The wife of Duke read it out loud with a trembling voice. “Witness to this promise, Duke Dupree, brother of the son in law, who shook my hand on it at my kitchen table and said, Evelyn, I will see that he keeps his word.” She stopped. She lowered the letter. Then she turned to her own husband, who was standing beside the cooler with his mouth slightly open, and she said quietly, “Duke. You knew.” Every person on that dock looked at Duke. He studied the water.
Duke said it was a long time ago. He said he must have forgotten. His wife said, “You were standing next to me at the funeral when Carla said she could not afford the flowers.” He said nothing. The dealers from the lot of Brent shifted their weight and found something to look at on their phones. The face of Brent was gray under his tan. He said he could explain. I said, “Please. We have all day. The champagne is not going anywhere.” Somebody laughed, and then looked sorry.
I took out the third thing in my folder. It was a printed page from the credit union, showing the balance of my loan. Nine thousand four hundred dollars borrowed, two hundred forty dollars a month for twenty four months. I handed it to the wife of Duke. “That is what the funeral of my mother cost me, over two years. It was because Brent told me his mother in law had never liked him.” She read it twice and held it to her chest like a prayer card.
A promise made at a kitchen table is only as strong as the person who hears it, and the weakest promise is the one nobody remembers making.
Brent finally spoke, in a small voice. He said he was going to tell me. He said he saw the check come in the mail in February, and he saw the boat at the marina in March, and the two things got tangled in his head. He said Mama had left him the money, so it was his. I asked him if it was also his to ignore the promise she made him swear to. He said he meant to put some toward the funeral. I said, “Brent, you let me take a loan.” He looked down at his shoes.
One of the wives, the one from the dealership office, said it first. “Brent. Give her the money.” Then another voice said it, the voice of a man, and another. It spread along the dock like a wave. Brent turned in a slow circle, looking for someone to take his side, and found only faces. He is a salesman. He knows when the room has turned. He took the bottle of cheap champagne from the bow rail and set it down on a piling, very gently, as if it were a baby.
“Carla,” he said, “I will sell the boat.” I told him it was not enough, that it was not about the boat. He said, “I know.” He said he would sell it that week, pay off the loan in full, and put the rest into the college fund for Lily, as Mama had asked. He said he would sign anything I put in front of him. For a moment, I almost felt sorry for him. Then I remembered the washing of the same dish three times.
He kept his word, which surprised me. The marina took the boat back on Wednesday, at a loss, and Brent signed the check over to the credit union himself. The loan closed on Friday. A bit over eleven thousand dollars went into an account for our granddaughter, in the name of Evelyn Fontenot Memorial. I got a letter from the bank, with a stamp, that said paid in full. I put it in the frame beside the photograph of my mother.
I filed for divorce in July. I did it calmly, on a Tuesday morning, at the courthouse on Ouachita Avenue, with a cup of coffee in my hand. Brent did not fight it. He moved into a rented duplex out by the airport. The wife of Duke did not speak to Duke for a month, then moved her things into the guest room, then came to my salon and asked if I would cut her hair short. She said, “I want to look like a woman who did not know.” I made it a bob. She cried into the cape.
On Memorial Day, one year after the christening, I went down to the marina by myself. I rented a pontoon with a small outboard. The man at the counter asked if I wanted a name painted on the side. I said no. Then I thought about it, and I bought a small can of gold paint and a brush from the bait shop. On the aluminum bow rail, in careful letters, I wrote one word. Evelyn.
I took the boat out on Lake Hamilton alone. The water was flat and bright. I steered with one hand and held the thermos of coffee with the other. I did not fish. I only sat in the middle of the lake with the engine off, and the wind carried the boat in a slow circle. I told my mother everything, out loud, and the gulls listened. Then I said, “Mama, I paid for it myself. And I am all right.” A breeze came over the water, and I swear it smelled of her lavender.
