy helped bring in patio furniture. "Should we clean out the freezer and refrigerator?" she asked Fran. "I mean, if there's a long term power outage it will be a real mess."

"Good point."

Raoul found plastic garbage bags and held them open while Peggy started tossing out ice cream, popsicles, leftover fish and old lettuce. She held up a suspicious looking package from the freezer. "Anybody know what this is?"

"Crawfish meat," said Hulie. "Better bring it with us in the cooler."

Rita started going through her mother's cupboards. "Red beans. Definitely. Rice. Coffee-and-chicory. Cereal for the kids."

Within minutes they had two full coolers and several grocery bags filled with things they wanted to take with them. The rest Raoul carried out to the trash can and weighed the can down with bricks and pushed it against a wall at the back of the house.

By 8:30 p.m. they had formed a multi-car convoy heading west out of the New Orleans area. There were no traffic delays. When the last of the city lights were behind them Peggy looked out of the window at the miles of open water and swampland with tall ghostly trees draped with moss. It was eerie and primitive-looking. Fran and Rita were in the back seat talking. Peggy felt exhaustion creeping in even though she hadn't really done anything.

"I simply cannot believe a hurricane is coming on the day of my mother's funeral," said Rita sadly. "You can't imagine how perfect that is. She's been in this town all her life, and so were her parents, and their parents, and so on, and they all hated hurricanes but they wouldn't dream of living anywhere else but here. And now at last she gets to miss a hurricane. Because if Mom were still alive she wouldn't be evacuating, and neither
would we. And to tell you the truth, it will probably turn out to be no big deal."

TO BE CONTINUED