"Don't!" I cried. "Don't offer me a bribe, Mr. Tate. Seems like everyone wants to buy away their troubles in this world, that everyone, whether it's rich Creoles or rich Cajuns, everyone thinks money has the power to right every wrong. I'm doing just fine right now, and soon I will be inheriting money from my father's estate."
"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I just thought . . ."
"I don't want it."
I turned away and a heavy silence fell between us.
"I'm begging you for my son," he said softly. I closed my eyes and tried to swallow, but my throat wouldn't work. It felt as if I had already swallowed a small rock and it was stuck in my chest. I nodded.
"Ill tell Paul I can't do it," I said, "but I don't know if you understand how much he wants it."
"I understand. I'm prepared to do all I can to help him get over it."
"Don't offer to buy him anything," I warned, my eyes full of fire. He seemed to shrink in the rocking chair. "He's not like Grandpere Jack."
"I know." After a moment he added, "I got another favor to ask of you."
"What's that?" I flared, my rage simmering just like milk boiling in a pot.
"Please don't tell him I came here today. I had him do an errand for me that took him out of the area just so I could pay you this visit without his knowing. If he found out . . ."
"I won't tell him," I said.
"Thank you." He stood up. "You're a fine young woman as well as a very beautiful one. I'm sure you're going to find happiness someday, and if there's anything you need, anything I can do for you. . ."
"There's nothing," I said sharply. He saw the fury in my eyes and the smile left his face.
"I'll be going," he said. I didn't get up. I sat there staring at the floor until I heard him walk out and heard him start his car and drive away. Then I flung myself down on the settee and cried until I ran dry of tears.
2
Unfinished Business
.
After Pearl woke from her nap, I gave her a
bottle and took her out again while I sat by the roadside stand watching out for any late afternoon business. There was a flurry of activity for about an hour and then the road became quiet and empty, the dwindling sunlight casting its long shadows across the macadam, bringing the curtain down on daytime.
My heart felt so heavy. Mr. Tate's visit had cast a deep pall over everything. I felt as if Pearl and I had no home. We didn't belong here and we didn't belong in New Orleans, but I thought it was going to be even worse living here after I had turned Paul away. Every time he visited, if he ever wanted to visit again, there would be this storm of sadness hanging over our heads.
Maybe Mr. Tate was right, I thought. Maybe after I had rejected Paul, he would find someone new, but even if that loomed as a possibility, I knew it would have a much greater chance of happening if Pearl and I were truly gone and out of his life. Once he saw our marrying and living together was impossible, he might seek happiness elsewhere.
But then, where should we go? What should we do? I wondered. I had no other relatives to whom I could run. I took Pearl into the house and brought in what was left from the stand, desperately trying to think out some sort of future for us. Finally an idea came to me. I decided to swallow my pride, sit at the table, and write a letter to Daphne.
Dear Daphne,
I haven't written to you all this time because I didn't imagine you cared to hear from me. I am not going to argue that you shouldn't have been upset to learn I was pregnant with Beau's child. I am old enough to realize I must be responsible for my own actions, but I couldn't go through with the abortion you had arranged, and now that I have my daughter, whom I have named Pearl, I am happy I didn't, although I know our lives will be hard.
I thought if I could return to the bayou, to the world in which I had grown up and been happy, all would be well and I wouldn't have to be a problem for anyone, least of all you. We never got along when my father was alive, and I don't anticipate us ever getting along.
But circumstances here are not what I thought they would be, and I have come to the conclusion, I can't stay here. But don't be afraid. I'm not asking you to take me back. I'm only asking that you give me some of my inheritance now so I can make a life for myself and my daughter someplace else. . someplace not in New Orleans, and not in the bayou. You won't be giving me anything that's not coming to me; you'll only be giving it to me sooner. I'm sure you would agree that it would be something my father would want you to do.
Please give this consideration and let me know as soon as you can. I assure you, once you do this, we will have little or no contact.
Sincerely yours, Ruby
While I was addressing the letter, I heard a car pull into the yard. I stopped writing and hid the letter in the pocket of my dress quickly.
"Hi," Paul said, entering. "Sorry I wasn't here earlier. I had an errand that took me to Breaux Bridge. How was your day? Busy?"
"A little," I said. I shifted my gaze downward, but it was too late.
"Something's wrong," he said. "What is it?"
"Paul," I said after taking a deep breath, "we can't do it. We can't marry and live at Cypress Woods. I've thought about it and thought about it, and I know we shouldn't do it."
"What's changed your mind?" he asked, grimacing with surprise and disappointment. "You were so happy yesterday in the house. It was as if a dark cloud had been lifted from your face," he reminded me.
"You were right about Cypress Woods. The house and the grounds cast a spell. It was as if we had entered a make-believe world, and for a while I let it convince me. It was easy to pretend and to ignore reality there."
"So? It is our world. I can make it as wonderful as any make-believe world. And as long as we don't hurt anyone. . ."
"But we are hurting someone, Paul. We're hurting each other," I pointed out painfully.
"No," he began, but I knew I had to talk fast and hard or I would break into tears.
"Yes, we are. We can pretend. We can make promises. We can make special arrangements, but the result is the same, . . we're condemning each other to an unnatural life."
"Unnatural. . . to be with someone you love and want to protect and . . ."
"And never to hold passionately, and never to have children with, and never to reveal the truth about . . . We won't even be able to tell Pearl, for fear of what it will do to her. I can't do it."
"Of course we will be able to tell her when she's old enough to understand," he corrected. "And she will understand. Ruby, look. . ."
"No, Paul. I . . . don't think I can make the sacrifices you think you can make," I concluded.
He stared at me a moment, his eyes small, suspicious. "I don't believe you. Something else happened. Someone spoke to you. Who was it, one of your grandmere Catherine's friends, the priest? Who?"
"No," I said. "No one has spoken to me unless you want to count my own sensible conscience." I had to turn away. I couldn't stand looking at the pain in his eyes.
"But . . . I had a talk with my father last night, and after I explained everything to him, he agreed and gave me his approval. My sisters don't know anything about the past, so they were overjoyed to learn you would be my wife and their new sister. And even my mother. . ."
"What about your mother, Paul?" I asked sharply. He closed and then opened his eyes.
"She will accept it," he promised.
"Accepting is not approving." I shook my head and fired my words like bullets. "If she accepts it, it will be because she doesn't want to lose you," I said. "Anyway, it's not her decision. It's mine," I added a little more sternly than I had intended.
Paul's face whitened.
"Ruby . . . the house . . . everything I have . . . it's only for you. I don't even care about myself. . you and Pearl."
"You must care about yourself, Paul. You should. It's wrong of me to be so selfish as to let you deny yourself a normal marriage and a normal family."
"But that's for me to decide," he retorted
.
"You're too . . . confused to make the right decision," I said, and looked away.
"You'll think more about it," he pleaded, and nodded to convince himself there was still hope. "I'll come by tomorrow and we'll talk again."
"No, Paul. I've decided. There's no point in our continually talking about it. I can't go through with it. I can't," I cried, and turned away from him. Pearl, sensing unhappiness between us, began to cry, too. "You'd better go," I said. "The baby's getting upset."
"Ruby. . ."
"Please, Paul. Don't make this any more difficult than it has to be."
He went to the door, but just stood there gazing out.
"All day," he said softly, "I was like someone traveling on a cloud. Nothing could make me unhappy."
Although I was really feeling sick now, I still managed to find a voice. "You'll feel that way again, Paul. I'm sure you will."
"No, I won't," he said, turning back to me, his eyes full of pain and anger. His cheeks were so red, he looked like a sunburnt tourist from the North. "I swear I'll never look at another woman. I'll never kiss another woman. I'll never hold another woman." He raised his right fist and shook it toward the ceiling. "I'll take the same vows of chastity our priest has taken and turn that great house into a shrine. I'll live there all alone forever and ever and I'll die there with no one beside me, nothing but the memory of you," he added, and then he shoved open the door and ran across the gallery and down the steps.
"Paul!" I cried. I couldn't stand to see him this angry and hurt. But he didn't come back. I heard him start his engine and spin his tires on the gravel as he shot away, his heart shattered.
It seemed that everyone I touched, I managed to hurt. Was I born to bring pain to those who loved me? I swallowed back my tears so Pearl wouldn't be upset, but I felt like an island with the sea eddying around me. Now I truly had no one.
After my heart stopped pattering like a woodpecker, I began to prepare us some dinner. My baby sensed my unhappiness despite my attempts to bury it under busy-work. When I spoke, she heard it in my voice, and when I gazed at her, she saw the darkness in my eyes.
While the roux simmered, I sat with her in Grandmere Catherine's rocker and stared at the painting. Both Grandmere Catherine's and my mother's faces looked sad and sympathetic. The vivid memory of Paul's distraught face hung like the threat of a storm in the air around me. Every time I looked toward the door, I saw him standing there, glaring back, reciting his vows and threats. Why was I hurting the one person who wanted to love and cherish my child and me? Where would I ever find such affection again?
"Am I doing the right thing, Grandmere?" I whispered. I heard only silence and then Pearl smacking her lips.
I fed her, but her appetite was as curtailed as mine. She really only sucked a little of her bottle, and as she did so, she kept closing her eyes. It was as if she were just as emotionally exhausted as I was, as if every feeling, every emotion, went from me to her over the invisible wires that bound mother and child. I decided I would take her upstairs and put her to bed, and had just gotten up to do so when I heard a car approaching. Its headlights washed over the house and then it came to a stop and I heard a car door open and slam. Had Paul come back with new arguments? Even if he did, I thought, I couldn't weaken my resolve.
But the heaviness of the footsteps on the floor of the gallery told me it was someone else. There was a loud rapping at the door, making the entire shack shake on its toothpick legs. I walked slowly from the kitchen, my heart beginning to pound almost as hard as that rapping.
"Who is it?" I asked. Pearl gazed curiously toward the door as well. Instead of replying, the visitor pulled the door open so roughly, he almost lifted it off its hinges. I saw this hulk of a man enter, his messy brown hair long and straggly to his dirty thick neck. He had hands as big as mallets, the thick fingers caked with grease and grime. When he stepped into the light of the butane lantern, I gasped.
Although I had met him only once and seen him only a few times before, Buster Trahaw's face loomed in my memory beside my worst nightmares. He was even uglier than he was the day he had come to the house with Grandpere Jack to solidify their agreement that I would marry him if he would give Grandpere as much as a thousand dollars. What was even worse was, Grandpere was going to let him sleep with me beforehand, to test me as if I were some kind of merchandise.
I remembered him then as a man in his midthirties, tall and stout with a circle of fat around his stomach and sides that made it look as if he wore an inner tube under his shirt. He had added to that girth since, and his facial features, distorted by his weight, were now so bloated, he looked like a cross between a pig and a man. Only now he had a stringy beard, untrimmed around the chin, with hairs curling off his neck and joining to make it seem as if he were part ape, too.
When he smiled, his thick lips practically disappeared under the mustache and chin hairs, revealing the loss of most of his front teeth. The ones that remained were stained with tobacco juice, making his mouth resemble some cavernous charred oven. The skin on the exposed parts of his cheeks was flaked and peeling, reminding me of a snake shedding. There were thin, wiry hairs emerging from his huge nostrils, and his eyebrows joined to form a thick, dark line over his bulging dull brown eyes.
"It is true," he said. "You're back. The Slaters told me when I brought my wagon in to be repaired."
He leaned back, opened the door a bit, and spit out a wad of chewing tobacco. Then he returned his gaze, his smile wide.
"What do you want?" I demanded. Pearl held tightly to me. She began to whimper like a puppy at the sight of him.
His smile evaporated quickly. "What do I want? Don't you know who I am? I'm Buster Trahaw and I want what's comin' to me, is what I want," he said, and stepped forward. I retreated as many steps. "That your new baby there? She's a honey child, all right. Been makin' babies without me, have you?" he said, and laughed. "Well, that's over."
I felt the blood drain down to my feet as his intentions became clear.
"What are you talking about? Get out of here. I didn't invite you into my house. Leave or--"
"Hey now, whoa horse. You forgettin' what's coming to me?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"I'm talkin ,,bout the deal I made with your grandpere Jack, the money I gave him the night before you run off. I let him keep it 'cause he said you was comin' back. Course, I knew he was an old liar, but I figured the money was well spent. I said to myself, Buster, your time will come, and here it has, ain't it?"
"No," I said. "I made no agreements with you. Now, get out."
"I ain't gettin' out till I get what's comin' to me. What's the difference to you anyway? You make babies without a husband at your side, don'tcha?" He flashed that toothless smile at me again.
"Get out!" I screamed. Pearl started to cry. I started to turn away, but Buster moved quickly to seize my wrist.
"Here now, be careful you don't drop the baby," he said with a threat in his voice. I tried to keep my face turned away from him. His breath and the odor from his clothes and body was enough to turn my stomach. He started to pry my arms from Pearl.
"No!" I cried, but I didn't want the baby hurt. She was screaming hysterically when he put his big, dirty hands around her waist.
"Let me just hold her a moment, will ya? I got babies of my own. I know what to do."
Rather than pull and tug with Pearl between us, I had to release her.
"Don't hurt her," I begged. She cried and waved her arms toward me.
"Hey, now, hey. . . it's your. . . uncle Buster," he said. "She's a pretty one. Goin' to break someone's heart, too, I betcha."
"Please, give her back to me," I pleaded.
"Sure. Buster Trahaw don't hurt babies. Buster Trahaw makes babies," he said, and laughed at his own joke.
I took Pearl back and stepped away.
"Put her to bed," he ordered. "We got business to conduct."
"Please, leave us alone . . . ple
ase. . . ."
"I ain't leavin' till I get what I come for," he said. "Now, is it goin' to be hard or easy? I can take it either way. Thing is," he said, smiling again, "I kinda like it the hard way more. It's like wrestlin' an alligator." He stepped toward me and I gasped. "Put her to bed less'n she's going to get an early education, hear?"
I swallowed hard. It was difficult to breathe and not be drowned in what was happening so fast.
"Put her down on that sofa there," he ordered. "She'll cry herself to sleep jist like most babies. Go on."
I eyed the settee and the door, but despite his stupidity, he had enough sense to anticipate that and stepped back to block my escape. Reluctantly I brought Pearl to the settee and set her down. She screamed and screamed.
Buster took my wrist and pulled me to him. I tried to resist, but it was like holding back the tide. He wrapped his enormous arms around me, crushing me to his stomach and chest, and then he pinched my chin in his powerful fingers and forced me to look up so he could bring those spongy lips to my mouth. I gagged under their wet pressure, holding my breath and trying to keep myself from falling unconscious. I was terrified that if I did, he would just rip off my clothes and have his way with me.
His right hand moved down my waist until he cupped my rear in it and lifted me, bouncing me in his hands as if I weighed only a little more than Pearl.
"Whoa, now. This is a fine piece of
merchandise here. Your grandpere Jack was right. Yep."
"Please," I pleaded, "not near the baby. Please."
"Sure, honey. I want a real bed for us anyway. You go on and lead the way upstairs."
He turned me roughly and pushed me toward the kitchen and the stairway. I gazed back at Pearl. She was crying hard and her whole little body was shaking.
"Go on," Buster ordered.
I started forward, searching for a means of escape. My gaze went to the roux I had left cooking on the stove. It was still simmering.
"Wait," I said. "I've got to turn this off."
"That's a good Cajun woman," Buster said. "Always thinkin' about her cookin'. Afterward, I might sample some of your gumbo anyway. Makin' love usually makes me hungry as a bear."