by Sandra Hill
Well, they all did, actually.
Going into the bathroom, she found the aspirin, popped three in her mouth, washed them down with a plastic cup of water. Looking into the medicine cabinet mirror, she was alarmed at how awful she looked. Her mocha-colored Creole skin was pale as café au lait, and not in a nice way. She’d lost weight; her fitted waitress uniform hung loose, its belt on the last notch. Oh, well. A pity party didn’t pay the bills.
Just then, she realized that the trailer was awfully quiet, except for Lionel’s pounding. Bam, bam, bam! Miles should be back from his paper route by now, with the Saturday-morning cartoons blaring. Not that he didn’t have other chores to do.
Instead, the back door slammed and twelve-year-old Ella, who had been hanging laundry, came to stand in the doorway. Their parents, Max and Ruby Duval, had been French Quarter jazz musicians, and they’d named their kids after jazz greats, Lena Horne, Lionel Hampton, Ella Fitzgerald, and Miles Davis.
Ella, not quite a child, not quite an adolescent, was no problem in the “finding herself’ department. She already knew what she was. A Hannah Montana clone. Thank God for thrift shops, which they scavenged every Saturday, because everything Ella did was according to the bible of Billy Ray Cyrus’s precocious daughter. There was a dress code at Ella’s school that skirts could be no shorter than the tips of the fingers when arms were held straight at the sides. It was a constant fight to meet that standard.
But right now Ella looked worried.
“What?”
“We got visitors.”
“Visitors?” She put a hand to her chest. “Hurry, go hide.”
“They already saw us.”
“They?”
“Two ladies,” Ella told her.
Oh, God! Not Child Protective Services again!
“Miles just got home.”
“Did they see him?”
Ella nodded, twirling one of her shoulder-length curls nervously. She was trying to grow her hair longer and straighter to emulate the achy-breaky you-know-who.
Lionel and Miles came in the back door, looking to her for direction.
“Okay, plan B. Straighten up this place real quick, everyone, and take your places.” She had to admit that the combination kitchen, dining room and living room already looked neat. Because there were so many of them in such a small trailer, a storage space was required for everything. Plus, she had her siblings trained to pick up after themselves. Everyone worked. “And remember, Daddy is off working on one of the oil rigs.” Hah! The closest Max Duval ever got to an oil rig was the time he fell off a fishing boat in the Gulf. Drunk as a sailor, of course. Truth to tell, their father was dead, buried during the post-Hurricane Katrina chaos, but these women, whoever they were, didn’t need to know that. In fact, they couldn’t know that. Especially if they were from CPS, which was always snooping around.
Before the first knock came on the door, the kids were in their assigned places. Ella stood at the kitchen sink, washing the breakfast dishes. Miles sat on the floor in the corner, watching cartoons on the small TV. Lionel was pecking away at the computer.
“Yoo-hoo!” someone said, knocking again. “Anyone home?”
Taking a deep breath, Lena opened the door, barely a crack. “Yes?”
“Hi there, sweetie. I’m Louise Rivard from up the bayou, but you kin call me Tante Lulu. I’m Michael LeDeux’s great-auntie. Kin we come in?”
She frowned, then realized the lady—Tante Lulu—was referring to Mike, the busboy at the diner. A nice kid, but what he had to do with her she had no idea. In fact, he and Lionel were in the same high school. Although Lionel was a year or two younger than Michael, they’d played football together this year. She glanced over at Lionel, who just shrugged inside his leather jacket. Really, that jacket was going to start walking by itself if he didn’t take it off once in a while, if only to air it out. She reminded herself to check tonight to see if he slept in the blasted thing.
“Uh, we’re busy right now. What do you want?” She didn’t care if she sounded rude.
“We’s here to help ya, honey. But first, I gotta pee.” Pushing Lena aside, the old woman—and she was really old—walked straight inside, without invitation, and into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. She was dressed weird, for an old person.
The other woman, lots younger but still old, at least thirty, grimaced with embarrassment, but then she walked past her, too. “I’m Grace O’Brien,” she said. She was dressed more normal than the old bat, wearing jeans and a pretty pink tapered-waist blouse. “I’m Tante Lulu’s assistant.”
Lena was stunned. How had these two strangers managed to get inside the trailer? Her fevered, fuzzy brain must be worse off than she’d thought. “Assistant to what?”
“We’re folk healers.”
“Like hoodoos?” Oh, God! That’s all I need. A bunch of nutty holy rollers! Or whatever those people call themselves.
The lady, who had bouncy red curls and pale green eyes, smiled. “Not really. We’re more into herbs than magic.”
“Do you use snakes and stuff?” Lionel asked from behind them. “There’s a boy at school whose grandma cures people with snakes. She has a whole bushel basket of ’em in her cellar.”
“Eeew,” Ella said from the sink, where she still stood with her back to them.
“Lionel Duke Duval! You better not have been touchin’ any snakes,” Lena warned.
Lionel ducked his head and went back to his computer. “I just looked. Jeesh!”
“Don’t you backtalk.”
“All I said was Jeesh. Jeesh!”
Lena gave him a look that said they would talk about this later. Her brothers and sister knew better than to speak up like that in front of strangers.
“Actually, I have a degree in alternative medicine,” the woman, who’d said her name was Grace, explained. “And Tante Lulu has more than fifty years’ experience as a traiteur. That’s a Cajun folk healer. Mostly she deals with potions made from herbs or animal products indigenous to the bayou. No snakes...at least, not live snakes.” She smiled some more.
Lionel was gazing up at Grace with interest. “I wanna be a doctor someday. Or a computer software engineer.”
“That’s great. What are you doing?” Already the woman was peering over Lionel’s shoulder. “The history of Louisiana Indians? That sounds interesting.”
“I’m reading it for extra credit.”
Lena was about to tell this woman that what Lionel read was none of her business when they all heard the toilet flush and the water run, and then the old lady with about a gazillion wrinkles and a lopsided black wig walked out. Lena was still bug-eyed at Tante Lulu’s oddball attire, but she had to admit that the lady had a kindly face.
Lena wasn’t fooled by that, though. They’d been tricked too many times by well-meaning folks who just wanted to break up their family and put them in foster care.
“Yer toilet flushes kinda sluggish, Lena. Ya needs a plumber.”
Yeah, like she could afford a plumber. Not this month. She still owed on the used hot-water heater she’d bought six months ago.
“Is that an earring in yer nose?” Tante Lulu asked as she passed Lionel, narrowing her eyes to see better. “Doan the snot get caught in it? Holy smokes! Ya got more holes in yer skin than a sieve. It’s a wonder ya doan pee out yer eyebrow.”
Lena almost smiled. She’d made similar remarks to her brother in the past, to no avail.
Lionel ducked his head with embarrassment and refused to reply.
“Now, ain’t this nice?” Tante Lulu said, walking into the living room, big as you please, and plopping down on the couch, near where Miles was sitting on the floor. She patted him on the head.
Lena was too stunned by anyone saying their trailer was nice to speak at first. Then she was further stunned by the woman’s next question.
“Where’s yer momma?”
“Our mother died a long time ago. Of cancer.”
“Oh, thass too ba
d. How old was you? Are you the oldest?”
“Yes, I’m the oldest. I was fourteen at the time, five years ago.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared. “What do you want here?”
Ignoring her question, the busybody continued, “And where’s yer daddy?”
Lena felt her face heat up, even hotter than it already was. The other kids looked away studiously. “He’s out working on the oil rigs.”
“Is that so? What’s his name?”
“Max Duval,” she replied before she had a chance to bite her tongue.
“The jazz player? I usta go to the Pelican Club in the French Quarter to hear him and yer mama play. Didja say he’s workin’ the rigs now?” Tante Lulu was clearly suspicious.
Lena nodded.
“Ain’tcha got no other family?”
She shook her head, then leaned back against the closed front door, light-headed. Much as she hated to give up a day of tips, maybe she would call in sick. She really, really needed to lie down.
She must have blacked out then, or had one of her dizzy spells, because she had no idea how she ended up on the couch, with Tante Lulu and the other woman leaning over her, doing something with a thermometer and damp cloths on her forehead. Her brothers and sister stood behind them, scared to death and not knowing what to do without her directing them. She tried to tell the women to leave, and she tried to tell her family to settle down, that everything would be okay if she could just crawl into bed for a few hours. But no words would come out.
Instead, she heard the old lady whisper in her ear. “Doan you be worryin’ none, sweetie. St. Jude sent me.”
I thought she said Mike LeDeux sent her. Now it’s Jude. An alarming thought entered her head. She put a hand on the age-spotted arm. “You can’t call a doctor, and you can’t take me to the clinic. You just can’t. They’ll find out.”
Tante Lulu stared at her for a long moment, then nodded.
“I’ll take care of ya, honey. Me and St. Jude. I promise.”
Chapter 3
You could say they were Cajun angels...
She was waking up.
Finally! Grace sat down on the edge of the mattress in her guest bedroom, one of three in the little cottage, helping Lena Duval to sit up.
Grace did not want to be here. In fact, she was having trouble breathing, so tense was she. But she’d been unable to explain why when Tante Lulu had asked her to take over while she went on an errand.
This young girl, Lena, was nineteen years old, only a year or so older than Grace’s own daughter, who would be eighteen on December 10. Sarah...that was the way Grace always thought of the baby she’d given away when she was sixteen, although she had no idea if she’d birthed a boy or girl. She hadn’t wanted to know at the time, and not out of any grief, either. Self-centered, like most teenagers, she’d just wanted the problem to go away.
If that wasn’t bad enough, she’d had an abortion when she was fifteen.
Not one, but two horrendous mistakes!
Afterward, the first few years, she’d awakened often during the night, hearing a baby cry. Which was ridiculous in a convent.
Now, in the presence of Lena, she wasn’t able to keep herself from thinking of her child, which would not be African-American, like Lena, but a combination of Irish and Greek. What would she look like now? Tall, like her father, or average height, like Grace? Would she have red hair or black? Curly or straight as a poker? Green eyes or twinkling blue?
And she couldn’t bear to think of the baby that had never been born, either. That one would have been a girl, too, she’d been convinced, with surfer good looks and white-blonde hair like her daddy. Anne Marie...she’d named the fetus Anne Marie. Sometimes she imagined Anne Marie as a little impish angel who floated about her shoulders.
Questions, questions, questions. Painful questions for which there would never be answers. Questions she was mostly able to bury by keeping busy.
But this young girl was a harsh, unavoidable reminder of her past sins.
Grace sighed deeply and said, “Are you awake, Lena?”
It was barely eleven a.m. in late May, and already the temperature was up to eighty-five, warm air being swirled around by the ceiling fan. The air conditioner would need to be turned on soon, but right now the sounds and smells of the bayou coming through the open screened window were refreshing. To Grace, anyhow. She was still new enough to this rather tropical paradise to appreciate the scent of bougainvillea bushes and fig tree blossoms, the warbling of myriad birds, the almost celestial essence of the bayou itself with its cathedral-like oak trees arching across the waters. Natives were more likely to complain about the humidity, bugs, and pesty birds.
The girl blinked with confusion, just before tears began to stream down her face. It was the first time in two days—since she and Tante Lulu had visited the trailer—that Lena had been strong enough to do anything other than lie flat on her back, but she still looked like death warmed over.
“Where am I?” the girl choked out.
Grace held a straw to her mouth and let her drink a bit of the herbal tea Tante Lulu swore would help restore her strength. Lena had to be thirsty, despite the intravenous line into her right arm, giving her fluids. “My cottage. I live next door to Tante Lulu.”
Lena tried, unsuccessfully, to slide her legs over the side, then flopped back down with weakness. Panicked, her eyes went wild. “My brothers and sister?”
Grace gently arranged the light cover around her and fluffed the pillows propping her up. “They’re in school right now. I stayed with them the past two nights.”
“Oh, my God! Two nights! Miles must be frantic. He’s never away from me. I have to get up.”
“No, sweetheart, what you have to do is stay down. You’ve got a bad case of Epstein-Barr virus—mononucleosis.”
“Mono? I’ve got the kissing disease? No way!” The girl’s body stiffened with outrage. “I haven’t been kissin’ nobody.”
Grace had to smile. “You can get mono other ways, Lena. The most important thing is rest, and I mean weeks of rest.”
“I can’t. I need to work. I need to take care of my brothers and sister.”
“It’s out of your hands. For the time being, you are not to worry. Tante Lulu and I will take care of everything.”
Lena shook her head, hard, then groaned, putting a hand to her head. “No, you don’t understand. If they find out...I mean—”
“I know exactly what you mean. You’re afraid Child Protective Services will be on your case.” In fact, she was pretty sure that the man and woman who’d been walking around the outside of the trailer yesterday, taking notes, were from CPS. Grace had declined to answer their knocks on the door, not sure what she would have said. Luckily, the children had been in school. The frowns on the visitors’ faces had not been a good sign. Grace wouldn’t be surprised if the trailer would be classified inappropriate housing for the family, even if there were a live father. Newspapers had carried headlines recently about the HUD trailers given out after Hurricane Katrina now being deemed health hazards. Something about poisonous insulation. Who knew what was in this ancient trailer?
She wondered how they’d fared with Hurricane Ike last year. Although this section of the state had been spared major damage, the winds had to have shaken the old trailer like a rag doll.
“How...who...oh, no! Who talked to you? My brothers and sister know better.”
“They all talked, Lena. They had to. Do you have any idea how scared they were? You’ve always been there for them. It took a lot of convincing to get them to settle for me over the next two weeks...’til school lets out for summer vacation. Then they can stay here at my house all the time while you continue to recuperate.”
Lena frowned. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would you help us?”
“Oh, sweetie! Because it’s the right thing to do.” And, truth to tell, because Tante Lulu guilted me into it.
It about bro
ke Grace’s heart that the girl would even ask that question, though. Had help been that scarce for them over the past four years, since Katrina? Probably. Lena’s siblings had explained that they never applied for government or charity assistance that required a name and address. That meant no welfare or food stamps. As for school records, they lied and said their father worked on the oil rigs. The only way they’d managed to get the money to buy the trailer and its lot was through emergency funding given in the chaos immediately following the hurricane.
In the midst of all this pondering, a little niggling worry in the back of Grace’s mind caused her to wonder if her little girl, not so little now, had led a safe, happy life or been forced to struggle like this brave young woman here. She would never know.
“I feel like we’ve been rescued by angels,” Lena said.
“Hardly angels.” At least not me, and there are people who would say Tante Lulu hardly qualifies, either.
“I’m afraid that all the lies I’ve told are going to come back and bite me in the butt. They could put me in jail.” She probably referred to the housing money she’d accepted, pretending her father was alive.
“At the least, they’ll take away my brothers and sister. They’ll say I’m not old enough or fit enough to care for them.”
“Tante Lulu and I are going to help you. That’s all you need to think about, for now. Okay?”
Lena sighed deeply, too tired to argue. “Did you take me to a hospital?”
“No. One of Tante Lulu’s nephews is a doctor. He checked you out here.” And ranted and raved the whole time. Daniel LeDeux had moved from Alaska to Louisiana, burned out as a pediatric oncologist, and still had not applied for a Louisiana medical license. He was not a happy camper over Tante Lulu pulling him into a situation that posed both legal and ethical complications. When he’d told all this to Tante Lulu—yelled, actually—she’d had the nerve to say, “Thass all well an’ good, boy, but not to worry. St. Jude’s on our side.” To which the good doctor had said something rude about St. Jude. For which Tante Lulu had smacked him on the arm with a soup ladle and threatened, “Keep it up, buster, and I’ll whomp you so hard yer granchillen will be born with knots on their head the size of goose eggs.”
