The Gates of Evangeline

by Hester Young

  “Grandma,” I say, “do you have creepy dreams, too?”

  “I used to.” She rises slowly to her feet. “I’d like something to drink. Can I get you anything?”

  “No thanks.” My mind is not on liquid as I follow her into the little galley kitchen. “So . . . did they happen? The things you dreamed about?”

  She pours some cider into a pot and turns on a burner. “They aren’t dreams. It just seems that way in the beginning.” Grandma rummages through a cabinet, selecting ingredients. “Dreams move quickly, change suddenly. They don’t make sense. I used to see things. Really see them.”

  “What do you call them, then? Visions?”

  “That sounds so hocus-pocus.” She stirs some brown sugar into the pot. “I always thought of them as—pictures. It didn’t happen often, but when I saw pictures . . . well, I knew what was coming.”

  “What did you see?”

  She thinks it over. “The first one came after I married your grandfather. It was about my friend Alice.”

  I’ve heard about Alice before, mainly that she was a tremendous flirt, and six different men proposed to her during the war. My grandmother wraps her spices up in cheesecloth, drops them in the pot, and tells me the story.

  “Alice had been dating a soldier. He wanted to get married, she didn’t. Well, they sent him off to Europe somewhere, and about two months later, Alice came to me, very worried. She was afraid that she was pregnant.”

  “That was the picture you saw?” I ask.

  “No,” my grandmother tells me, “that was real. The night after she told me, I saw a picture. A baby, a little transparent baby. It was Alice’s. And it turned to blood. Then I saw Alice, wearing a blue dress soaked in blood. I asked if she was all right, and she laughed and spun around in her bloody dress.”

  I lean against the worn Formica countertop, frowning. “That is creepy. Did she lose the baby?”

  “The next time I saw her, she was wearing that blue dress. She took me aside, so happy. ‘Forget everything I said,’ she told me. ‘I’m fine, there’s no baby.’”

  “So she was never even pregnant . . . ?” I suggest.

  “I think she was.”

  “But how do you know?” I want her to be wrong. I want these pictures—hers and mine—to mean nothing.

  “I don’t know,” Grandma admits, “but years later when Alice did get married, she tried to have a child. And she couldn’t. She got pregnant four different times, but she always miscarried.”

  The story leaves me with mixed emotions. On the one hand, perhaps I’m not so deranged, after all. On the other, the Hannah dream may only be the beginning. A whole parade of scary visions could be lurking in the ether, waiting for me to go to bed each night. It’s an awful thought. “Do you still see things?”

  “Not in many, many years.”

  The cider is heating up now, steam rising from the pot. It smells like autumn, and suddenly I’m thirsty, an amazingly normal sensation. “What’s the last one you had? Do you remember?”

  She nods, suddenly mute.

  She doesn’t want to tell me.

  “Someone who died?”

  She nods again, and I hold my breath.

  Maybe she knew and said nothing.

  “Grandma,” I say sharply. “Who was it?”

  But her answer is not what I expect. “Your father,” she says. “I saw your father.”

  “What did you see?” We’ve talked about my father—her son—many times over the years, and she’s never said a word about this.

  “It was the night he died.” She runs her tongue over her dry lips. “I saw James standing by his car. The green one.”

  I know the car she means. It smelled like vomit, from the days when I got motion sickness.

  “It was dark, and the car was smashed against a tree.” She squints, as if the scene is laid out there in the tiny kitchen. “I was upset about the car at first. I thought he’d ask me for money. But he told me no, this was worse than just a totaled car. He kept saying ‘sorry.’”

  “Sounds like Dad. ‘Sorry’ was his favorite word.” Grandma seems to have forgotten about the cider, so I switch off the burner and let it cool. “That was it? He apologized for being a screw-up?”

  “And he asked me for a favor.”

  “Naturally.”

  “I made a promise to your father and I’d like to think I’ve kept it.” Grandma fetches two mugs from the cabinet and hands me one. “I’ve taken care of you, haven’t I?” There is a real question in her voice, a need for validation I’ve never heard before.

  “That was your promise? That’s why you took me?”

  She meets my eyes. “He was thinking of you. He knew he’d let you down.”

  I turn away. I rarely get upset with my grandmother, but the whole story sounds like some made-up tale to comfort the bereaved. Why tell it now, when I’ve moved past that particular loss?

  “You would’ve taken me anyway, right?” I fix my gaze on the empty mug in my hands.

  “Oh, Charlie. I don’t know. Your mother’s family was ready to take you. If I hadn’t been convinced it was what James wanted . . .” She shrugs. “Your aunt was younger and more energetic. She had children your age. I really wrestled with the decision.”

  “Aunt Suzie?” I grimace. “That would’ve been horrible.”

  “Then I did the right thing.”

  “Yeah,” I tell her, “you did.”

  We don’t mention my father or the dream-pictures again. For the next hour, we sit in the living room sipping Grandma’s mulled cider. At some point I realize that Keegan’s box of toys is gone. My grandmother must have donated them to the church. My chest tightens at this discovery. How did I fail to notice that before? How was I so oblivious? If I truly love my son, how could I ever think of anything else?

  There is nothing more unnatural than losing your child. Not even talking to the dead.

  5.

  As I enter Isaac Cohen’s office on Wednesday morning, I determine that he has changed very little in the twelve years since I left Cold Crimes. His beard could use a trimming, and his olive suit doesn’t quite fit his long frame. Although he’s gained some weight and lost some hair, he’s the same eccentric man I remember.

  “Charlotte!” Isaac flaps an arm at the chair beside him. “Come in, come in!”

  The small office is made even smaller by all the clutter. I worm my way around teetering piles of manuscripts, boxes of newly printed books, and a scraggly potted plant. As I sit down, a framed black-and-white photograph on his desk gives me pause. I stare at the empty-eyed man from another era, not sure why I find him so disconcerting.

  “A Victorian death portrait,” Isaac says with relish. “Welcome to my lair.”

  He’s joking, of course, but “lair” is in fact an apt word for his office. Isaac has plastered the walls with book jackets much in the way a serial killer might cover his walls with souvenirs of his victims. On the right side, I see titles like Heist! and Encyclopedia of Gangsters. The opposite wall is more grim: Green River Grave and Dinner with Dahmer.

  “Serial killers are in this season,” I observe.

  Isaac chuckles. “They never go out of style, believe me.”

  I’m already wondering if this is a mistake. Somehow in my rush to escape Sophisticate, I’ve overlooked the subject matter of my work at Cold Crimes. Murder. Sick and twisted people doing sick and twisted things. It didn’t bother me in my twenties, but that was before I became a mother, back when the only life I thought of was my own.

  “So.” Isaac sucks on his teeth. “Always nice to see a face from the past.”

  “I’m flattered you thought of me. It’s been a while.”

  “Well, this project came up. I think it would be a good fit for you.”

  My eyes narrow at the word “project.” Tha
t doesn’t sound like a job—it sounds like freelance.

  Isaac grabs a tissue and blows his nose. “The Meyers Rowe crime division is working on a series of books right now called Greatest Mysteries of the Twentieth Century.” He blows again and dabs delicately at the resulting strand of snot. “Each book features a high-profile unsolved crime. We’re doing one book per decade. The Black Dahlia for the forties, Dan Cooper in the seventies, JonBenét Ramsey for the nineties. You get the picture.”

  “Who’s Dan Cooper?”

  “D. B. Cooper.” He waits for the name to register with me, but it doesn’t. “Hijacked a plane, got two hundred thousand dollars, parachuted out. Never seen again.”

  “Cooper didn’t kill anyone?”

  “No, no. Not all the books are about murder.” He gives his nose a final scouring and discards the tissue. “What I have in mind for you is our crime of the eighties. You’re familiar with the Deveau family?”

  Of course I know the name. They’re like the Hilton family, only the granddaughter is better behaved, and their upscale hotel chain was founded with Old South plantation money. Rae, who often travels to the Gulf Coast for business, has always boycotted them. Apart from a history of slave owning, the Deveau family has been mixed up with only one major crime.

  “The Deveau kidnapping?” Now that I understand where Isaac is going with this, I’m disgusted. “That’s hardly one of the greatest mysteries of the century. Or even that decade.”

  “Do you know the case?”

  “Not well,” I concede. “I was only nine when the kid went missing.”

  “Then you’ll need this.” He thrusts a folder into my hands. “Gabriel Deveau. Two years old. That’s an overview to get you started.”

  I glance inside the folder and see a couple of photocopied articles that I don’t intend to read. “I know the basics. They never found him. One ransom note, no body, no criminal. Not much of a story, Isaac.” Privately, I wonder how the hell another missing child has stumbled into my lap.

  “Next August will be the thirty-year anniversary, and local law enforcement recently reopened the case. There could be a major break.” He drums his fingers on the desk. “I reread that piece you did for Cold Crimes on the Lindbergh kidnapping. Brilliant.”

  “The Lindbergh baby turned up dead,” I point out. “Hauptmann was convicted and executed for the crime. That’s a pretty crucial difference.” I rub my temples, trying to swallow my disappointment. “So this is the job? A book deal?”

  “Beats unemployment,” he says. “Maybe you’d like a change of pace.”

  I’d been so hopeful, so ready to start something new. But this? “I appreciate you contacting me,” I tell him, “but I don’t think it’s the opportunity I’m looking for.”

  “I haven’t told you the best part.”

  I stand up, eager to get out of Isaac’s ghastly office.

  “The Deveau family approached us. They want to do this book.” A slow grin spreads across his face. He has beautiful white teeth, which I find alarming. “You’ll receive unprecedented access to their documents and exclusive interviews. Plus, they’re offering three months’ room and board at Evangeline, their Louisiana estate. You’d literally be working at the scene of the crime.”

  That stops me in my tracks. “It’s an authorized family biography?”

  Isaac sees that he’s got me curious and his grin broadens. “Neville Deveau has always been tight-lipped with the press, but he died last winter, and his wife has cancer. It’s the twin daughters, Sydney and Brigitte, who came to us. They want someone to write a history of their family.”

  “A book about the kidnapping isn’t exactly—”

  “I’ve assured them their family history is necessary to provide context for the kidnapping. We can meet both goals here. They’re excited to proceed.”

  “Brigitte married into the Caldwell family, right?” I rack my brain for tabloid headlines I’ve seen about them, but it’s been a while. They’re old news. “And there’s a brother, too. Andre Deveau.”

  “Yeah, he’s the CEO of Deveau Hotels.”

  “I interviewed him once for an article.” It was years ago, I remember, an article on luxury hotels. His assistant allotted me five minutes to get a couple sound bites for the magazine; Andre gave me half an hour and bought me a twenty-two-dollar mojito. One of the few times in my life that I, the child of an alcoholic, have actually permitted myself to drink. Andre Deveau was a pleasant, surprisingly low-key man. We had a nice conversation, first about his hotel chain and then about travel more generally. I recognized a quality in him that I possessed too at the time: the loneliness of the chronically overworked.

  “So you’ve already got a connection here!” Isaac jumps on the slightest sign of my interest, the semi-maniacal smile never leaving his face. “How serendipitous!”

  I have no desire to immerse myself in another family’s tragedy when I’m already struggling with my own. “Thank you,” I tell Isaac, moving toward the door again, “but I can’t leave my day job for a short-term project. Have you tried Derek Santana? He’s good at these—”

  “Yeah, I tried him.” He rakes a hand through his beard. “I won’t lie to you. I’ve approached several people. Brigitte Caldwell has been a nightmare to deal with. She refused to work with the last writer we sent her.”

  I shake my head. “Why bother? You’re a great editor, Isaac. You’ve got to know this project is crap.”

  He sighs. “Sydney and Brigitte have promised to throw their weight behind this. They have connections. Think book signings, radio interviews, TV. You can’t buy publicity like that.”

  “Profiting off their missing brother seems a little desperate. They can’t be hurting for cash.”

  Isaac shrugs. “Who knows? Hotels and properties along the Gulf Coast have lost business, what with Katrina and the oil spill. And I get the sense the sisters like attention. They have a lot of . . . family pride.” He makes his final pitch. “I need a writer who can speak their language, and the twins are big fans of Sophisticate—”

  I’m too tired to hold this remark against him. “Good luck, okay?”

  Before I can make a full escape, Isaac leaps after me with the folder of articles. “Don’t forget your info packet.”

  I grab the folder and hurry out into the maze of Meyers Rowe cubicles. One more metaphorical door closing. Give me a window and I might jump out.

  • • •

  WHEN I GET HOME that afternoon, my yard is curiously devoid of leaves. Someone has raked. Mason, possibly, or else my retired neighbor across the street. There’s also a pumpkin on my front steps, and I remember that Halloween is approaching. I sit out on the stoop for a while, holding the pumpkin in my lap like a cat. They want me to keep fighting, all these people in my life. To carry on, day after day after day. But for what? A job I’ve grown weary of and may very well lose? A house so quiet and full of objects from another time that it feels like a museum? Sometimes these things aren’t enough to fight for.

  When the sun goes down, I head inside. Go through the motions of living. Shoes on the mat, coat in the closet. Heat up a pizza and force myself to eat. Slip into my pajamas, brush my teeth. And then I enter Keegan’s room.

  It’s abnormally clean, but the smell is almost right, the light from his airplane lamp warm and sleepy and inviting. He doesn’t seem so far away tonight.

  Maybe I can bring him closer.

  From the toy box, I select his three favorite stuffed animals—Dinosaur, Fat Teddy, and Ringo the Rhino—and arrange them around his pillow. I peel back the blankets and untuck them at the corners, forming a little cocoon in the middle just big enough for a four-year-old to snuggle inside. I flip off the lights. Sit down on the edge of his bed. Watch swirls of glow-in-the-dark adhesive stars appear on the walls around me.

  “Shall we sing a bedtime song? You are my sunshine, my
only sunshine.” My voice is low, half song, half whisper. “You make me happy when skies are gray. You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you . . .” I don’t sing the final line. “Mommy used to sing that to you when you were a baby.”

  The stuffed animals stare at me, stiff and unblinking.

  I sing another song, one of Keegan’s favorites from school that I mangle the words to. He would’ve hated that. My inability to remember lyrics correctly always drove him nuts.

  But I won’t let myself think in the past tense right now.

  “Time for bed, buddy,” I say, patting the covers. “Should we do a monster check?” I get down on my hands and knees and look under the bed. “Nope, nothing there. Looks good. Now we’ll check the closet.” I slide open the closet door. “Hmm, any monsters in here?” I peer into the dark space, push aside a few hangers. “Just clothes, I think we’re—” Behind me, a sound.

  I stop, my head still in the closet, and listen.

  A stirring of sheets from the bed. A child sighing, as if in sleep.

  He’s there, I think, not daring to breathe. This is real.

  I turn around very, very slowly and face his bed.

  It’s empty.

  “Keegan?”

  I wait, but there’s no answer. No movement, no sound, just the three stuffed animals huddled around the pillow in the exact same positions where I left them. Is my mind playing tricks on me? But I have to trust myself, have to believe in my own senses. I felt something. Still feel it. An electricity in my body. Hope crackling through my veins.

  “I’m right here, baby. Mama’s right here.”

  Still nothing. The quiet is crazy-making. I heard him, didn’t I? Heard something.

  I plant myself next to his bed, eyes sweeping around the room for anything out of place, any sign that I’m not alone in here. Because I don’t want to be alone in here.

  “Okay, Kee,” I murmur. “I’ll just wait. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”