Fannie peeled the washcloth away from her face and held it up for Doll. “I don’t need this anymore.”
Doll took it from her. “Whatever you say, Miss Fannie.” She was about to leave when she heard Fannie calling after her.
“Doll, come back over here. I want to ask you something.”
Doll crossed her arms and jutted her hip to one side. “What you want?”
“Something wrong?” Fannie asked.
“No.”
“Then why are you standing there like you have better things to do?”
Doll let her arms drop to her side. “What you want to ask me?”
“What do you think of Ibby?”
Doll didn’t really want to have this conversation. She glanced around, trying to figure a way out of answering.
“Do you like her?” Fannie asked.
“’Course I do. Why wouldn’t I?” she said a bit more defensively than she’d intended.
“She reminds me a lot of myself when I was her age. I remember how scared I was when my mother died,” Fannie said reflectively. “I was only—”
Doll cut her off. She’d heard the same story at least a dozen times over the years. “Yes, Miss Fannie. I believe I know about how you lost your mama.”
“It’s just . . . I don’t want that little girl to have to go through what I did.”
Doll shook her head. “That were a long time ago. Times different now.”
Fannie fixed her eyes on the canopy above her head. “Feeling unwanted doesn’t have a timeline attached to it.”
“Don’t I know,” Doll said under her breath.
Fannie kept talking. “Now that Graham’s gone, I wonder if Ibby would be happy living with Vidrine. Vidrine’s not exactly a loving person.”
“Like you is?” Doll interjected.
Fannie made a face. “You just don’t know me.”
“After all these years working in this house, I believe I do.”
When Fannie closed her eyes, Doll took that to be the end of the conversation and started toward the door.
“What if I kept her?” Fannie blurted.
Doll turned. “What you mean, Miss Fannie?”
“Well, what if I ask Vidrine if Ibby can stay here and live with me?”
That was the last thing Doll expected to come out of Fannie’s mouth. “Live here? With you? For good?”
“Is that such a dumb idea? She reminds me so much of myself. It would be nice to have a child in the house again.”
Doll wanted to say yes, that was the dumbest idea she’d ever heard. Miss Fannie couldn’t take care of herself, much less a child. Doll was about to say as much, but Fannie kept rambling.
“Then we could all be together, all of us, in this house.” Fannie smiled up at the canopy as if she had just solved the problems of the world.
Doll was silent for a moment. “Don’t want to burst your bubble, Miss Fannie, but you and Miss Vidrine don’t exactly get along.”
“I don’t think Vidrine ever really wanted that child. I think she had that baby just to keep Graham from running off.” Fannie reached over and picked up an empty perfume bottle on the bedside table. She pulled the stopper out and ran the bottle under her nose. “I’m out of perfume. When did I run out?”
Doll took the bottle from her and put it back down on the table. “You been out for a good number of years, Miss Fannie. Can’t remember the last time you had an occasion to wear none. Now back to Miss Vidrine. What makes you think she don’t want Ibby no more? Miss Vidrine just say she needed some time away. She didn’t say nothing about leaving Miss Ibby here for good.”
Fannie waved her hand. “Anyway, I don’t think Vidrine has once stopped to consider what Ibby must be going through. The poor child witnessed her father’s death, and instead of taking Ibby with her, she leaves her here with strangers. She doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone but herself.”
“You ain’t a stranger, you her kin.”
Fannie sighed. “Lord knows what kind of nonsense her mother has filled her head with. You saw the way she looked at me just now.”
“Everybody looks at you that way, Miss Fannie. You could scare the stripe off a skunk. Why, just last week you ran that Fuller Brush man out of here. Left his case full of brushes on the dining room floor. Never did come back for them.”
Fannie went on. “Now Vidrine’s off on some mission to find herself. If that’s not selfish, I don’t know what is.”
“You got a point, Miss Fannie, but what makes you think she’d give up her only daughter? That’s the one hold she has on you, now that Mr. Graham has passed.”