'Yes, Mama. Mama?' I said before she left the room. She turned.

'Yes, honey?'

'What about . . .' I held my hands under my ample breasts.

Mama's face turned sad again. 'I was going to tell you about that today,' she said sadly. 'You'll have to just pump it out or you'll develop milk fever.'

'But the milk . . .'

'We can't offer it to anyone's baby, and that woman won't let Paul have your milk,' she added bitterly. Mama hated waste in any shape or form.

'How long will I have to do this, Mama?'

'From the looks of you, a few weeks at least, honey. I'm sorry.'

My tears burned under my eyelids. Every time I did this, I would think of my baby forced to drink the milk of a stranger while his mother's milk was poured into the ground. From the way I ached, I couldn't postpone it much longer either. After breakfast Mama showed me what to do. All the hot tears I had held back streaked down my cheeks.

They seemed to singe my heart as well as my face. I think Mama turned away and left me because she, too, was close to crying.

Afterward, when I lay back and closed my eyes, I thought I could hear my baby's cry. I recalled his tiny face and imagined what it would have been like to have his lips on my nipple drawing the milk from me. Perhaps, if I did this every time, it would make it a little easier, I thought.

Late in the afternoon, Daddy returned. He had a swollen left cheek and a black eye. There was a thin gash along the top of his forehead, and his clothes were wrinkled and marred with mud and grime as if he had been dragged through the swamp. He limped when he entered the house. Mama and I both looked up and gasped.

'What did you do now, Jack,' Mama asked after a moment, 'to get such a beating?'

'They ganged up on me is what happened,' he wailed. 'Those thieves down at Bloody Mary's.' He fixed his eyes on me. 'You shouldn't have left that house so fast, Gabrielle. We coulda made them pay to have you leave.'

'What for, Jack? So you can go and throw it away at some bar or over some game of chance?' Mama snapped. 'Just like you did every other nickel?'

'It was what was coming to us,' he declared, his arms spread.

'Us, Jack? How's it us? She's the one's suffered and she don't get one penny because you've gone and lost or spent it all, right? Or did you put away a little for her?' Mama asked, knowing the answer.

'I . . . I just been trying to build something for this family, is all. But I got cheated, so I went back to get back what's mine and they jumped me.' He stared at me a moment. 'They give you anything before you left?' he asked.

'No, Daddy,' I said.

'And if they had, we wouldn't tell you, Jack Landry,' Mama said.

'Ahh. Women never appreciate what a man tries to do for them,' he complained, and sank in his worn easy chair. 'I got to think up a new plan here. Those Tates can't get off this. easy,' he muttered.

'Instead of spending all this time sitting, there trying to think up a new plan to rob people, why don't you go look for honest work, Jack?' Mama said, her hands on her hips. He gazed up, his nearly closed right eye twitching.

'What'cha talking about, robbing people? It's them who's robbed us, robbed our daughter of her pure innocence. Just like you not to see the point.'

'I see the point,' Mama said. 'I been seeing it grow sharper and sharper, too. It's cutting right through here,' she said, holding her hand over her heart.

'Ahh, stop your wailing. I need quiet and something to eat. I got to think hard,' he said.

Mama shook her head and went back to her roux.

'I said I need something to eat!' Daddy cried. Mama continued to stir her gravy with her back to him as if he weren't in the shack. I rose and put together a plate of food for him.

'Thank you, Gabrielle,' he said, taking it and wolfing it down. 'At least you care.'

'Mama cares, Daddy. She's just tired. We're all tired,' I said.

Daddy paused in his chewing, his eyes growing darker. 'Damn if I'm going to sit here and watch my women suffer while that rich family enjoys the fruits of my daughter,' he declared. 'I'm going back, and this time I'm going to demand twice as much.'

'Jack, don't you dare,' Mama snapped.

'Don't tell me what not to do, woman. Cajun women,' he spit. 'Stubborn . . .' He put the plate down and rose.

'Jack Landry,' Mama called, but he was already heading for the door.

'Just sit tight and let me be the man of the house,' he yelled back, and shot through the door.

'Man of the house don't mean blackmailing people forever, Jack Landry,' she called after him, but he didn't stop. He got into his truck and pulled away, leaving Mama and me standing by the door. 'It's going to come to no good,' she predicted, and shook her head. 'No good.'

Sure enough, late in the afternoon, the police arrived to tell us Daddy was in the lockup.

Вы читаете Tarnished Gold
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