My biggest problem was understanding why Mama and Daddy married and had me. They were beautiful people. Daddy, especially when he cleaned up and dressed, was about as striking a man as I had ever seen. His complexion was always caramel because of his time in the sun, and that darkness brought out the splendor of his vibrant emerald eyes. Except for when he was swimming in beer or whiskey, he stood tall and flu in as an oak tree. His shoulders looked strong enough to hold a house, and there were stories about him lifting the back end of an automobile to get it out of a rut.
Mama wasn't tall, but she had presence. Usually she wore her hair pinned up, but when she let it flow freely around her shoulders, she looked like a cherub. Her hair was the color of hay and she had a light complexion. Her eyes weren't unusually big, but when she fixed them angrily on Daddy, they seemed to grow wider and darker like two beacons drawing closer and closer. Daddy couldn't look at her directly when she interrogated him about things he had done with our money. He would put up his hand and plead, 'Don't look at me that way, Catherine.' It was as if her eyes burned through the armor of his lies and seared his heart. He always confessed and promised to repent. In the end she took mercy on him and let him slip away on his magic carpet of promises for better tomorrows.
As I grew older, Mama and Daddy grew further apart. Their bickering became more frequent and more bitter, their animosity sharp and needling. It hurt to see them so angry at each other. As a child, I recalled them sitting together on the galerie in the evening, Daddy holding her in his arms and Mama humming some Cajun melody. I remember how Mama's eyes clung worshipfully to him.
Our world seemed perfect then. Daddy had built us the house and was doing well with his oyster fishing and frequent small carpentry jobs. He wasn't a guide for rich Creole hunters yet, so we didn't argue about the slaughter of beautiful animals. We always appeared to have more than we needed during those earlier days. People would give us gifts in repayment for the healing Mama performed or the rituals she conducted, too.
I know Daddy believed he was blessed and protected because of Mama's powers. He once told me his luck changed after he married her. But he came to believe that that same spiritual protection would carry over when he indulged in backroom gambling, and that, according to Mama, was the start of his downfall.
What I wondered now was, how could two people who had fallen so deeply in love fall so quickly out of it? I didn't want to ask Mama because I knew it would make her sad, but I couldn't keep the question locked up forever. After a particularly bad time when Daddy came home so drunk he fell off the galerie and cracked his head on a rock, I sat with Mama while she fumed and asked her.
'If you have the power to see through the darkness for others, why couldn't you have seen for yourself, Mama?'
She gazed at me a long moment before she replied.
'There's no young man you've looked at who has made something tingle inside you?'
'No, Mama,' I said.
She thought for another long moment and then nodded.
'Maybe that's good.' Then she sighed deeply and looked into the darkness of the oak and cypress trees across the way. 'Just because I was handed down the gift of spiritual healing and became a
'It wasn't a tingling that started within me, it was a raging flood of passion so strong, I thought my heart would burst. I sensed that when he set eyes on me he liked what he saw, and that stirred me even more. Something happens when the woman in you takes a front seat, Gabrielle. You stop thinking; you just depend on your feelings to make decisions.
'You remember I told you about the shoemaker who worked so hard for everyone else, he had no shoes for himself?'
'Yes, Mama. I remember.'
'Well, that was me. I couldn't see what would happen to me the next hour, much less over the next ten years. Jack Landry was all I wanted to see, and he was . . .' She smiled and sat back. 'Very charming in his simple way. He was good at spinning tales and making promises. And he was always showing off for me. I remember the Daisys' shingling party. After the roof was raised, there was a picnic and games. Your father wrestled three men at the same time and whipped them all, just because I was watching. Everyone knew it. They said, 'You put the life in that man, Catherine.' Then he took to saying it, and I came to believe it.
'You're old enough for me to tell you your father was a wonderful lover. We had a few good and wonderful years together before things started to go sour.' She sighed deeply again. 'Beware of promises, Gabrielle, even the ones you make yourself. Promises are like spiderwebs we weave to trap our own dreams, but dreams have a way of thinning out until you're left with nothing but the web.'
I listened, but I didn't understand all of it, for I thought if Mama with all her wisdom could make a mistake in love, what chance did I have?
I had been thinking deeply about this after I left Evelyn and Yvette. Their questions had stirred up the same old questions about myself.
Then I heard the screen door slam a second time, this time followed by Mama's angry screams.
'You don't come back here until you return that money, Jack Landry, hear? That was Gabrielle's dowry money and you know'd it, Jack. I want every penny replaced! Hear? Jack?'
I broke into a trot and came around the bend in time to see Daddy stomping through the tall grass, his hip boots glistening in the afternoon sun, his hair wild and his arms swinging. Mama was standing on the galerie, her arms folded over her bosom, glaring after him. She didn't see me coming and pivoted furiously on her moccasins to charge back into the shack.
Daddy began to pace back and forth on our small dock, raging into the wind, his arms pumping the air as he complained to his invisible audience of sympathizers. I hesitated on the walkway and decided to speak with him first. He stopped his raging when he saw me approaching.
'She send you out here? Did she?' he demanded.
'No, Daddy. I just came home from school and heard the commotion. I haven't spoken to Mama yet. What's wrong now?'
