Whispers of the Bayou (12 page)

“Fairmont’s fine,” I said to Willy, ignoring her. “Or, um, Miller. Miranda Miller.”

“Whatever her name is, she’s here now,” Deena said. “Go ahead and tell us whatever it is you need to say to her.”

As if in great pain, the man turned his head and looked at his wife with a withering glare, one that must have sucked up every speck of energy he possessed just to manage.

“When I’m…good and ready…Deena…not a minute…sooner.”

Blinking, the woman matched his hateful glare with one of her own.

“Well, considering that you’re going to be dead soon,” she hissed, “you’d better hurry it up.”

She had trumped him, apparently, winning the duel. He visibly withered, taking his eyes away from her face and sinking further into the covers. After a moment he coughed wearily and closed his eyes.

Whether this was their usual dynamic or not, I was extremely uncomfortable having Tess witness such a brutal exchange. Nathan and I had certainly been known to argue, but rarely with such venom and never in front of our child.

“If you people will excuse me,” I said, summoning up my nerve, “I’m going to have to find someone to take care of Tess so that I can come back here by myself. This really isn’t appropriate…”

“I don’t want a babysitter, Mommy,” Tess whined, clutching my hips with her legs in a death grip. She always went to others easily, but I knew right now she was in unfamiliar territory and feeling on edge, as was I.

“Mr. Benochet, you’re good with kids,” Deena said in a voice that had suddenly switched from vinegar to sugar. “Why don’t you take the child out front where she can take a set on the swang?”

“Tha’s good idea,” Willy added weakly from the bed, his eyes closed. “Y’all go…play a lil’…
pain pee po.
”

“I’d be happy to, Willy,” Charles replied. “But I’d like to hear what you have to say first. We’ve all gone to a lot of trouble to get Miranda here so that you can talk to her.”

Willy opened his eyes and looked around at those who were surrounding his death bed, ending with me.

“What I gots to say…is ’tween me and her. I wants all y’all out.”

Charles looked quite disappointed that he wasn’t going to be able to stay and hear the words that I had been brought here for, whatever they were, but he recovered quickly, rubbing a hand across his face and then flashing Tess a warm smile.

“Well, how ’bout it then,
Boo
?” he said to Tess. “You wanna come wit’ me for a little
pain pee po?
”

“I don’t need to go potty,” Tess objected, which brought a laugh from Charles and Willy.

“No,
cher.
” Charles explained with a grin. “Playing the
pain pee po
jus’ means going out and doing something useless but fun. Like hanging out.”

“You want to play with me?” Tess asked him. “I have some dollies in the car.”

“Either that or we could go try out the swing. They got two swings, actually. One is a rope swing in the front yard, hanging from a big ol’ tree, and the other is a bench swing on the gallery, hanging by chains from the rafters. From what I recall, they’re both pretty dandy.”

Tess peeked at me, warming up to the idea once I gave her an encouraging nod, and she wiggled her way down to the floor. I wasn’t in the habit of sending my child off with a man I had just met, but Charles wasn’t exactly a stranger. After all, he’d been a trusted advisor and friend to my Louisiana relatives for more than forty years—not to mention that I instinctively felt that he was a good guy.

“Please keep a very close eye on her,” I said.

“Not to worry. I won’t let her out of my sight for a moment.”

Charles took my daughter’s hand and led her through the French doors that led to the patio area, joking easily with her as she giggled in return. Once he closed the doors behind them, I watched through the glass as they moved past the grill and around the high hedge until they disappeared from view.

“Deena…go on,” Willy rasped to his wife. “We need to be alone.”

Deena hesitated, pointing a crooked finger toward the nurse.

“What about her?”

“Lisa can stay.”

Ouch. Visibly shamed, Deena harrumphed, speechless, and then finally turned on her heel and marched from the room, going out through the door where we had entered and slamming it loudly behind her.

As soon as she was gone, tension seemed to melt from the room. Willy exhaled a ragged breath and apologized for his wife’s behavior, pausing for another breath every few words.

“It ain’t been…easy for her here,” he whispered. “She never wanted…to live in…Louisiana…and I was never…willing to leave.”

I reserved comment, afraid that I might say something terribly rude about the woman’s cruelty.

“Can I get you anything?” the nurse asked, reaching for a pitcher of water on a table by the wall. I thought she was speaking to me and I was about to decline when I realized that she was addressing Willy.

“Jus’ a…coupla sips,” he replied, letting her slip a bendy straw between his lips and then put a hand under the back of his head to raise it slightly.

As he drank, I took a deep breath to try and relax, but that was a mistake. My nostrils filled with the piercing stench of antiseptic and sweat, along with a faint trace of urine. I blew the air back out through my nose and after that made a point of inhaling only through my mouth.

Willy continued to slurp through the straw for a few more moments, finally pushing it out from his mouth and closing his eyes. Again he spoke, squeezing out words between labored breaths.

“Forget…whatever you’ve heard…on the…subject, ladies, dying ain’t… no fun at all.”

Lisa smiled at me, and with a soft motion of her hand waved me forward.

“Come closer,” Willy added, opening his eyes in time to see her gesture and second it. “Lisa,
Boo
…raise the bed…a little…would you?”

The nurse pressed a button on the bedrail and with a grinding sound the whole head of the bed slowly raised up at an angle, inching upward
until Willy told her to stop. She helped him shift his body a bit, fussing with the pillows until they were both satisfied.

“I don’t know…what I’d do…without this girl,” he said, patting the nurse’s arm fondly. “She takes…such good…care of me, her.”

“Just doing my job,” she replied modestly, but then a look passed between them, a gaze of deep affection I couldn’t begin to decipher or understand.

“So…Miranda,” he said, turning his attention to me, passing a papery dry hand across his pale lips. “Last time…I seen you…you was ’bout…the size…your
pischouette
is…now.”

“Pee-schwet?”

“Your little girl.”

I swallowed hard, nodding.

“Yes, I was five, same age as my daughter.”

He closed his eyes, as if remembering.

“Your grandparents…they ’bout died…of grief…from missing you after you…lef’ here,” he wheezed. “I don’t…think they…never got over it.”

He coughed, a hacking mess that sounded disgustingly productive. As Lisa helped with a tissue, I turned my head and considered what he had just said.

They missed me after I was gone?

This was news to me. To hear AJ tell it, my grandparents hadn’t been able to get rid of me fast enough once my mother died. I grew up assuming that they hadn’t missed me for a moment, nor given me another thought ever again.

“Mr. Pedreaux, is that what you brought me here for?” I asked, my voice strained. “To tell me that?”

He grunted no and shook his head, the action causing him to cough again, which then led to full-out choking. Lisa quickly propped him up and whacked him squarely on the back between the shoulder blades until he had recovered.

“You okay now, Uncle Willy?” Lisa asked.

“
Uncle
Willy?” I blurted without thinking.

“Lisa’s my
Boo,
my sweet niece,” Willy cooed.

“My mom is Creole, married to his brother,” she added, which explained their mutual affection—not to mention the difference in skin color.

“Anyway, Deena’s…right. I best…get down to…business, ’cause I ain’t got much…time lef’, me.”

I hated to say that I agreed with him, but it was obviously true. Wanting to get on with things as well, I reached for a nearby chair, scooted it close to the bed, and sat.

“Thank you for…coming, Miranda. It do my heart good…to see you… again. You know, you the…spittin’ image…of your
pauve defante mamere,
your poor sainted grandmother.”

So he and Charles both thought I looked like my grandmother. Having never seen of picture of her, I didn’t know if that was true or not. Willy was looking me over with his rheumy eyes, as though he was seeking out evidence of the generations of forebears that lent their various features to my appearance. I resisted the urge to look away and instead met his gaze with my own.

“What did you need to tell me that was important enough for me to fly down here, Mr. Pedreaux?”

He swallowed several times, blinking, as he seemed to gather his thoughts.

“Now dat you here,” he said. “I ain’t…quite sure…how to begin. It’s a long story…and I’m a…an old man. My mind ain’t…it ain’t so clear these days…” his voice trailed off. I glanced at his niece, who winked at me in return.

“You might be having a little trouble with your breathing, you old goat, but your mind is sharp as a tack. Go ahead. Spit it out. Stop keeping everybody in suspense.” She looked at me and added, “He’s been making me wait to hear what he has to say until you got here. For some reason, he wants to tell us both together.”

“What if I hadn’t come?” I asked.

“We’ve been taking it day by day,” she replied. “I guess there would have come a point where he had no choice, but so far he wasn’t willing to go there.”

“It’s time now…to bring it all…into the light,” Willy rasped. “There’s been…too much darkness…for too long.”

The room was silent for a long moment after that, and finally he looked at me again, eyes full with tears. He blinked, sending twin lines of liquid down each withered cheek. In response, Lisa’s smile faded. Quietly, she reached for another tissue and dabbed at his face to wipe them off. He didn’t even seem to notice.

“How do I…begin to explain…what I done?” he finally implored between breaths, in a voice thick with emotion. “To make…you see my… actions was…justified? To be sure…that everything will be…taken care of? To be sure that…the secret, it don’t…die wit’ me?”

“Secret?” I asked, glancing at Lisa, who seemed intrigued.

Summoning his strength, Willy lifted his head from the pillow and spoke more clearly and emphatically than he had since I came in the room.

“I’m sorry for what I done, Miranda…for what the circumstances made me do. I hopes one day…you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”

I started to respond but had to hold my tongue as he kept going.

“More importantly…you mus’ learn the reason
why
I done it. The secret…it cannot die wit’ me, no. It cannot! I swore that I would take the responsibility…Now it’s time for the two of you to do the same.”

The effort of speaking so intensely sent him into a new round of coughing, though he resisted this time when Lisa tried to help, holding up one spotted, bony arm to keep her at bay. Finally, when his coughing spell was over, he put his head back against the pillow with his eyes closed, sweat beading along his pale and wrinkled forehead, despite the chilly air that filled the room.

“What secret, Mr. Pedreaux? What do I need to forgive? And what kind of responsibility do you want us to swear to?”

“I’m sorry…” he whispered, his voice so soft that we could barely hear him. Lisa and I both leaned even closer to the bed. “It was for…the angelus. We had to be able to get to the angelus.”

He exhaled in a ragged, sour breath, his eyes still closed.

“What’s the an-
jell
-us?” I asked.

“It’s a prayer,” Lisa replied. “You know, the Hail Mary? You’re supposed to say it three times a day.”

“No.” Shaking his head, Willy opened his eyes and looked up at Lisa.
“Pas la prière.”

“Not the prayer?” Lisa asked him. “What, then?”

“My
Boo
…Don’t you know the
chucotement du bayou
…’bout
l’angelus?”

Lisa shrugged.

“I don’t know, Uncle Willy. Maybe. Why?”

“
L’angelus!
” he cried, the urgency apparent in his voice. “Is not a
chucotement de bayou
at all! Is
la vérité!
And I am the last surviving
gardien.
”

I looked to Lisa for a translation, but she was leaning toward Willy, focused on him.

“Uncle Willy, we’ll say the Hail Mary for you, the Angelus, whatever you want. Do you want me to call in a priest? We can probably get one here pretty fast.”

Poor Willy looked as though he might explode. He started shaking his head, eyes bulging,

“No, no, no,” he cried. “
L’angelus! Ne pas la prière, la cloche!”

“What’s he saying?” I asked Lisa.

“ ‘Not the prayer, the bell.’ ”

The
bell.
My eyes widened as my hand flew up to the back of my head. The gesture was not lost on Willy.

“Miranda, you know what I’m talking about…You were
marked
for this…
destined
for it…”

“Who did this to me?” I demanded, pulling the clips of my hair so it could fall loose to my shoulders. “And why? What does it mean?”

“We had to make sure you would return…We had to make it clear…the… enormity…of the task…”

Lisa looked at me.

“What is he talking about?”

Feeling a surge of anger, I turned my back to the nurse and lifted the top part of my hair. She reached up and helped move it out of the way, gasping when she saw it.

“Uncle Willy! It’s like yours.”

“Like his?”

She dropped my hair, reached for the covers, and lifted them from Willy’s feet. She pushed up the leg of his pajama pants, and there on his skinny white calf was the same tattoo, though not distorted from growth like mine.

At the sight I felt panic stir in my chest and bile rise in my throat. I
had
seen this symbol somewhere before. The memory of it popped vividly into my mind: It was on skin. As a tattoo. Not the white, shaven skin on the back of my head. Not the hair-covered skin of an old man’s leg. Somewhere else, on lovely skin, on skin that was soft and sweet-smelling and kind. I closed my eyes, swallowing hard, envisioning my own hand, a tiny hand, reaching out to trace the image with my finger.