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This book is dedicated with much love to my husband Robert who lay fighting for his life in the ICU, then grueling rehab, while I struggled to finish this book. I think this story is better for my having done so since it is a tale of both humor and poignancy. Robert taught me to have a sense of humor, and he insisted that I continue writing even in times of despair. Love you, Robert.
And this book is also dedicated to those many readers who have written, telling me how the humor in my books has helped them through sad times, whether it be illness of themselves or a loved one, death, divorce, or employment woes. Laughter does help.
Chapter One
Consider your tail feathers clipped, Soldier…
Justin LeBlanc sat on the treatment table in the medical center at the special forces center in Coronado, California, waiting for the stern-faced doctor to give him the test results.
“There’s good news and there’s bad news, Justin,” Dr. Andrews said.
“Cage,” he corrected automatically. Cage was his SEAL nickname, a play on his Cajun ethnicity. He’d been so accustomed to it over the years, he no longer thought of himself as Justin.
“The good news, Cage, is that you haven’t blown your knees to smithereens. No fracture. No surgery. The bad news is that you have severe cartilage damage and some ligament inflammation.”
The doctor placed x-rays on the wall lightboard and went into a long explanation in medical jargon, which translated to the knee being a hinge joint that can not only move backward and forward but can also rotate and twist, but his wasn’t doing diddly in any direction without a lot of pain and further abuse.
“What’s the bottom line, Doc?”
“You’re going to have to wear a soft brace and engage in daily physical therapy for the next few months.”
“But I can remain on duty, right?”
“Not active duty.”
“Can’t you just zap me with a shot of cortisone or a painkiller?”
The doctor shook his head. “Numbing the knee won’t cure anything, and a painkiller might fool you into thinking the joint can take full weight. You’ve already done damage by walking and running after you first injured yourself.”
“Hey, when you HALO jump into Afghanistan with a hard landing, you don’t stop and think, ‘Oops. Gotta slow down. Maybe the tangos will invite me to tea?’ You run like hell if the bad guys are on your tail.”
He wasn’t telling the good doc anything he didn’t already know. “Are you sure? I could continue therapy while on active duty.”
“I can’t in good conscience approve that. Why don’t you take a vacation, boy? Go back home to Louisiana and relax.”
Are you kidding? Relax… at home? Hah! When snow falls on the bayou, maybe, that’s when I’ll return to my painful roots. “Not an option, Doc.”
The physician gave him a knowing stare. Lots of SEALs had backgrounds they didn’t want to discuss. With a sigh of resignation, he said, “Okay, let’s take another look.” The physician removed the ice pack from his knee, which had ballooned to the size of a cantaloupe. “Let’s remove the fluids first.” With quick efficiency showing how often he’d done the procedure, he inserted a long-needled syringe into the knee.
“Hoooly shit!” That hurt like a bitch, and Cage was about to say so explicitly when his superior, Commander Ian MacLean, walked in. Without thinking, Cage automatically attempted to rise to attention.
“At ease, Lieutenant,” the commander said, watching as the doctor sucked out about a liter of water and was drilling for more. Or at least it felt like drilling to Cage. The pain was on a par with, oh, say a root canal without Novocain.
The doctor noticed his white-fisted grasp on the edge of the table. “Does it hurt?”
Well, duh! Just then, a Navy nurse stepped into the room, putting some gauze and tape on a metal tray. Lieutenant Susan Adler smiled at him, making it impossible for him to howl like a baby… well, impossible if he wanted a shot at getting a date with her again. They’d been out together last month, and it was an experience worth repeating.
Once she left the room, hips swaying, to the amusement of everyone in the room, including his dour-faced commander, Cage answered the doctor, “No, it doesn’t hurt. I bite my lip bloody for the fun of it.”
“Watch the attitude, LeBlanc,” the commander cautioned. “And lay off the nurses. You know the non-fraternization rules.”
“Lay?” He grinned.
The commander frowned him down, a particular talent of his. Then the commander turned to the doctor. “How bad is it?”
“He’ll live,” the doctor said with dry humor.
Cage wasn’t laughing and neither was the commander.
“He’s gotta take it easy on that knee for a while. With a soft brace and physical therapy, he should be good as new in three months.”
“One month,” Cage disagreed.
The doctor shrugged. “Maybe two months with diligence.”
Tapping a forefinger against his closed lips, the commander seemed to be considering all the options. “Okay, here’s the deal, Lieutenant. Take off a few days, then report for a new duty billet on Monday.”
Cage didn’t like the sound of that. “Exactly what assignment are you giving me, Commander, sir?”
“BUD/S instructor.”
BUD/S was the name given to the SEAL training program—Basic Underwater Demolition/Seals. West Coast training was done here in Coronado at the Naval Special Warfare Center. All SEALs hated this particular rotation and would rather be out in the field. But to have to be drilling new swabbies for two freakin’ months… well, he’d rather be HALO jumping into tango land again.
“Or WEALS instructor.”
That was even worse. WEALS were female SEALs.
“Or maybe you ought to request a liberty and go home to Louisiana for a few weeks,” the commander suggested.
His skin went clammy at just the suggestion that he go home. He’d come so far in the past seventeen years. He was a medaled SEAL, recognized for his bravery and service to his country, respected by his comrades-in-arms, a friend to many. Hell, he’d even gotten himself a college degree. But just the thought of returning to his bayou roots caused his self-esteem to tank. He was the no-good son of a convict father and drug addict mother. Bad seed, he’d been called, and would be still. People on Bayou Black had long memories.
And there was another reason for staying away. Emelie Gaudet. Em. The girl he’d left behind. A girl who would be a woman now. A married woman, last he’d heard. How pitiful was that? Pining over a teenage crush, who probably had a passel of kids by now.
“Thanks, but no thanks, Commander, sir. I can’t think of anything I’d enjoy more than wiping swabbie noses.”
Everyone in the room laughed, except Cage.
Being a busybody ain’t necessarily a bad thing…
Louise Rivard climbed the steep steps of the bayou stilt house, huffing for breath. The twinges in her hinges creaked like a rusty door.
But then she got her first look at Mary Mae LeBlanc. Forget about hinges. Her good friend looked like her hinges done broke and she fell flat on her face. “Holy Crawfish, MaeMae, yo
u look lak the tail end of bad times, bless yer heart. What happened?”
“I doan lak ta complain. Ya know what they say, the more ya complain, the more God makes ya live. I admit, I bin ailin’ a bit.”
Ain’t no bit about it, sweetie.
“Guess old age is catchin’ up with me.”
Or death. Louise gasped. What a terrible thing to think. I should bite my tongue.
MaeMae motioned for her to sit beside her on the porch swing. “Come, Tante Lulu, sit a spell.”
Not for the first time, Louise realized that everyone called her Tante Lulu, even folks who weren’t her kin, to the point that she thought of herself by that name now. And actually, she and MaeMae would have become real kin if she’d married MaeMae’s older brother Phillipe Prudhomme before he died in the big war. Ain’t life funny?
MaeMae had said she’d been ailin’ a bit, but she’d lost at least twenty pounds since Tante Lulu had seen her last year, and gray wisps of curls framed her skull. Either she’d had her head shaved for brain surgery, or her hair was just growing back after cancer treatments. It couldn’t be some hot new hairdo she’d never heard about because Tante Lulu kept up on all the latest styles, being the great-aunt of Charmaine LeDeux-Lanier, who owned a string of beauty spas.
And it wasn’t age either. Tante Lulu had a good number of years on MaeMae, and she still looked good, if she did say so herself. Not every woman over the age of ninety could wear puce biking shorts with pink orthopedic shoes, she thought, glancing downward. Not to mention a T-shirt that proclaimed: GROWING OLD IS MANDATORY, ACTING OLD IS OPTIONAL. Besides, MaeMae always took good care of herself. No way was her friend’s appearance caused by age.
Suddenly guilt struck Tante Lulu like a ten-ton barge… guilt that she’d neglected to keep in touch with her longtime friend. She kissed MaeMae on both cheeks before dropping down beside her. “Warm t’day, ain’t it? ’Specially fer February. Heard on the radio this mornin’ that it would be sixty-five degrees.” It didn’t help that she’d worked up a sweat climbing those steps.
MaeMae nodded. “Feels more like ninety with all this humidity. The weather seems all screwed up these days. Mus’ be that globe warmin’ stuff.”
“Thass fer sure,” Tante Lulu agreed, but it wasn’t really hot, just unseasonably warm. Maybe MaeMae had a fever or somethin’. Tante Lulu pulled her Richard Simmons fan from her large tote bag and began to fan herself, more from nervousness than anything else.
MaeMae smiled. “Ya still hankerin’ after that exercise guy?”
“Doan matter how old a lady is, that boy kin still get the juices goin’, guar-an-teed.”
MaeMae rolled her eyes, like most folks did. They just didn’t understand her fascination. Richard was a hottie, no matter what anyone said.
“Help yerself ta some sweet tea.” A low table held a pitcher of tea, several glasses, and a plate of beignets. “The home care worker left it there fer my easy reachin’ before she left.”
Home care worker. That raised some red flags. “Mebbe later. Zackly what’s wrong, hon? And doan you be fibbin’.”
“Lung cancer,” MaeMae said, and quickly added, probably at Tante Lulu’s gasp of horror, “but I’m in remission.”
Tante Lulu tried not to show her dismay. The Big C was bad, but the Big C in the lungs was real bad. “That figgers, I s’pose. You were a smoker from way back.”
“Since I was sixteen, and I turned eighty-four on my las’ birthday. Lordy, Lordy, the time does go by. Remember the summer we went skinny-dippin’ over on Lake Ponchartrain with them Dawson twins?” She started to chuckle, then burst into a coughing fit, ending with her wheezing heavily.
Remission, my patootie! “Shouldn’t you be on oxygen? One of the gals at Our Lady of the Bayou Church walks around with one of them portable tanks.”
“Mine is inside,” MaeMae said with a grin, her eyes shifting toward an ashtray and package of Virginia Slims on the nearby windowsill.
Holy smokes! MaeMae was chugging down oxygen and still smoking. “Tsk-tsk-tsk!”
“Listen, smokin’ is one of the few pleasures I got left, and besides, I cut back ta three a day now. And I doan ever do it near my tank.”
“Are you okay here alone?”
MaeMae stiffened with affront. “’Course I am. I been sick, not dead.”
Tante Lulu nodded, understanding only too well. Folks thought that because she was old, she had one foot in the grave. She had news for them. There was lots of life in this old gal yet. Being over the hill was a heap better than being under the hill.
With a sigh, she glanced around the long porch that fronted Bayou Black, about thirty feet away, across a yard where several cats, at least three dogs, and a bunch of chickens roamed freely. One of those little midget ponies was tied up in a lean-to. And she could hear animal noises from inside the house, too. “You still have all those critters you ’n’ Rufus rescued after Hurrycane Katrina?”
MaeMae nodded. “And more keep comin’.” She sighed. “Truth ta tell, dearie, they keep me company, ’specially since Rufus passed on. I miss the ol’ buzzard more every day. Some days it’s hard ta shake the blues.”
That alarmed Tante Lulu because she knew for a fact that MaeMae’s husband, Rufus LeBlanc, died almost six years ago, soon after the double disasters, Katrina and then Rita. The blue devils could cripple a soul, worse than any disease. “Animals kin be a lotta work.”
“Not so much. ’Specially those inside and the ones what can come up to the porch fer food and water. I gotta admit those steps are gettin’ hard, though.” She raised her chin defiantly. “I’ll get by, though. I allus do.”
“Mebbe I could send one of Remy’s boys over ta help.”
“No! If I cain’t get by on my own, well, let’s jist say, life wouldn’t be worth livin’.”
Now Tante Lulu was really alarmed. “Dontcha got no family left?”
“Jist my grandson, Justin. And my younger brother, Samuel.” MaeMae reached over and squeezed Tante Lulu’s hand. “Do you ever think about Phillipe?”
“Only every day.” Tante Lulu swiped at her suddenly wet eyes.
Phillipe, her onetime fiancé, had been MaeMae’s oldest brother by ten years. Samuel was two years younger than MaeMae. Two other siblings in between had already passed.
“Sometimes I regret not gettin’ hitched before Phillipe was sent overseas. He wanted to, y’know.”
“Regrets are as useless as a sidesaddle on a hawg, sweetie.”
MaeMae noticed her tears and squeezed her hand again. “Samuel lives in Florida,” she said, trying to change the subject so Tante Lulu could get her emotions under control. After seventy-three years, you’d think she’d have gotten over the man. “His wife, Ethel, died las’ year. We ain’t kept in touch much, but I hear he’s thinkin’ of movin’ back ta the bayou.”
“Mebbe Samuel…” she started to say.
MaeMae put up a halting hand. “No! Samuel’s long retired from the post office, and he nursed Ethel through years of Alzheimer’s. No way am I imposin’ on his twilight years.”
Twilight years? Tante Lulu liked the sound of that. “I’ve been tip-toein’ through the twilight a dozen years or more myself.”
“Hah! Fergit tip-toein’. You been jitterbuggin’, if all the stories I hear ’bout you are true.”
They smiled fondly at each other.
“Back ta yer grandson.”
“Did I tell you Justin is one of them Navy SEALs? He’s got so many medals he jist about sparkles. And he got hisself a college ejacation, too.” MaeMae’s skinny chest plumped with pride.
“Cain’t he come home and help?” As Tante Lulu recalled, MaeMae and Rufus had raised Justin after his father died in prison and his mother committed suicide when Justin was barely into his teens.
MaeMae shook her head vehemently, which caused her breathing to increase. “He has his own life in California. He lives in Coronado near the Navy base. I doan wanna be a bother ta him.”
Ta
nte Lulu narrowed her eyes at MaeMae. In her book, family was everything. “When was the las’ time the boy came home?”
MaeMae’s face flushed before she disclosed, “He ain’t been home since he was seventeen.”
Tante Lulu inhaled sharply with surprise, then exhaled whooshily with disgust. Sad, that’s what it was. By her reckoning, Justin must be close to thirty-five, about the same age as her great-nephew Tee-John.
“I saw him las’ year in N’awlins, though, jist before I got my cancer diagnosis. He was there on some kinda Navy bizness. He’s a good boy. Allus was, even when he was runnin’ wild as a teenager. He calls me every Sunday night, and he sends money from every paycheck. Not that I need money. I do jist fine with Rufus’s pension and my social security.”
There was no excuse for the boy’s behavior. Family was the most important thing in the world. More important than careers, or money, or fancy medals, or any other blasted thing. To her mind, a boy who stayed away from home for seventeen years was lower’n a doodlebug. “The boy should be home.”
“Now, Tante Lulu, get that look off yer face. I’m jist fine here. I doan want ya doin’ nothin’ ta interfere. ’Specially, I doan want Justin knowin’ I been sick.”
“Whatever you say, chère,” Tante Lulu said, but what she thought was, Coronado, here I come.
I ain’t missin’ you at all…
Emelie Gaudet hot-glued another layer of feathers resembling scales onto King Neptune’s mask and laid it carefully on a long table in her French Quarter studio. Beside it were two dozen other elaborate, very expensive, masks in various stages of production. Just before delivery, she would attach her signature silver tags, etched with her stylized name, Mardi Gras, and the year. They were in the shape of alligators in homage to her Cajun roots.
As expensive as her masks were new, the older creations had become highly collectible. One of her earliest from ten years ago had sold on eBay recently for ten thousand dollars.
Besides that, she’d begun experimenting with porcelain Mardi Gras masks, the kind hung on the wall for decoration. They weren’t cheap either.