Tarnished Gold

  "He got himself into a pot of gumbo, too, honey. I'm sure about now he'd like to be able to make it all disappear."

  I shook my head, my hot tears streaking my cheeks. "But he loves me; he really does."

  "Maybe so, but it's something he can't do. I'm sorry, Gabriel, but it looks like he's come to that realization. Don't expect him anymore. You're only adding to the pain you got, honey," she advised wisely. "Take a deep breath and turn the corner."

  I nodded. It looked to me like she was right, just as she usually was.

  Another day passed and Daddy didn't return for his things. But sometime during the night, he did. I heard his truck and I heard the truck door slam. I waited, expecting to hear the sound of the screen door, but all I heard were his footsteps on the gallery. After a few moments, he shouted.

  "You'll all be sorry! Hear! I ain't coming begging to live in my own home, no! You'll beg me to come back. You'll see!"

  His voice reverberated. It sent shivers through me. Mama didn't get up or say anything. I heard the truck door slam shut and then I heard him drive away.

  The darkness seemed thicker, the silence deeper. I took a deep breath and waited.

  My eyes were still open when the first rays of sunlight peeked through the moss-draped trees, but Daddy was gone. It had a sense of finality to it. Mama sensed it, too. There was a funereal air about our home. More than once that day, both of us gazed at where Daddy's clothes had been, but neither of us mentioned his coming and going. Mama finally picked up one of his socks he had missed. She crushed it in her hand and dropped it in the garbage.

  Her eyes were frosted with tears when she looked at me this time.

  "Mama?"

  She shook her head. "I've really been a widow for a long time, Gabriel. It's just that now, I'm mourning."

  I cried a lot that day. I cried for the daddy I never really had as much as the daddy who had left. I cried over the memories of the good times. I cried thinking about Mama's smile and the sound of her laughter. I cried for the sunshine and the warm breeze, the fiddle music and the steaming hot gumbos we once all shared. I remembered holding Daddy's hand when I was a little girl and looking up at him and thinking he was so big and so strong, nothing in the world could ever hurt me. I trusted his embrace when he carried me over the swamp and I had faith in everything he told me about the water and the animals.

  He was a different man then. That which was good in him had its day, and maybe, because I was more like a boy than a little girl sometimes, he saw himself again and it made him feel good to reach back and be younger.

  It's the death of a precious childhood faith when you become old enough to understand that the man you call Daddy isn't perfect after all. Then, desperate and afraid, you look elsewhere for your prince, for the magic.

  He had come to me, just like in the Cajun fairy tale. One day he was there in the canoe, smiling, handsome, full of promises and hope, turning cloudy days to sunny ones and making every breeze warm and gentle. The world was once again filled with kisses and hugs, and once again I felt safe.

  But now that was gone too.

  Darkness came thundering over the swamp, rolling, seeping, thick and deep. We were drowning in it. I clawed out a little space for myself and curled up in bed, wondering what sort of a world awaited the child of love inside me. Being born was probably our greatest act of trust, our greatest faith. As we let go of the precious, safe world inside our mothers, we entered this one hopeful.

  It's not really the mother who's expecting; it's the child, I thought.

  I began to wish I could keep him or her forever inside me. That way there would be no

  disappointments.

  I started to turn the corner, just as Mama had told me to do.

  And I trembled.

  And I was afraid.

  And I had every reason to be.

  15

  Gone but Not

  Forgotten

  .

  Time dripped by like molasses. Sometimes the

  sun looked like a wafer pasted on the sky, barely moving toward the horizon. Everything began to irritate me: the days without the slightest breeze, the overcast nights shutting away the stars and the moon, mosquitoes and dragonflies circling madly over the water or the tall grass, the screech of a night owl. Things that I had barely noticed before or even enjoyed were suddenly oppressive.

  Mama was right about my swelling up faster than I had during my previous pregnancy. I saw the bloatedness in my face and felt it in my legs. I tried to eat less and Mama bawled me out for that.

  "It's not food that's doing this to you, Gabriel. You can't diet like some lady worried about fashions. You need to keep up your strength," she warned.

  But it wasn't just worry about my plumpness that stopped me from eating the way I should. These days I had little interest in anything that had interested me before, and that included food as well. Mama did her best. She made all my favorite things. Most of the time I ate more than I wanted to eat just to please her. She knew it and shook her head sadly as I moved mechanically at the table and around the shack.

  I couldn't shake off this shawl of depression, no matter how I tried. With the feud between Mama and Daddy growing worse and worse every passing day, and with every day passing without my hearing a word from Pierre, the world turned gray, the flowers dull. Even when the stars were out, they lost their twinkle and resembled nothing more than flat white dots staining a shroud of sable. All the songs of birds became dirges. The swamps never looked as gloomy, the Spanish moss draped like curtains closing off the light. My precious canal world had turned into a maze of loneliness and melancholy.

  I spent my days working beside Mama and listening to her stories about people she treated for this or for that. She rattled on and on, trying to fill the deep silences that fell between us. To cheer me up she would talk about things we would do in the future. She even began to describe how we would change the shack to accommodate the baby.

  I attempted a little bit of reading every night, but my eyes would drift off the page and I would sit there for long intervals before realizing I was staring at nothing, my mind blank. It frightened me to see how I was dying in small ways. Mama had often told me about people she had known who had pined away when a close loved one had passed on. She said their absence created too great a hole in the hearts of the mourners, and eventually those hearts just stopped beating. I wondered if that would happen to me.

  Occasionally either Mama or I would find something Daddy left for us on the front gallery. He was trapping and harvesting oysters for a living. We learned he had taken his things and gone to live in his daddy's old swamp shack. Usually he left some canned goods, sometimes some pralines. Mama didn't want to take them, and often left them there. I would bring them in before the bugs or field mice could get to them and I would put them away, but Mama would pretend she had never seen them or didn't know from whom they had come. She wouldn't discuss them either, or anything that had to do with Daddy for that matter. The moment I would mention his name, she would draw up her shoulders and sew her lips closed.

  If she said anything about him, it was along the lines of "He's where he belongs, finally."

  I couldn't help feeling sorry for him, no matter what he had done. One day when I was just strolling mindlessly along the canal, he came along in his pirogue. I heard him call me and then he poled to shore to show me the muskrats he had trapped, forgetting that I hated to see any of my precious swamp creatures caught and killed. As usual, there was the stink of whiskey on his breath.

  "How's that woman you call Mama?" he asked, anticipating no hope of reconciliation.

  "The same," I said.

  "I just did what I thought was right and best," he claimed. "And I ain't ever going to apologize for it."

  "I'm sorry, Daddy," I said.

  "Yeah. Me too. Sorry about a lot of things," he muttered. "I'll come by later this week and leave something. She takes what I leave at least, don't she?"

 
"Not willingly, Daddy," I revealed.

  He grunted. "Just the same, I'll come by," he added. As he poled away from the shore, he turned to me and said, "Those rich people ain't giving up on you, Gabriel. You don't close your ears and eyes like your mother, hear?"

  I looked after him, surprised. What did he mean? What else would be said? Was Pierre included in his reference to those rich people?

  Before I could ask, Daddy was pushing hard and moving away quickly, his long arms extended, the muscles in his shoulders and neck lifting and stretching with his effort. I watched him disappear around a bend. My heart hadn't thumped this way for a while. I thought about what he had said; in fact, I couldn't get it out of my mind, but it wasn't until nearly a week later that I heard any more about it, and how I heard was as surprising as what I heard.

  It happened one night after dinner. Mama wanted me to accompany her to visit the Baldwins. Maddie Baldwin was pregnant with her fifth child, but she had been having complications, which included the most intense back pains she ever had. Her ankles were swollen something terrible too. Mama was afraid I was heading in the same direction.

  But if there was anything I wanted to avoid these days, it was seeing another pregnant woman, especially one who was having problems. I told Mama I would rather stay home. She promised to return as soon as she could.

  I sat on the gallery in her rocker after she left. I was just rocking gently, listening to the monotonous song of the cicadas and peepers, when suddenly a sleek, long white limousine appeared. It was so quiet and so unexpected, it looked as if it had popped magically out of the darkness. It came to a stop in front of our shack and the driver stepped out. He looked my way, spoke to someone in the rear, and then started toward me. I stopped rocking and waited, holding my breath.

  He was a tall, caramel-skinned black man with strikingly green eyes, dressed in a chauffeur's uniform with a family crest on the breast pocket. He paused at the steps and removed his cap.

  "Excuse me, mademoiselle. I am looking for Mademoiselle Gabriel Landry."

  "That's me," I said.

  He smiled. "I have been instructed to ask you if you would be so kind as to speak with Madame Dumas in her limousine," he said, and for a moment my tongue felt as if it had been glued to the roof of my mouth. I started to swallow and stopped to look at the limousine again.

  "Who?" I finally asked.

  "Madame Dumas," he said softly. "She wishes only a few minutes of your time, mademoiselle."

  I didn't move; I didn't speak. He stepped back and gazed at the limousine and then he looked at me, his face full of anticipation, his smile frozen. I wasn't sure what to do. Madame Dumas? Pierre's mother was dead, so this had to be his wife. Why would his wife come here to see me? Was Pierre in the limousine as well?

  "Is it just Madame Dumas?" I asked.

  "Oui, mademoiselle." He raised his eyebrows.

  Slowly I rose from the rocking chair.

  "Why doesn't she come out of the automobile?" I asked, gazing at the sleek limousine.

  "She prefers to speak with you confidentially, mademoiselle. I assure you, it's very comfortable in the limousine. There is something for you to drink, if you like," he added.

  I was a little frightened of the idea, but I didn't want to appear afraid, nor did I want to appear ignorant. It wasn't just that I had never sat in a limousine. I couldn't imagine what would bring Pierre's wife here, and all sorts of dark thoughts passed through my mind.

  "You'll be quite safe, mademoiselle," the driver said, interpreting my hesitation. "I assure you."

  "I'm sure of that," I said as bravely as I could. "All right. I'll see her," I said, and started down the stairs.

  The driver waited for me and escorted me to the automobile, the rear, windows of which were tinted so that no one would be able to look inside and see the passengers. The driver reached for the door handle and opened the door, stepping back as he did so. I gazed into the dark interior and I saw her sitting on the far side.

  "Entre, s'il vous plait," she said. "I just want to talk to you," she snapped when I didn't move. I looked at the driver and then I stepped cautiously into the limousine. It had a large, plush black leather seat with a table before it on which there were glasses and a bottle of sparkling water. I was immediately struck by the heavy scent of jasmine. As soon as the driver closed the door, Madame Dumas leaned over and flipped a switch to light up the cabin.

  For a long moment we contemplated each other. I could see she was a tall woman, perhaps as tall as six feet, with a regal demeanor. Her pale reddish blond hair lay softly over her sable shawl. She wore a dark blue ankle-length dress with a tight waist and a high collar. There were pearl buttons along the bodice and lace on the sleeves. So beautiful did she appear to me, with her big, light blue eyes and a mouth I couldn't have drawn more perfectly, that I wondered how any man could have risked losing her love, or would even contemplate turning from her, even for a short tryst. I thought I was in the presence of a movie star. Her radiant beauty and sophisticated demeanor made me feel so inferior, I felt sick inside.

  Her lips cut a hard, cold smile in her rich peach complexion. She nodded as if to confirm a thought and then shook her head.

  "You're just a child yourself," she said. "But that doesn't surprise me."

  She pressed a button that lowered the window on her side and then she reached down to take a cigarette from her gold cigarette case. At the same time she pushed the lighter in and then plucked the pearl cigarette holder from the table. She didn't speak until she had lit her cigarette and blown some smoke out the open window. Then she turned back to me.

  "Do you know who I am?"

  "Yes," I said. "You're Pierre's wife."

  "Oui, Pierre's wife. Whatever that means," she added dryly.

  "Does Pierre know you've come here?" I asked.

  "No, but don't worry. He will. I have no fear of telling him anything."

  "What is it you want?" I asked sharply. I had my hand ready to grab the door handle so I could leap out if I wanted.

  "I don't know what Pierre promised you or told you, but I assure you, none of it will come true." She took another puff of her cigarette and waited to see what I would say.

  "I didn't ask for anything," I said.

  "That's a pity and quite foolish. You have a right to ask for something. Your father has."

  "I know. I didn't send him, nor did my mother," I told her.

  She smiled coolly. "I have heard how you Cajuns can be stubborn and foolhardy. Perhaps it's a consequence of having to live in this godforsaken part of Louisiana," she commented.

  "This is hardly the godforsaken part of Louisiana, madame. If God is anywhere, He is here. There is more beauty, more natural goodness, than there is in the city," I told her proudly.

  "Oh? You've been to New Orleans?"

  "No, but . . . I know," I said.

  She smiled again.

  "What is it you want from me?" I demanded. "Or did you come here just to gloat or threaten me? I didn't plan for what happened to happen, but it did."

  "And you're not sorry, is that it?" she said, her eyes turning to glass.

  "I don't know," I replied.

  She softened, her eyebrows rising. "Oh?"

  "I have brought a lot of pain to my family . . . to my mother," I said.

  She stopped smoking and quickly crushed her cigarette in the ashtray. "I will come right to the point, Gabriel--if I may call you Gabriel?" I nodded. "I would like Pierre to have his child. It's something that his father wants very much, too. I suppose Pierre told you that we have been unable to have children. The failure to have a family has made my marriage something of a failure as well.

  "My father-in-law told me of your father's demands and his willingness to permit you to give up the baby."

  "And you would want this, too?" I asked, not hiding my surprise.

  "I would like to see my father-in-law happy and . . . I'd like to have a child in the house. We could have adopted, of course,
but he or she wouldn't have been a Dumas. You carry a Dumas and that means a great deal to my father-in-law.

  "I have come here because your father has now informed my father-in-law that you refused to give up the baby, no matter how much money was offered. I hope to change your mind, but if you do, it will have to be immediately, for I am planning to take an extended holiday, during which time I will . . ."

  "Pretend to be pregnant," I said. "I understand, only all too well."

  "Oui. That is my plan. So you see, if this is to happen, there can't be any more delays. It will either happen or it won't now. Soon it will be obviously impossible for us, for me, to take the baby as my own."

  "But no matter what you do, it won't be your baby, madame," I reminded her.

  "It will be Pierre's child, and therefore, it will be mine.

  We are married; we are as one, whether Pierre recognizes that fact or not. I have come to assure you I will accept the child as my own and I will raise him or her to be a Dumas. The child will have all the benefits, the education, the finest things, and will be with the father," Madame Dumas added pointedly.

  I started to shake my head. "I can't give up my child. . . ."

  "Why not? You think by holding on to the child, you will somehow hold on to Pierre?" she asked, her smile widening. "I assure you, Gabriel, Pierre is out of your life. He is a rich Creole gentleman. He's had flings before and I've overlooked them before, but this time . . . this time he's gone too far and he knows he has.

  "Look at the alternative, Gabriel," she said, sitting back. She nodded toward the shack. "Your life will become more of a struggle. Your parents will have to work harder and harder. You will feel more and more guilty. It will affect the way you treat the child. Oui, "she said before I could protest, "it will. You won't even recognize it and maybe not even think it, but it will nevertheless.

  "And if you should meet another man, someone who will want to marry you even with a child, you will be afraid that he will come to resent the child, that he will look at the child and think this is the child of another man, another man she loved, and not my child, and here I am working to support this child. Then there will be arguments and resentments.