I attempted a little bit of reading every night, but my eyes would drift off the page and I would sit there for long intervals before realizing I was staring at nothing, my mind blank. It frightened me to see how I was dying in small ways. Mama had often told me about people she had known who had pined away when a close loved one had passed on. She said their absence created too great a hole in the hearts of the mourners, and eventually those hearts just stopped beating. I wondered if that would happen to me.
Occasionally either Mama or I would find something Daddy left for us on the front galerie. He was trapping and harvesting oysters for a living. We learned he had taken his things and gone to live in his daddy's old swamp shack. Usually he left some canned goods, sometimes some pralines. Mama didn't want to take them, and often left them there. I would bring them in before the bugs or field mice could get to them and I would put them away, but Mama would pretend she had never seen them or didn't know from whom they had come. She wouldn't discuss them either, or anything that had to do with Daddy for that matter. The moment I would mention his name, she would draw up her shoulders and sew her lips closed.
If she said anything about him, it was along the lines of 'He's where he belongs, finally.'
I couldn't help feeling sorry for him, no matter what he had done. One day when I was just strolling mindlessly along the canal, he came along in his pirogue. I heard him call me and then he poled to shore to show me the muskrats he had trapped, forgetting that I hated to see any of my precious swamp creatures caught and killed. As usual, there was the stink of whiskey on his breath.
'How's that woman you call Mama?' he asked, anticipating no hope of reconciliation.
'The same,' I said.
'I just did what I thought was right and best,' he claimed. 'And I ain't ever going to apologize for it.'
'I'm sorry, Daddy,' I said.
'Yeah. Me too. Sorry about a lot of things,' he muttered. 'I'll come by later this week and leave something. She takes what I leave at least, don't she?'
'Not willingly, Daddy,' I revealed.
He grunted. 'Just the same, I'll come by,' he added. As he poled away from the shore, he turned to me and said, 'Those rich people ain't giving up on you, Gabrielle. You don't close your ears and eyes like your mother, hear?'
I looked after him, surprised. What did he mean? What else would be said? Was Pierre included in his reference to those rich people?
Before I could ask, Daddy was pushing hard and moving away quickly, his long arms extended, the muscles in his shoulders and neck lifting and stretching with his effort. I watched him disappear around a bend. My heart hadn't thumped this way for a while. I thought about what he had said; in fact, I couldn't get it out of my mind, but it wasn't until nearly a week later that I heard any more about it, and how I heard was as surprising as what I heard.
It happened one night after dinner. Mama wanted me to accompany her to visit the Baldwins. Maddie Baldwin was pregnant with her fifth child, but she had been having complications, which included the most intense back pains she ever had. Her ankles were swollen something terrible too. Mama was afraid I was heading in the same direction.
But if there was anything I wanted to avoid these days, it was seeing another pregnant woman, especially one who was having problems. I told Mama I would rather stay home. She promised to return as soon as she could.
I sat on the galerie in her rocker after she left. I was just rocking gently, listening to the monotonous song of the cicadas and peepers, when suddenly a sleek, long white limousine appeared. It was so quiet and so unexpected, it looked as if it had popped magically out of the darkness. It came to a stop in front of our shack and the driver stepped out. He looked my way, spoke to someone in the rear, and then started toward me. I stopped rocking and waited, holding my breath.
He was a tall, caramel-skinned black man with strikingly green eyes, dressed in a chauffeur's uniform with a family crest on the breast pocket. He paused at the steps and removed his cap.
'Excuse me, mademoiselle. I am looking for Mademoiselle Gabrielle Landry.'
'That's me,' I said.
He smiled. 'I have been instructed to ask you if you would be so kind as to speak with Madame Dumas in her limousine,' he said, and for a moment my tongue felt as if it had been glued to the roof of my mouth. I started to swallow and stopped to look at the limousine again.
'Who?' I finally asked.
'Madame Dumas,' he said softly. 'She wishes only a few minutes of your time, mademoiselle.'
I didn't move; I didn't speak. He stepped back and gazed at the limousine and then he looked at me, his face full of anticipation, his smile frozen. I wasn't sure what to do. Madame Dumas? Pierre's mother was dead, so this had to be his wife. Why would his wife come here to see me? Was Pierre in the limousine as well?
'Is it just Madame Dumas?' I asked.
Slowly I rose from the rocking chair.
'Why doesn't she come out of the automobile?' I asked, gazing at the sleek limousine.
'She prefers to speak with you confidentially, mademoiselle. I assure you, it's very comfortable in the limousine. There is something for you to drink, if you like,' he added.
I was a little frightened of the idea, but I didn't want to appear afraid, nor did I want to appear ignorant. It wasn't just that I had never sat in a limousine. I couldn't imagine what would bring Pierre's wife here, and all sorts of dark thoughts passed through my mind.
'You'll be quite safe, mademoiselle,' the driver said, interpreting my hesitation. 'I assure you.'
