Secret Wife
In the days and weeks that followed, I lived for the sight of Pierre's blue silk cravat fluttering in the breeze. It was as if we had our own country, our own world, and the cravat was our flag, hoisted to announce our love. His arrivals were always unexpected, for he never knew exactly when he would be free to come. Sometimes we met in the afternoon, sometimes at night. He never stayed more than two days.
After a while there was no question that Mama knew, but she said nothing. A few times I caught a glimpse of her crossing herself while she looked at me. She wore that expression she always had when she believed something sad was inevitable or meant to be.
But these days Mama was distracted by and occupied more with Daddy than with me. Having some success and some money had gone to his head. Mama tried to get him to put something in the bank, but he never trusted banks or bankers. Daddy was suspicious and disdainful of anyone who made a living with his brain instead of his hands. To him it was just a more elaborate or sophisticated form of a scam that had its roots in the con games and tricks scoundrels employed to tempt hardworking people into investing their money in phony land deals or companies.
Mama told him if there was anyone who should know about that sort of evil, it was he, since the Landrys had a string of embezzlers, con men, and thieves throughout their family line. Those comments only started new arguments between them. The truth was, Daddy could be as stubborn as Mama, and what he claimed to be true about Cajun women was just as true about Cajun men.
With money in his pocket, a new truck, and the growing respect of other Cajun trappers and fishermen, Daddy became somewhat arrogant. He bought himself new boots and some new clothes, new knives and fishing poles, and paraded about the old haunts, buying some of his worst drinking buddies jugs of 'Good Old Nongela' and rye whiskey, and going off with them to drink and gamble. His stash quickly shrunk and he started in again, day after day, demanding Mama share some of the money he had given her to hold for a rainy day.
'It's pouring now,' he'd complain. 'I need it.'
'If it's raining, it's raining because you brought the storm clouds over yourself, Jack Landry. Stay home nights and think about ways to earn new money, not spend the money we have,' she told him. She refused to give him a penny no matter how much he pleaded.
One night he came home drunk and started to pull the shack apart looking for hidden dollars. Mama was out treating Mrs. Bordeau for gout, and when she returned, she found me hovering in the shadows out front, frightened. She heard the racket coming from inside.
'What's going on, Gabrielle?'
'Daddy's drunk again, Mama,' I wailed. 'He came charging into the house, demanding I tell him where you hid money. I told him I didn't know and he started pulling the pots and pans out, throwing them across the kitchen, and nearly hitting me with one. I ran out here to wait. I think he's pulling up floorboards now.'
'This is coming to a quick end,' she vowed, and charged toward the front door, her tiny body swelling up so that her shoulders rose almost even with her ears. She pulled open the screen door, reached into her basket, and came up with a statue of the Virgin Mary. She held it up in front of herself and walked in, chanting something in French. I heard the racket come to a stop. Mama shrieked something that sounded like voodoo and Daddy came out of the house, his face beet red, his eyes wild. He tripped on the galerie steps and fell. Mama appeared above him and shook a bottle of holy water at him. When the drops hit him, he howled as if he had been scalded. I had never seen anything like it before. He bellowed and crawled away, clawing the air to get to his feet.
'Don't you come back here, Jack Landry, unless you repent and are sober as a church deacon, hear?' she screamed after him. He practically flew down to the dock and into his canoe, poling off into the night as soon as he was able to push off. Mama sat herself on the galerie top step to catch her breath.
'He near wrecked our home,' she moaned as I approached. 'I swear,' she said, her eyes full of tears and frustration, 'the devil sent him to me as part of his battle against my good works. He's the curse I wear around my neck, and just because I listened first to the woman in me. You hear, Gabrielle? You see what comes of paying more attention to this than this?' she said, pointing from her heart to her head.
'Nothing to do but fix up what he broke,' she said. 'I'll help you, Mama.'
I followed her in, shocked myself at the sight of smashed furniture, torn-out cabinets, ripped-up floorboards, and holes in the walls. We worked until we were both exhausted and had to go to sleep.
Nearly a week followed before Daddy returned looking meek and repentant. He had a small hunting party to take out, but he got into an argument with one of them before they began and the whole group marched off and drove away, leaving him cursing and spitting on the dock. It was more money lost, and because of his temper too. Mama bawled him out for that and he left in a huff, claiming his woman never took his side.
'If I had something decent to take, I'd take it!' she shouted after him. He muttered curses and drove away.
Things between them had never been worse. It saddened me deeply. I was very happy to see Pierre's cravat on the dock post the next day and couldn't wait to get myself up to the Daisy shack.
Now that we met more often at our love nest, Pierre brought food often and I would make us a romantic dinner. We had wine and bread he had brought from the fancy bakeries in New Orleans. We would eat by candlelight. We didn't have electricity, of course, but Pierre bought a wind-up phonograph and played records. We held each other closely and danced in the shadows and flickering light, his lips against my forehead, my ear against his chest, listening contentedly to the beating of his heart and knowing that it beat with love for me.
This time when I arrived, Pierre had gifts for me. He had bought me a fancy dress that had a billowing full skirt and he bought me a necklace with matching earrings. He had even bought me matching shoes. I put everything on and felt like I was going to a real ball.
'It's the latest fashion,' he said. 'A Dior. Daphne keeps up on those things,' he added without thinking. I saw him press his lips together like the farmer who realized too late he had let the horse out of the barn.
'Does she have a dress like this too, then?' He stared at me. 'Does she?'
