Pamela Morsi (15 page)

"Yes, I guess things have changed a bit. I
have grown older, after all," she said.

His eyes narrowed. Her answer obviously did
not please him. They stood at the edge of the small herb garden
that grew by the side of her house. They were still in plain sight
of the others. Aida could feel the curious eyes on her back. But
they were completely out of hearing range.

"Are you and Laron making plans to wed soon?"
he asked her.

Aida's brow furrowed. "Why, why yes, we are,"
she said, somewhat taken aback. "We discussed it the last time we
spoke," she told him.

"Oh?"

"We are ... we are going to wed in the
spring."

He hesitated for a long moment, watching her.
It was as if he were assessing her, gauging her.

"Laron is a good man, hardworking and honest.
A woman could hardly do better than to have him as husband."

She glanced away, embarrassed at the
intensity of his look.

"You need not trouble yourself to convince
me," she answered. "I decided some time ago that Monsieur Boudreau
would suit me perfectly."

He nodded solemnly. "Yes, you two are a
handsome couple."

Aida felt a moment's irritation. She wanted
to explain that although Laron was quite attractive, that was not
why she was marrying him. Laron needed her. He needed her father's
land and he needed the prosperity that marriage to her would offer.
And because he needed her for those things, he might learn to love
her for herself. She said none of that.

"I don't think the spring will be soon
enough, Mademoiselle Gaudet," he continued firmly. "I think that
you and my friend should marry soon, very soon."

"Where in the devil have you been?"

Armand Sonnier's angry words echoed painfully
through the groggy haze that seemed to envelope Laron's brain. He
looked up from his position on the foul-smelling bed tick in the
corner of the Hebert barn and squinted.

"For God's sake, don't shout," he
answered.

Laron rolled out of his sleeping place and
onto his knees. His head pounded and felt ready to crack open from
the pressure inside. He noted with amazement that his
brother-in-law's barn seemed to tilt abruptly and his stomach
nearly rebelled at the motion. He reached over for the bottle,
knowing it to be both cause and cure for his ailment.

"What is that?" Armand's question was
incredulous.

Laron took a healthy swig before answering
sarcastically. "It is liquor, my friend, strong drink, la boisson.
A particularly fine product made from homegrown Acadian corn."

Rising to his feet was not as easy as Laron
had anticipated and he fell forward. Armand caught him roughly.

"You're as drunk as a robin eating
chinaberries!" he exclaimed.

"No robin has ever been this drunk," Laron
told him.

It might well be true. When Laron had left
Helga's farm he had been stunned, numb, in shock. He'd spied Karl,
hurrying home with a stringer full of fish, and the reality of what
was happening seeped in. The boy called out to him, showing off his
catch. Laron had managed a nod of pride, but had not spoken. He had
simply boarded his pirogue and headed down Bayou Tortue, his
thoughts in a whirl.

He would never again share a quiet moment
with the boy. He would never again tease Elsa. He would never again
hold little Jakob in his arms. And he would never again feel Helga
beneath him, breathless and quaking as he pushed her over the edge
of pleasure and felt the spasms of her body clutching at his
own.

He'd gone directly from Helga's farm to the
Bayou Blonde. The Bayou Blonde was a rough and wicked place where
the dregs of Acadian and Creole society consorted with low-life
Americaines and escaped slaves, consumed strong drink, and gambled
away their livelihood. He didn't know how many days he'd stayed
there. He didn't remember how he'd managed to make it home.

"You always said you hated the taste of
alcohol," Armand reminded him.

"I still do, my friend," Laron agreed. "I
still do. I hate the taste, but I love the oblivion."

"Come on," Armand said, wrapping his arm
around his friend's waist.

"No, I can't move," Laron moaned. "I can't
move. I can't walk. I don't think I can live."

"Well, you are damned well going to have to,"
Armand insisted.

Laron was nearly twice the weight and an ax
handle's length taller than the man who supported him, but Sonnier
managed to drag him out of the barn and down toward the river. They
stumbled along together with Armand talking constantly, his words
part encouragement, part castigation.

"Liquor doesn't solve anything," his friend
told him. "It merely makes you behave foolishly and causes your
family to worry. Keep moving now, you can do it. It's a good thing
your father's no longer alive. He'd probably still think to take a
strap to you for this."

Laron concentrated merely on staying upright
and keeping his stomach from heaving.

When they reached the bank Laron knelt
expecting to splash his face with cool water. Instead, Armand
dunked him, head and shoulders, into the river. Laron came up
sputtering and then did lose the contents of his stomach.

Armand dumped him in the cold water again,
this time almost to his waist.

"Are you trying to drown me!" Laron
sputtered, his hair plastered to his head.

"It's an easier way to die than drinking
yourself to death," Armand told him. "Your sister was frantic when
I spoke with her. She sent her husband to Bayou Blonde to fetch
you. What on earth were you doing there?"

"I can't seem to remember."

Laron collapsed on the ground. The cool grass
against his back and the rich fragrance of damp earth somehow
soothed him. It was the middle of the day, the sun was high, but
the chill in the air kept it from warming the wetness of his shirt.
His own smell assailed him and it was extremely unpleasant. His
life was extremely unpleasant.

"I'm going up to your sister's house to get
some coffee," Armand told him.

"I can go with you," Laron assured him,
attempting to stand although the ground swayed dangerously when he
had risen only to his elbows.

"Don't bother," he answered, pushing Laron
back down on the grass. "It's too far for me to drag you. Besides,
I don't know who is up there now. And I'm sure your sister wouldn't
want her children to see you this way."

"Oh no," Laron agreed. He was sure his friend
was right. His straight-laced Boudreau parents had never allowed
liquor in their house and Laron and his brothers had been warned
against it on many occasions. He was fairly certain that the
Hebert household, his sister's home, was equally intolerant.

"I'll be right back," Armand said.

"Fine."

"Don't roll over and fall in the river."

Actually that sounded like a pretty good idea
to Laron.

"Just get the coffee," he answered.

As his friend hurried off, Laron lay still in
the grass. He tried closing his eyes, but the spinning grew worse.
He gazed up at the gathering clouds in the blue sky above him. It
was a beautiful day. The kind of day made for weddings—or maybe
funerals.

He folded his arms across his chest like a
corpse and imagined himself laid out on slats. Of course, this time
of year, cool as it was, his family would probably still be able to
keep him in the house. He'd rather be outside, he decided. If he
waited to die in summer he could have that advantage. But was it
really worth waiting that long? His life was over already.

Bayou Blonde had been wilder, dirtier, more
pathetic than he'd been led to believe. There was gambling. But he
hadn't bothered. He didn't have much money and what he had he'd
spent on liquor.

There had been a woman, a woman with big dark
eyes and a front tooth missing. She'd said he was "so pretty" she
would let him do it for free. She'd changed her mind after he'd
vomited on her skirt.

Helga! The name repeated in his mind. Helga
no, don't send me away.

He had thought himself so worldly. He had his
life, his plans; and he had his German widow. He'd known from the
beginning that his illicit liaison with Helga could never last.
Then he had so callously, thoughtlessly, become involved. He knew
eventually he would have to leave her. He would have to marry. He'd
even settled on whom and when. Had he thought that it would be so
easy? Had he thought his heart was not involved?

Somehow he hadn't truly thought that he would
have to do without her. Perhaps he secretly imagined that she would
still welcome him when another woman shared his name. Perhaps he
believed that her love for him would override all other
considerations. Perhaps that belief had made it possible to
affiance himself to Mademoiselle Gaudet.

He shook his head at his own idiocy and then
moaned with pain. He should have known better. Helga was as sweet
and as worldly wicked as a woman could be. But she was also, in her
own heart, as duty bound and decorous as his own mother had
been.

His mother? The image came to him of his
mother sitting so primly in front of the fire, speaking of her
husband as Monsieur Boudreau, never as lover or husband, but more
as a gentleman with whom she had a respectful acquaintance. And he
remembered his father standing in the pirogue explaining to his two
youngest boys about the facts of life, and looking unhappy and
uncomfortable. Surely those two shared nothing of the sensual magic
that was part and parcel of his relationship with Helga Shotz. His
mind rebelled at the thought.

Still, it could not be overlooked that his
parents had managed to produce fifteen children in a marriage of
twenty-seven years. Such did not occur by keeping distance from
each other.

Was it possible? Was it possible that his
parents had loved as he loved? Was it possible that they might have
understood why he did not want to live without Helga at his
side?

"Sit up." The order came from Armand. "Your
sister has sent a whole pot of petit noir," he said.

"Good, good," Laron said, forcing himself up
off the ground. "I have made a mistake drinking so much."

"Well you certainly have the right of that,"
Armand agreed.

"A man must have a clear head when he makes
momentous decisions."

Laron's hands trembled so much, Armand had to
help him bring the cup to his lips. The coffee was hot and dark and
aromatic. It did not have the potency to truly clear his head, but
it did have the power to make him believe it had.

"I love her," he said to his friend after
he'd successfully downed the first cup.

"Your sister?"

"No, I mean, of course, but . . . but I love
Helga."

Armand's brow furrowed. "The German
widow?"

"I love her, Armand," Laron declared. "And I
am going to marry her."

"My friend, the liquor steals your good
sense," Armand said. "The woman is already wed."

"I don't care," Laron answered.

And he didn't.

Armand braced himself in his high position
out on the limb of a big cypress. He extended his arm to reach as
far as possible. The hook on the end of the long pole that he held
caught a big clump of greenish-gray Spanish moss.

Below him, balancing himself with one foot on
either edge of the pirogue's sides, Jean-Baptiste reached the lower
hanging bits and maneuvered the boat into place.

With expertise, Armand eased his catch off
the end of the pole, causing the moss to fall directly onto the
growing pile already stacked in the pirogue.

"I'd like to know," he hollered down at his
brother, "why, after all these years, I am still in the tree and
you are still in the boat."

Jean Baptiste grinned up at him and laughed.
"You should not ask me, but Father Denis or Madame Landry," he
answered. "Everyone knows the smaller man climbs the tree. Whether
it is, as Father Denis would say, 'God's will' or as Madame Landry
would believe, 'your destiny,' the fact is, my brother, that you
are shorter than I. And unless a gator comes to chew my legs off,
you will always be so."

Armand glanced up and down the river and
shook his head. "Where are those gators when you need them?"

Gathering moss was an important side business
for the brothers. Long ago people had discovered that the spindly
hanging swags were perfect for pillow fluff and mattresses filling.
Mixed with mud the moss created a house plaster called bousillage
that was strong, easy to work, and made good insulation. But most
often it was gathered in large quantities and floated downriver to
Creole and American factories that used it for upholstery stuffing.
The demand for this cash crop was greater and more profitable than
for their cotton or corn.

Now that winter was nearly upon them, the
cattle and hogs already loosed to take care of themselves and the
harvest put by, the Sonnier brothers had time to devote to piling
moss.

"I'm littler than Uncle," Gaston declared
from his perch atop the moss. "I should be up in the tree."

"And so you should," Armand agreed. "Jean
Baptiste, hand that farmer up here."

Laughing, the elder Sonnier hoisted his young
son up to the first big branch of the cypress. Armand moved lower
to join the child. His knee-length shapeless dress hampered the
boy's natural climbing ability.

With the pole in his right hand, Armand
locked his legs tightly around the tree limb and wrapped his left
arm around Gaston's waist, holding the little fellow securely to
his chest.

"Are you afraid?"

The little boy looked down at his father
several feet below.

"Your uncle Armand won't let you fall," Jean
Baptiste assured him. "But even if he did, Poppa will always be
here to catch you."

Armand felt the child's little body
relax.