Pamela Morsi (38 page)

"Felicite, do you ever worry about all those
Boudreau children?"

"What?" She looked at him, puzzled at his
question.

"Laron's parents, old Anatole and his wife,
had fifteen children."

"Yes, I know."

"And all those children, except for Laron,
are married now and having children of their own."

"So?"

"So who are all those Boudreau children going
to marry, I ask you? They can't marry each other, and come mating
time the Boudreau children are going to want to wed."

Felicite looked at him askance.

"Why, you get those frisky Boudreau boys
desperate for loving," he continued, "and they are liable to marry
some fat French woman or a Creole or, heaven forbid, an
Americaine."

"Oh surely not."

"It could happen, my dear. It could happen."
He leaned down and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling
her against him. "Who is going to marry up all those Boudreau
children?"

"Who indeed?"

"Why, the Sonniers, of course," he
answered.

"What exactly do you mean?" she asked.

"What I mean, my dear wife, is that perhaps
it is our God-given duty to produce as many children as heaven sees
fit to send our way."

"Jean Baptiste—"

"We won't do this selfishly, we'll do it for
the poor Boudreau children."

Slowly, ever so slowly, she grinned. "I
suppose we could, just for their sakes, of course."

"I love you, Felicite. Have I told you that
recently?"

"Not recently enough."

"Well, Madame, it is very true. I love you. I
love being the father of your children. And if we have only these
four or fourteen more, I will love and want and cherish each and
every one."

"I love you, Jean Baptiste."

He kissed her then, really kissed her, in a
way that he hadn't done in months.

She looked up at him and sighed, starry-eyed,
and he leaned down to place a tiny kiss on little Jeanette.

"Sleep now and rest, my love," he told her.
"There will be little time to do so later."

He was right about that and she followed his
suggestion. Now with night waning Jean Baptiste sat in the small
hide-seat chair and watched the two of them in quiet, almost
reverent repose. As soon as the sun was up there would be friends
and family everywhere. There would be noise and music and
jubilation. But right now, in the little room where Jean Baptiste
had been born, in the room where he'd brought his young bride, in
the room where he had seen with his own eyes the miracle of his
daughter Jeanette, in this room and in this time there was
wonderful peace.

He bowed his head.

"Thank you, God," he whispered. "Thank you
for my wife and my children. Thank you for all of this life you
have given me. And thank you for Madame Landry who made me
notice."

It was full dawn when the baby awakened and
Jean Baptiste brought her to her mother to nurse.

"Jean Baptiste," she noted with concern, "you
did not sleep at all and you were so ill earlier in the
evening."

"Don't worry, it was only a passing thing,
something I ate. I'm feeling much better," he assured her.

"You're still looking quite pale."

He shrugged and gestured toward the baby
clinging greedily to her breast. "You two look very lovely."

Felicite blushed with pride.

The sound of a boat bumping against the dock
captured their attention.

"Someone is here," Jean Baptiste said.

"Already? It's hardly morning."

"I'll see who it is and keep them at bay if I
think I should," he said from the doorway, turning back to give her
a teasing wink.

With all his running outside every few
minutes through the night, he'd never bothered to close the door,
and the curtains twirled lightly in the morning breeze.

"Poppa! Poppa!" He heard Gaston's voice
before he saw him. Sure enough, Jacque Savoy was tying his pirogue
at the dock. It was full to bursting with his three children,
Madame Landry, and Tante Celeste.

"Monsieur Savoy says he heard the shots and
that Mama has had the new baby and it's a girl," Gaston continued
shouting.'

"Gaston has Pierre, now I have someone, too,"
Marie declared. "What's her name, Poppa? What's her name?"

His two oldest children had jumped from the
pirogue and were running toward him. Jean Baptiste hurried to meet
them. Gaston got there first and he grabbed the boy up and kissed
him. He did the same for little Marie, delightedly informing her
that yes indeed the new baby was a girl like her and that her name
was Jeanette.

"Jeanette!" Marie exclaimed. "That's
pretty."

"And so is she," Jean Baptiste answered.
"Your mama is feeding her, but if you tiptoe in and are very quiet,
she will let you have a look."

The two scrambled toward the house.

Jean Baptiste leaned down to take Pierre from
Tante Celeste's arms and helped her and then Madame Landry up onto
the cypress planking.

"We could hardly believe the child came so
soon," Tante Celeste told him. "We just had to hurry and see."

"Go ahead," he urged her, and the old woman
followed the children with the hope of seeing the newborn.

"Mighty bad stroke of luck," Jacque Savoy
commented. "Taking Madame Landry upriver on just the night you was
going to need her. Did you find some other woman to help you?"

"No," he answered. "My wife and I managed on
our own."

The man shook his head and wandered off in
the direction of the house.

Jean Baptiste propped young Pierre on his hip
and turned unhappily to face Madame Landry. She was grinning
broadly.

"You're looking a little pale this morning,
Jean Baptiste. Could it be something that you ate?"

"What the devil was in that 'love charm'?" he
asked.

She snorted inelegantly. "There is no such
thing as a love charm. Folks think that there is, but it's just
foolishness."

"You said it was a love charm," he pointed
out.

"Oh no, I said that I wanted Armand to tell
you that it was a love charm."

"You wanted Armand to lie to me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"So you would eat it," she said.

"You knew it would make me sick," he
said.

She nodded. "I knew it would make you sick,"
she admitted. "Just miserable sick, not sick unto death."

"Why would you want me to be sick?" he
asked.

"I knew that your wife would be delivering
last night; all the signs were there. Once you ate my little
surprise, you'd be too sick to go for help, but not so sick as to
be no use at all."

"Let me understand this," he said, getting
testy. "You knew my wife was to give birth last night and you
purposely went upriver where I couldn't get you and fed me
something to make me sick?"

The old woman was thoughtful for a long
moment. "Yes," she agreed. "That's about right."

"Why?"

"That's how love charms work."

"You said there is no love charm."

Madame Landry gave him a long look and
chuckled. "You're in love with her again, aren't you?"

Jean Baptiste didn't answer.

They had reached the porch and he heard his
wife telling Tante Celeste about the night's events.

"It was the easiest labor I ever had," she
was saying. "Not more than a couple of hours altogether and the
baby just slipped right out. I didn't even tear at all."

He felt his lips pulling into a grin. He
glanced toward Orva Landry, who was still gazing speculatively at
him.

"Oh yes, Madame," he answered. "I am very
much in love with her again."

It took two days to pole back up the
Vermilion River to Prairie l'Acadie. Neither Armand nor Aida had
cause to regret the time. They were together and it gave him ample
opportunity to convince Laron and Helga that Armand's plan would
work.

"The point is that he probably is dead,"
Armand told them. "Madame Landry obviously thinks that he is or she
would not have taken to calling Helga the German widow. Madame
Landry never does anything without purpose."

Armand's words were confident and certain.
Aida felt sure that he had found the answer and that he would make
it work out.

She gazed up at him, loving him.

They had tied the pirogue to the back of the
skiff. While she and Helga sat in the middle, Armand and Laron on
either side used their poles in unison to propel the little craft
and its passengers back upstream.

They were going back together, together
forever. She and Armand and, she trusted Armand enough to believe,
Laron and Helga, too.

"A declaration of death is as legal and
indisputable as a corpse in the churchyard," Armand told them.
"More so, for the corpse could be misidentified. Once the paper is
written up, signed, and filed, Helmut Shotz will be the deadest man
in Louisiana."

Clearly the two lovers were trying not to be
overly hopeful. They wanted to believe, but were too frightened of
the potential for disappointment.

"You wanted to kill him, Laron," Armand said.
"You cannot. Even if you were to find him, you are not the type to
take another man's life. Well, as your friend, I want to kill him,
too. And unlike you, I may kill him with impunity, no knife or
bullet required."

Aida felt pride swell up inside her. A man
need not be big and forceful and dangerous to protect his family,
to help his friends. If a man was smart enough and used his good
sense and the knowledge he'd gained in the world, he could be as
effective as the most able and valiant fighter.

"As judge appointed to this parish," he
explained to them. "I can honor or disallow contracts. I can
probate wills. I can rule on disputes of property or violence. And
I can certainly declare one missing German dead. I need only to
inscribe the appropriate papers and send them by messenger to the
office of parish governance in New Orleans."

Laron and Helga glanced at each other, not
speaking. It was as if both were holding their breath.

"Once that is done, Helmut Shotz will
officially be as dead to us as he truly is."

Laron reached over to take Helga's hand. She
looked near tears, but she raised her chin bravely to ask Armand
the question.

"What if he is not dead? What if he were to
return here?"

Armand's tone was tender, but his words were
sure. "Then we shall take him into custody and send him down the
river to the German coast to be executed."

"But he would be alive again," Laron pointed
out.

"Not long enough to even bother to change the
paperwork," Armand assured him.

The men looked at each other, silently
assessing. Aida remembered what people had said of the two as boys
when they got into trouble. When Laron couldn't bust them out,
Armand would talk them out.

Slowly, so slowly, Laron began to nod his
head.

"Do it, Armand," he said finally.

Aida watched the grin spread across her
husband's face. "Once we've declared him dead," Armand continued,
"then all of his property becomes yours,

Helga, free and clear. You can remarry and
your children can be adopted by your new husband."

"If you want to," Laron pointed out, his mood
now teasing. "You can still reject me like any woman anywhere."

The look in her eyes said that she would
not.

"Will . . ." Helga hesitated, worried. "Will
Laron's family accept this, accept us?"

"My family loves me," Laron told her quickly.
"Because I love you and the children, they will also."

"And the entire community will accept you
once Father Denis has given you his blessing."

Father Denis. Aida felt a nervous flutter
herself. The old man was difficult and a stickler. It would be very
hard to convince him to do anything that he thought might be
remotely in the wrong.

"The old priest is the rub," Laron said,
voicing Aida's own concern and shaking his head. "How will you ever
get Father Denis to bless us? To marry us?"

Armand's expression turned sly. "I have a
plan," he assured them. "Oh yes, I have a plan."

Armand had not been able to talk with Father
Denis immediately upon their return. Facing old Jesper Gaudet's
wrath at not being present at the wedding of his only daughter and
learning that he had a new niece took up most of the first day
back.

There were almost as many congratulations for
him and Aida as for Jean Baptiste and Felicite.

"You sly devil” his brother said to him. "All
these last weeks every time I'd mention that woman's name, you'd
talk like you thought she was dumb as a post and bow-legged
besides. Now I find out you were secretly stealing her away from
Laron."

"There was nothing between us before their
engagement was broken," Armand assured him.

Jean Baptiste grinned. "Nothing spoken I am
certain. But I've known you too long, my brother. You do nothing
on impulse. For you, things are always thought through."

Armand found that he couldn't deny that.

The two were standing together near the barn,
surveying what they had on hand of timber and brick, pulleys and
building materials. Jesper Gaudet had looked horrified when Aida
had suggested that perhaps they live with him. Both she and Armand
had thought the old man would be loath to allow his only child to
move from home and leave him to fend for himself. To their surprise
he indicated with absolute conviction that the newlyweds should
have a separate house.

"I only wish for you and Aida," Jean Baptiste
told him, "all the happiness that Felicite and I have."

His brother looked at him askance.

"You are happy with your marriage?"

Jean Baptiste looked momentarily chagrined.
"I am very happy," he said. "You have worried about me, haven't
you?"

Armand had no desire to mention the sleepless
nights, the anxious days, and the hours of planning and scheming
that he had been through. He simply nodded.