Katrina had destroyed my city in August of 2005. Afterward, she huffed away like a diva without a backward glance. Her coming and going from the city I loved had proved more dramatic than my own.
I paid the cabbie for the wild ride and then stood on the sidewalk in front of the entrance to the mausoleum. My hands shook when I slipped the strap of my purse over my shoulder. My knees wobbled, but I remained upright. My heart thudded like a bass drum in a second line parade.
Thudding so hard it cut off my breath. Paralyzed, I stood in the merciless Louisiana sun.
Humidity clung to my skin like olive oil on a sweet potato before roasting in the oven. My reflection in the mausoleum’s glass doors showed a tidy dress, tidy shoes, tidy hair.
Outside, calmness.
Inside, untidy screams.
I swallowed back a ball of fear, took a first unsteady step, then another. Plodding, I entered the building and nodded to the guard at the reception desk.
“Need help finding a loved one?” He scrutinized me as though he recognized me.
“No, thank you.”
“Sign in here.” He rose and pointed to an open guest book.
I wrote Jane and started to write Maucele beside it to prove I had every right to be there but changed my mind and scribbled Landry instead.
My father had told me where to find Mark. I searched for the correct aisle. My leather flats shruffed against the hard marble floors. Mausoleums reminded me of morgues I’d seen on TV, not burial grounds. A collection of people who were dead—they couldn’t hear if I made noise. But I continued on my tiptoes just in case.
Finding the correct hallway, I let go of a raggedy breath and claimed a seat in the middle of a long, cold granite bench, then extracted a week-old envelope from my purse.
Did the words inside hold the truth of what Mark wanted?
Clutching the official message, I fought against the impulse to wad up the paper and throw it at him, the same way I’d thrown heated words the last time before we parted. Then, he’d been alive. Able to fight back. I wanted him to fight now.
Anguish spewed like liquid from a shaken can of Nehi soda. “NOoooo! NOoooo! NOoooo! Dammit, Mark.”
“Miss Landry, are you okay?” The guard’s voice echoed down the wing of the mausoleum along with the sound of footsteps beating a path in my direction. “Ma’am?”
“I apologize. Grief hit me.”
“Excuse me? Who hit you?” He frowned as though I were a naughty child.
“Never mind. I’ll be quiet.” My inner pain fought for further release, but my outer calm took control.
His eyebrows became a unibrow. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave if you are unable to contain yourself.”
“It won’t happen again.” I waved apologetically.
His toe-to-head scan told me he was trying to decide if he had a dangerous mental case and needed backup.
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