pounding. How would he sleep tonight? I wondered. Was it easier for him to put the sinful act out of mind than it was for me, or would his conscience come roaring down over him and drive him to his knees to pray for forgiveness?
I was very angry. I wanted to pray to God to refuse him. I wished him centuries of pain and suffering. I hoped that when he had left my pond, he had fallen out of his canoe and been attacked by snakes and alligators. His cries would be music to my ears. I raged for a while like this and then I felt guilty for doing so and shut down my vengeful thoughts.
But Mr. Tate had stolen more than my youth and innocence when he had attacked me, he had invaded and stained my private world. My sadness was deeper because of that. I was afraid of what it meant, for before this, I never felt alone. No matter that I had no real friends; no matter that I wasn't invited to parties and did not go to dances and shows.
But if I lose my world, I thought, if I lose the swamp and the animals, the fish and the birds, the flowers and the trees, if I fear the twilight and cringe when shadows fall, where will I go? What will become of me?
Would the beautiful blue heron return to her nest above the pond?
I was afraid of the morning, afraid of the answers that would come up with the sun.
2
Paradise Lost
I was positive that Daddy's not coming home all night was the only thing that kept Mama from noticing that something serious was bothering me the next morning. Mama had been out late treating Mrs. LaFourche, who Mama believed had eaten a few bad shrimp, so Mama was pretty tired and irritable anyway. She rose, expecting to find Daddy either sprawled out on the front galerie or on the floor of our living room, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Mama didn't notice that I ate very little breakfast or that I was quiet and tired myself. I had tossed and turned, flitting in and out of nightmares most of the night. But Mama ranted and raved to herself, raking up old complaints about Daddy, criticizing not only his excessive drinking and gambling, but his laziness.
'All the Landrys were lazy,' she lectured, returning to an old theme. 'It's in their blood. I should have know'd what your father would be like right from the start. Oh, he charmed me in the beginning by building this house and working hard for a while, but he was only setting me up the way the Landry men always set up their women, so he could throw it back at me all the time about just how much he done for me already.
'Like being a husband and a father was a nine-to-five job,' she complained. 'But being a mother and a wife was a twenty-four-hour, seven-day-a-week job. That's the way the Landry men see it.
'Before you marry anyone, Gabrielle, you ask to see his grandpere, and if his grandmere's still living, you talk to her and get the lowdown, hear?' she warned.
'Yes, Mama.'
She finally took note of me, but she attributed other reasons to my appearance.
'Look at you,' she remarked, 'nervous as a just-hatched chicken with your graduation just a day away now.'
'I'm fine, Mama.'
'I can't wait to see them hand you that diploma.'
She beamed, her smile washing away her scarlet face of anger.
'You're the first Landry to get a high school diploma, you know that?' she asked. Daddy hadn't told me, but she had said it a few times before in his presence when she blamed some of the things he had done on his family blood.
'Yes, Mama.'
'Good. Then be proud, not nervous. Well now, we'll have to plan a little celebration for afterward, won't we?'
'No, Mama. I don't want a party.'
'Sure you do. Sure,' she said, nodding and talking herself into it. 'I'm going to make a couple of turkeys, and I think I'll make Louisiana yam with apple stuffing. I know how you love that. Of course, we'll have some stuffed crab and some shrimp Mornay with red and green rice. I'll make some garlic grits. need some biscuits, and let's see, for desserts we should have a gingerbread, one of my coffee cakes, and maybe some caramel squares.'
'Mama, you'll be working all day and night until graduation.'
'So? How often will I have a graduation party for my daughter?' she said.
'But we don't have the money, do we?'
'I got a small stash your daddy didn't get his hands on,' she said, winking.
'You should save it for something important, Mama.'
'This is is important,' she insisted. 'Now hush up and go to school. Go on,' she said, pushing me toward the door, 'and don't you worry about how hard I work or how much I spend. I got to do what I enjoy doing and what makes me happy and proud. Especially these days,' she added, scowling with thoughts of Daddy.
I shook my head. There wasn't anything I could do or say to change her mind once Mama had made up what she wanted to do. Daddy called her Cajun stubborn and said she would stare down a hurricane if she had made up her mind to do so.
'I'll come home as soon as I can to help you then,' I said.
