'Yeah. Maybe we could have a service,' Daddy said, and laughed.
'Could we, Mama?'
Daddy stopped laughing.
'Hey, child, that's just a dead bird. Ain't no person.'
I didn't understand the difference. Something beautiful and precious was dead.
'I'll say some words over it for you,' Mama offered.
'I got to see this,' Daddy said.
'Don't tease the child, Jack.'
'Why not? She's got to grow up someday. Today's as good a day as any.' He pointed his long right forefinger at me. 'You should be up here helping your mama make them hats to sell and not be spending your time wandering through the field anyhow,' he chastised. Then he offered, 'There are snakes and bugs, snapping turtles and gators.'
'I know there are, Daddy,' I said, smiling. 'I stepped on a snake this morning.'
'What? What it look like?'
I told him.
'That's a damn cottonmouth. Poisonous as hell. You didn't step on it or you'd be as dead as that bird in your hands.'
'Yes, I did, Daddy. I stepped on it and then I said, excuse me, Mr. Snake.'
'Oh, and I suppose it just nodded and said, it's all right, Gabrielle, huh?'
'It looked at me and then it went back to sleep,' I said.
'Christ, you hear what stories she's telling, Catherine?'
'I believe her, Jack. She's special to the animals out there.
They know what's in her heart.'
'Huh? What sort of Cajun voodoo nonsense you concocting, Catherine Landry? And now you got the child talking gibberish, too.'
'It's not nonsense,' she said, 'And certainly not gibberish.' She stood up. 'Come on, Gabrielle. I'll help you bury your bird,' she said. 'Maybe the creature should be pitied,' she said, throwing an angry glance back at Daddy.
'Go ahead. Waste time worrying about some dead bird. See if I care,' Daddy said, taking another swig of his beer. Then he dropped the empty bottle in the rain barrel. 'I'm going to town,' he called after us. 'We're outta beer again.'
'You're out of work, Jack Landry. That's why we're out of beer.'
'Aaaa,' he said, waving at us. He went back into the shack.
Mama got the spade and dug a small hole under a pecan tree for the baby bird because Mama thought it would always be a cool, shady spot. I put the baby bird in gently and then Mama covered her. She told me to put a stick in the ground to serve as its monument. Then she lowered her head and took my hand. I lowered my head too.
'Lord, have mercy on the innocent soul before you,' she said, and crossed herself. I did, too.
We both said, 'Amen.'
Just as we looked up together, I saw a blue jay flit through the cypress trees and disappear in the direction of Graveyard Lake, a small brackish pond in the swamp that Daddy had named for its collection of floating, moss- strung dead cypress. Mama's gaze trailed after mine. She sighed. She still held on to my hand, but we didn't start back to the galerie and the work that had to be done.
'Being a mother, any kind of mother, is very hard, Gabrielle,' she said. 'You don't just give birth to a baby. You give birth to worry and pain, hope and joy, tears and laughter.'
'I would never throw out one of my babies,' I vowed, refusing to relinquish my hold on that innocence Mama feared would pull me down with it.
'I hope you never have to even think of such a thing, honey, but if you do, remember the blue jay and make the choice that's best for your child and not for you.'
I stared up at her. Mama was a wealth of wisdom, most of which was years and years beyond me. But she had the eyes of a fortune-teller. She could look into the darkness of tomorrow and see some of what was to come.
I shuddered a bit even though it was a warm spring day. Mama was looking deep into the swamp, into the beyond, and what she saw made her hold more firmly to my hand.
And then, as if it had heard and had seen everything, a blue jay I imagined to be the mother started to sing its own dirge. Mama smiled at me.
'Your friend is thanking you,' she said. 'Come on. Help me weave a bit.'
We turned away, and nervous, but secure because Mama still held on to me, I took my small steps toward tomorrow.
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