'It's a girl!' he cried. 'A girl!'
The doctor had explained about the umbilical cord. I instructed Paul, and he cut and tied it. Then my baby started to wail. He placed her in my arms. I was still on the floor, and the storm, although diminished, remained around us, the rain pounding the house.
Paul brought me some pillows and I sat up to gaze down at the little face that was turned toward me, already searching for comfort and security and love.
'She's beautiful,' Paul said.
The rain became a shower, the shower a sprinkle, and then the weak rays of the falling sun broke through the clouds and came through a window to drop the warm illumination over my baby and me. I covered her face with my kisses.
We had survived. We would go on together.
Epilogue
Remarkably, Grandmere Catherine's toothpick-legged shack had survived what everyone in the bayou was calling the worst storm in decades. Many others were not as lucky and had their homes swept away in the torrential rains and winds. The roads were strewn with broken tree limbs and branches. It looked like it would take days, if not weeks, to get things back to some semblance of normalcy.
But as soon as word of my baby's birth had spread, I was visited by Grandmere Catherine's friends, all bringing something I would need.
'What's her name?' Mrs. Livaudis asked.
'Pearl,' I told them. And then I told them that I had once had a dream about my baby, and in the dream she had a complexion the color of a pearl. They all nodded, their eyes on the baby, their faces filled with understanding. After all, I was Catherine Landry's granddaughter. Mystical things were bound to happen to me.
Paul was at the house constantly, each day arriving with his arms full of things for the baby, as well as for me. He brought some of his employees from the factory with him the day after the storm and they went about repairing what they could. He was there tinkering about the building and grounds when the women were there.
'It's nice that he does all these things for you,' Mrs. Thirbodeaux said, 'but he should acknowledge his bigger responsibilities,' she whispered. It did no good to protest and explain anymore, although I did feel sorry for Paul and his family. No matter how it looked, he refused to stay away.
In the evenings after dinner, I would sit in Grandmere Catherine's old rocker with Pearl in my arms and rock her to sleep. Paul would lay back on the floor of the galerie, his hands behind his head, a blade of grass in his mouth, and compliment me on how well I was taking care of the baby and cooking wonderful meals. I knew what he was up to, but I pretended I didn't.
One afternoon, a few weeks after Pearl's birth, Paul arrived with another letter from Gisselle. This one was much shorter but much more painful.
'Why did you write to her, Paul?' I asked him.
'I thought your family should know about you and . . .'
'And you wanted Beau to know, didn't you?' I pursued. He shrugged. 'It doesn't matter anymore,' I said in a defeated voice.
'Then you're really home for good? You're going to stay?'
'Where else would I go? Where would Pearl and I go?'
'Then let me make you a home here,' he pleaded.
'I don't know, Paul,' I said. 'Let me think hard about it.'
'Fine,' he said, encouraged by the fact that I didn't say no immediately.
After he left me that night, I sat on the galerie and listened to the owl. Pearl was asleep inside, content and safe for now. But I had come a long way to make a full circle, and I knew that the world was not a soft place in which to cuddle forever. It was hard and cold, cruel and filled with tragic possibilities. It was good to have someone to look after you, to protect you, to keep you warm and safe. How could it be a sin to want that and have it, if not for myself, then for my baby? I thought.
Grandmere, I whispered. Give me a sign. Help me make the right choices, go down the right roads now.
