Acadian Waltz (32 page)

I hung up the
cell phone and placed it on the table by the door. I stepped on to the screened
porch beyond the front door and waited. As the minutes ticked by, I began to
pace back and forth on the noisy porch planks. I felt helpless waiting there. I
was worried about Jean Marc, about my uncle, and even about Henri. I silently
prayed to the heavens above for a peaceful resolution to this mess. Unable to
stand it any longer, I decided to slowly make my way to the main house and see
if I could detect any activity from the brush just beyond the back door. But I
knew I could not just go traipsing over there without some form of protection.
Then I remembered the hammerless .32 revolver Jean Marc kept in the drawer of
his nightstand.

I flew back into
the house, and when I reached his bedroom, I pulled the gun from the drawer of
the nightstand. While checking to make sure the gun was loaded, two loud pops
echoed from outside. My heart stopped and my stomach shrank with dread. I ran
from the bedroom, down the stairs and out to the porch. Once outside, I heard
the frantic barking of Napoleon and Nelson coming from the rear of Gaspard
House.

I clicked off
the safety on the gun, and then immediately started down the porch steps. I had
to find out what was going on.

Sticking close
to the green brush along the way, I ran toward the house. By the time I sighted
the terra cotta roof shingles of Gaspard House glowing in the late morning sun,
my heart was pounding. I stayed close to the brush as I came around the back of
the house. Only the occasional chirp of a bird broke through the eerie
stillness of the morning air, and then I heard the distinct sound of growling
coming from just behind the back porch.

I moved as fast
as I could while trying to remain hidden in the brush. When I came around the
edge of a small cleared area beyond the back of the house, I saw Napoleon and
Nelson growling menacingly at something on the ground near them. As I stepped
from the cover of the brush, I noticed the blood; deep red and pooling in the
bright green grass on the ground in front of me. Then, the reason for the blood
became evident. Lying face up in the grass was the tall man dressed in a black
suit, and in his hand a .38 snub-nosed revolver. His dull green eyes were
staring into the sky. In the middle of his chest, two spots of blood on his
white dress shirt were slowly expanding. Not far from his side was an open
bible. The center of the bible had been hollowed out like a box. I walked over
to Nelson and patted his thick neck as the two dogs kept a vigilant watch over
the dead man.

“Nora?”

Henri emerged
from the open back door of the house. His robe and pajama’s were stained with
blood. He was holding a .9mm pistol in his left hand.

I ran up to his
side and examined his body for a wound.

“It’s not mine,”
he insisted, placing his arm about my shoulders and pulling me inside.

I glanced down
at the old bricked kitchen floor and saw a trail of blood leading across the
room to the hallway.

“Where are Jean
Marc and Uncle Jack?” I asked as we hurried across the kitchen.

“Jack’s around
front. He’s got the other two guys on the ground with his shotgun on them,”
Henri clarified as we made our way quickly into the narrow hall.

“Who was that
man, Henri?”

“Dr. Max Morgan,
a New Orleans physician and the man I worked for,” Henri explained next to me.
“I chased him into the kitchen. Took two bullets to bring him down.” 

“Where’s Jean
Marc?”

He stopped at
the entrance to the living room. “I was coming to get you,” Henri said, and
then his eyes anxiously peered into the room.

When I followed
Henri’s eyes to the center of the dark green living room, my heart shattered
into a million pieces. Lying on a cream-colored rug, and surrounded by a pool of
blood, was my Jean Marc.

I ran to Jean
Marc’s side and fell to my knees, tossing the gun from my hand. I immediately
began to apply pressure to the bleeding bullet wound in his right upper leg.

Henri stood
beside me. “Max pulled a gun out of that bible of his and shot him when Jean
Marc told him to get out.” His voice became fraught with panic. “I didn’t know
what to do and I was—”

“Quick, get me
something to make a tourniquet! The bullet has hit an artery,” I shouted at
him.

He removed the
belt from his robe and handed it to me. “What about this?”

I grabbed the
belt and tied it above the wound on Jean Marc’s right thigh.

I examined Jean
Marc’s face. He was so pale. His lips were white and his eyes were glazed over.
When I touch his cheek, he turned to me.

“Nora,” he
barely whispered. “I wanted to see you one more.…” His head fell slightly to
the side and then he was perfectly still.

“Jean Marc!” I
cried out. “Jean Marc, stay with me. Don’t you leave me!”

As I knelt
beside him, begging for him to come back to me, the sound of sirens could be
heard approaching from the main road.

Epilogue

I sat at my oak
desk and skimmed through the invoices that had been piling up since the
previous day. Easing back in my leather chair, I let my eyes wander to the
large window next to me and marveled at the way the early summer sun shimmered
on the waters of Lake Pontchartrain.

“You have a
visitor.” Steve Seville’s voice came through the intercom on my desk. “And she
ain’t friendly,” he added.

I pressed a
button on the intercom. “Send her in, Steve.”

A few moments
later Steve entered my office with a comical frown on his face. Right behind
him walked my mother. She was newly dyed blonde and dressed in her best blue
designer suit, blue leather Prada shoes, and an expensive array of gold and
diamond jewelry covering every piece of exposed skin.

I sighed as I
leaned forward in my chair. “Hello, Mother.” 

She glared over
her shoulder at Steve.

Steve just
smiled at her and nodded to me. “Can I get you ladies anything?” he sweetly
asked.

“No thanks,
Steve,” I answered.

Mother waited
until Steve had closed the door to my office before she turned to me.

“Why did you
have to hire that man to work for you?”

“I wanted Steve
to join me, Mother. He’s a good secretary and a good friend.” I shuffled some
papers around on my desk. “Why are you here? You always swore you would never
return to Manchac.”

She took in my
compact, wood-paneled office at Gaspard Fisheries and threw her hands up. “I
can’t believe you actually want to run this place. I did not raise you to be a
fish farmer, Nora.”

“I doubt any of
us actually set out to be what we end up becoming. But circumstance tends to
overpower even the best of intentions. Besides, who else is going to help run
Gaspard Fisheries?”

My mother came
toward my desk, her brown eyes blazing. “You should come back to New Orleans.
You can stay with me and Lou, at least until you’re married, then we can decide
what—”

“Forget it,
Mother.” I sat back in my chair.

Mother’s lower
lip trembled as she took a seat in the red leather chair in front of my desk.
She opened her handbag, pulled out a newspaper clipping, and then gingerly
placed the clipping on the desk in front of me.

“I thought you
should see this, before you heard about it from anyone else.”

I picked up the
paper and gleaned over the small article on the page. It was a wedding
announcement for Dr. and Mrs. John Blessing. I smiled as I looked at the
picture of the woman in John’s arms. She was petite, had long flowing hair, and
was very pretty. I put the clipping back down on my desk.

“That could have
been you,” Mother professed, pointing at the clipping.

I lightly
chuckled. “Thank God, it wasn’t.”

She stood from
her chair and waved her hand around the office. “You think this is better?
Running a bunch of fish farms, living at that old cottage, and raising his
bastard child?”

“Children,
Mother,” I corrected her. “They’re twins, you know.”

“I know; God,
how I know!” She turned to the large window overlooking the lake. “You have no
idea what I have had to go through since word got out about you and Jean Marc.
I had to practically beg Father Delacroix to preside over the children’s
baptism next month. Why you won’t let me plan a proper reception for the boys
at my house is beyond me, Nora. Even Father Delacroix said it would look better
for the boys if they were introduced properly to society, considering the
circumstances of their birth.”

“Father
Delacroix said that?” I tried to picture my mother and our parish priest
discussing the indelicacies of my out of wedlock conception.

A ray of
sunlight on the water outside my window illuminated my mother’s angry face,
making her appear older than I remembered. As she stood there, silently staring
at me, I could see the redness retreating from her cheeks. Then her eyes
drifted to a framed picture of the boys on the shelf behind my desk.

“Lou told me
about what you went through during the delivery. How difficult it was.” She
shook her head. “I should have been there. I’m sorry, Nora.”

“Lou was there
for both of you,” I assured her.

“He said you
named the boys after their grandfathers and my brother.”

I nodded.
“Jacques Clayton and Emile Louis.”

“Lou was so
pleased you thought of him.” Her face softened and her voice wavered with
emotion. “Your father would have been very proud of you.”

I leaned forward
in my chair, fascinated by the change in her expression. “Were you happy with
Daddy?”

She fiddled with
one of her diamond rings. “It was the best time of my life. Lou is…well, Lou is
very good to me. But your father, he was magic. With him, I was happy.”

“That’s why I
stay here, Mother.”

She frowned.
“Despite everything he did, everything he was?”

A glimmer of the
sunlight caught the edge of a silver frame on the corner of my desk. I glanced
at the picture of my father and Jean Marc standing on Uncle Jack’s boat when
they were both so young and so happy. “Everyone has a past. It’s whether they
want a future or not that matters.”

“What kind of
future did he give you?” Mother shouted, sounding like her old self. “A future
filled with misery, wondering if those two boys will grow up to be like their
father, or worse, like that criminal Henri. Oh, Nora, you have no idea what you
are in for.”

“Yes, Mother.” I
sat back in my chair, grinning at her concern.

“So, where are
my grandsons?”

“At the house,
with Aunt Marie and Uncle Jack.”

“Nora, don’t
call her that. It’s bad enough Marie Gaspard has become my sister-in-law, yet
again.” She rolled her big brown eyes at me. “How could you leave those two
boys in the hands of that nitwit and my alcoholic brother?”

“Uncle Jack gave
up drinking, Mother.”

“My brother,
give up drinking? That won’t last and you know it,” she snorted. “If you’re not
careful those boys will grow up to be just like Jacques. They will need better
examples in their lives, if you want them to—”

“Why don’t you go
over to the house and see them?” I suggested.

She straightened
her back and held her head up to me. “Yes, I would like that.” She walked to
the door, but as she reached for the door handle, she stopped. “Do you think
one day, Nora, you might come back to New Orleans?”

“I’ll be back in
a few weeks for Henri’s trial.”

She showed me
her profile. “They should have gone after him for murder one,” mother stated
emphatically.

“He didn’t kill
that girl, Mother. Henri shot the real murderer at the house that day, but the
DA still wants to go after him for being an accessory.”

“And when the
trial is over?” she persisted.

I shook my head.
“My life is here.”

She faced me,
and her features became uncharacteristically somber. “I know what you must
think of me, but I have only wanted the best for you. I always pushed you
because I had to make sure you never ended up like me.”

All the guilt
she had instilled in me through the years came pouring out of my soul like
water breaking through a dam. I was not completely absolved, but I knew my life
was no longer going to be guided by my mother’s expectations.

“I understand,
Mom. Without you, I would not be the woman I am. You’ve always been the voice
inside my head. Thank you for pushing me, and for believing in me.”

My mother quietly
opened my office door. “I’m glad you’re happy, Nora. You deserve to be happy,”
she softly said, and quickly stepped into the bright light of the warehouse
beyond.

Not two seconds
later, Steve was in my office doorway, examining me with his piercing blue
eyes.

“Honey, they
heard her yelling all the way in Baton Rouge.” He frowned. “Was it bad?”

“Better than I
expected. She came to see the boys.”

He snickered.
“’Bout damn time. They’re three months already and she has never set eyes on
them. I’m amazed Claire volunteered to plan the christening.”

“Well, the past
year has been a bit too much for her. She had to have time to adjust to
everything.”

He moved toward
my desk. “What about you, Nora? It’s been a hell of a year for you, as well.”

“It has. But I’m
still here, Steve. I survived.”

“I guess in your
case every dark cloud does have a silver lining.” He raised his eyes to the
clock on the wall behind me. “Well, it’s almost time for lunch, and I want to
get a good view of all those buff and tanned fisherman coming down the dock for
their lunch break.” He clapped his hands together and winked at me. “The
highlight of a gay man’s day.” He sauntered out of the office and closed the
door behind him.