I had a lot of time to pole in my canoe in the late afternoons, to sit alone and drift through a canal and think. Through my mind flitted all kinds of dreary thoughts. Virgil Atkins was probably right with his predictions, I concluded. I would die a spinster for sure now, working beside Mama, watching the rest of the world pass by. All the eligible young men would find out about me and no one decent would ever want me. I would never fall in love. Any man who showed any interest in me would show it for only one reason, and once he had his way with me, he would cast me aside as nonchalantly as he cast aside banana peels. Real affection, romance, and love were things to dream about, to read about, but never to know.
Every one of Mama's friends and even people who just stopped by to get Mama's help or buy something we made usually commented about my good looks. It became more and more painful to face them and hear the compliments. Most were surprised I wasn't married or pledged, yet whenever I went to town or to church, it seemed to me that all the respected, decent young men looked through me. I felt invisible and alone. The only place I experienced any contentment was here in the swamp with the wildflowers, with the animals and the birds; but how could I ever share this pleasure with anyone? He would have to have been brought up in the swamps, too, and love it with as much passion as I did. Such a person surely did not exist. I was as lost as a cypress branch, broken, floating, drifting toward nowhere.
Sometimes I lay in the bottom of my canoe and just let the current take me wherever it wanted. I always knew where I ended up and how to get back, but it felt good just floating without purpose or direction, gazing up at the powdery blue sky and the egrets and marsh hawks that glided through the air between me and the clouds. I'd hear the bullfrogs or the bream breaking the surface of the water to feed on insects. Sometimes a curious gator would swim alongside and nudge the canoe; and often I would fall asleep and awaken with the sun down below the tree line, the shadows long and deep over the brackish lake.
This is how I thought my life would be now: a life of drifting, going along with the breeze, uncaring, like a leaf tossing and turning in the wind, indifferent, resigned. I did not understand my destiny or my purpose, but I was tired of the questions and the struggle to find the answers. I didn't take any real interest in how I looked and I avoided talking to people, saying as little as possible to the tourists who came by to make purchases.
My behavior upset Mama. She said the look of age in my eyes pained her heart. Unfairly, my youth had been stolen from me. She blamed herself, telling me that somehow, she, a woman with great spiritual powers, had left her own home and family unprotected. She said she had been too arrogant, thinking the evil eye could never focus on her and her own. Of course, I told her she was wrong, but in my secret, put-away heart, I wondered about these dark mysteries that had a way of weaving themselves into our lives.
Late one day Daddy finally came home, acting as if he had been gone only a few hours. He drove up, hopped out of his truck, and came through the front door whistling. Mama didn't say much to him, but she didn't turn him out, and without any fanfare, she put a plate of food on the table for him. He sat and ate and spoke with animation about some of the tours he had guided, describing the long alligators or the rich flock of geese they hunted. Before he finished eating, he sat back and dug into his pocket to produce a roll of dollars and some change.
'All tips from my rich customers,' he boasted. 'Get whatever you need,' he told Mama, and went on eating. She eyed the money, but didn't touch it until he had left the table. After dinner he sat on the galerie and smoked his pipe. I sat outside, too, and listened as he described some of the wealthy Creoles he had been guiding through the swamp. He talked about them as if they were gods because of the way they threw around their money, and because of the fine clothing, boots, and guns they had.
'One of these days and soon, I mean to take me a trip into New Orleans myself,' he told me. 'How'dja like to go along, Gabrielle?'
I widened my eyes. I had never actually been to New Orleans proper, never to the Vieux Carre, but I had heard so much about it, I couldn't help but be curious.
'That would be nice, Daddy. We would all go, I suppose.'
'Of course we would all go, and in style, too. That's why I don't want to go until I have enough money to do it right, get nice clothes for you and your mama to wear and enough to stay in a fine hotel and eat in the finest, expensive restaurants. And we'll go shopping and buy you and your ma clothes and—'
'And just how do you expect to do that, Jack Landry?' Mama said from behind the screen door. She had been listening to us talk for a few minutes without revealing herself.
Daddy spun around and smiled. 'You don't think I can do that, do you, Catherine? It ain't in your crystal ball, no?'
'I just like to be sure you're not filling the girl up with more hot air, Jack. We got enough in the swamp as it is.'
Daddy laughed. 'Step out and hear, woman,' he said. 'Feast your ears on the delicious meal of words I'm gonna deliver.'
Mama raised her eyebrows, hesitated, and then came out, her arms folded under her bosom.
'I'm out. Deliver.'
'I ain't working for Jed Atkins no more,' he said, nodding, his face full of excitement.
Mama gazed at me and then back at him. 'Oh, is that so? So who are you working for now?'
'Jack Landry,' he replied. 'I'm working for myself. And why shouldn't I?' he followed quickly. 'Why should I be gettin' only a quarter of what Jed gets, huh? I'm the one who does all the work. He just sits on his fat rump and schedules the trips. I got my own pirogue and there's Gabrielle's, and soon we'll get a third. I got my own dock and I got it all up here,' he said, pointing to his temple.
'I see,' Mama said. 'So what are you going to do, put up a sign and hope they come riding by and stop to buy your services?'
'That I'll do, but I've already done more,' he said, smiling from ear to ear.
'What more? What do you mean?'
'I been telling some of Jed's customers about myself this past week or so and I give them directions how to get here and I got two trips already scheduled, the first tomorrow morning. There's a party of wealthy Creoles from New Orleans going to be here early. So,' he said, putting his thumbs in his vest and pumping out his chest, 'meet Jack Landry, businessman.'
'What's Jed Atkins say about this?'
'He don't know it all yet. I just told him I ain't coming to work no more.' He leaned toward Mama. 'I'm givin'
