Tarnished Gold

At night I called to her in my dreams, and sometimes called for Pierre. I often saw him the way he was when we first met. If I stared out my window long enough, he was there in a pirogue, waving and smiling up at me, or just standing on the dock. His blue cravat was always waving in the breeze.

Sometime Mama would come upon me and ask me why I was crying. I would have to touch my face to feel the tears. 'Am I crying, Mama?'

'Oh, honey, my precious little Gabrielle,' she would say, and kiss me.

Almost exactly two weeks after Mama had told Daddy I would give birth, I woke in the middle of the night with the most excruciating pain I ever had. My screams brought Mama hurrying to my side. She put on the butane light and gasped. My bed was soaked with my blood.

'Oh, Gabrielle,' she cried, and went to get hot towels. Daddy must have been sleeping under my window because moments later he was at the screen door. I heard him ask loudly what was going on.

'A baby's coming,' Mama declared, and he was gone.

Soon after the bleeding started, my water broke. It was then and only then that Mama told me the most astounding news of all. She knelt at my side, took my hand into hers, and in a loud whisper said, 'There'll be two babies, Gabrielle.'

'What? Two? Are you sure, Mama?'

'I've been sure for quite a while, honey, but I didn't want to say anything for fear that scoundrel would go and sell the other one just as quickly.'

'Two?' My heart was pounding so hard, I had trouble breathing. Mama put a cool cloth on my forehead.

'You don't want me to give them both, do you, honey? It's a blessing. You'll have your child. Those rich folks won't have everything after all.'

'You want a grandchild, Mama?'

'Oui,” she said, smiling, but there was something else in her eyes, something she saw that I now saw, too. Maybe I did have some of the traiteur in me, I thought.

'I understand, Mama,' I said.

Mama bit down on her lower lip and nodded, tears streaming down her face. Then she got to work.

My pains were so intense, I know I passed in and out of consciousness. It went on for hours and hours, right through the rest of the night. Morning came and still the first child had yet to be born. Mama was exhausted herself.

'They're fighting to stay out of this world,' Mama said angrily. 'We're wisest before we're born, it seems. Push, honey,' Mama ordered. 'Go on.'

I reached back for whatever strength remained in my flesh and bones and pushed. It seemed to go on and on for hours, but it was only minutes later when I heard the cry of my first baby girl. The second baby girl followed soon thereafter, and Mama was so busy cleaning them off and wrapping them in blankets, she didn't have time to tend to me. I was too exhausted to speak and barely could keep my eyelids open. She put the second baby safely and comfortably in my arms and took the first into her own. She knew Daddy was waiting.

'I want to hurry,' she said in a whisper, 'so he don't hear the other one cry.'

She didn't cry. It was as if she knew that she must keep still to remain with her mother and grandmere. I struggled to look at her tiny face and bring my lips to her cheek.

Minutes later, Mama was back upstairs. 'It's done,' she said. 'God forgive us.'

'It's all right, Mama. Pierre needs her, too.'

'Your scoundrel of a father hightailed it with his money.

It will be gone in days, I'm sure, gambled and drunk away.'

'Look at her, Mama,' I said. 'She has ruby red hair.'

'The other one did, too.'

'I want to call her Ruby, Mama. All right?'

'Of course, dear.' She smiled and then her smile faded when she gazed at the bed again.

'What is it, Mama?'

'The bleeding. Let me take the baby away for a while, honey, and tend to you.'

The bleeding didn't stop. Mama said it happened when there was more than one baby, but I could see from the look on her face that this time was more serious than most of the others she had seen.

I tried to stay awake, but I kept falling in and out of sleep, drifting for longer and longer periods each time. In fact, I thought I was a little girl again, floating in my pirogue. Sometimes I would just lie back and let the current take me wherever it wanted to take me in the swamp. I would lie there with the 'sun on my face and try to imagine where I was. Then I would sit up and greet my surroundings with surprise and delight. Sometimes, because I was so still, an egret would land on the canoe and strut about bravely. And once, my blue heron did the same.

I heard Mama calling my name. She sounded farther and farther away, and I knew that was because I was drifting on in the canoe.

'Don't worry, Mama,' I wanted to shout back to her. 'I'm all right. I'm where I want to be, where I'll be safe forever.'

Her voice grew so tiny.

Ahead of me the Spanish moss looked like the secret doorway again. My canoe passed under and through it and then I was in a small pond where all my birds waited to greet me. There were doe on the shore and nutria