by Liz Talley
Her mother took another sip of tea, and Renny noted her hands quivered. For another long moment, her mother stared out the window at the crepe myrtles still staggered in blooms on the trees. Finally, her gaze returned to Renny’s. “You mean the letters.”
“Yeah, the letters he sent me. The phone calls he made. Those little things that said the opposite of what you told me. He didn’t abandon me. He didn’t leave me behind like you wanted me to believe.”
“But, yet, you believed it. Pretty easily if I remember.”
Renny flinched and the hot tea she balanced on her knee spilled on her jeans. “Only because I trusted you. I was hurt and it was easy to believe he’d washed his hands of me, of Bayou Bridge. You said you’d heard him say as much with your own two ears.”
Her mother sighed. “You didn’t trust him for good reason. He wasn’t reliable. He was a boy—an irresponsible, spoiled boy who didn’t have any of your best interests at heart. He wanted you like you were a thing to be owned. Like something he could collect and place on his shelf next to a signed baseball or a rock he once picked up down at the bayou. I know exactly who he was, and I knew he’d take everything you were and smother it beneath his ego. Men like that don’t care for anyone but themselves. I couldn’t allow him or the Dufrene family do that to you.”
“Do what to me?”
“What was done to me.” Her mother thunked the saucer and cup onto the tray. “I wasn’t going to let you be duped and then tossed aside like trash in a gutter.”
“You projected what happened to you with my father onto me, and that’s not fair, Mom. Darby loved me and you lied about that.” Renny sat her tea beside her mother’s with a careful hand. Her heart raced against her ribs and she felt trembly. Dealing with her mother was never easy, but the bill was past due when it came to Darby Dufrene.
“You’re damn right I lied. I’m your mother and my job is to protect you. I won’t apologize for that.” Her mother’s declaration sounded final, scratch-a-line-in-the-sand final, but Renny wasn’t finished. She needed to understand what had happened while she’d been in deep sedation, but even more, she wanted to understand what had happened when she’d woken. Understand why she had believed her mother over her boyfriend. Wait. Her husband.
Strange to acknowledge Darby as her husband, but until the divorce papers were signed, that’s legally who he was.
“Look, I’m not itching for a fight, Mom. You’ve always been a good parent to me, but I need to understand what happened all those years ago. Why did you tell Darby I wanted nothing to do with him? Why did you tell me he never came to see me? That he never called?”
Her mother stood. “I don’t have anything left to say on this matter, Renny Eva. I did what was best for you, just as the Dufrenes did what was best for their son.”
“Please, Mom. I’m an adult now, and what’s done is done. But you owe me an explanation. Surely, you can manage that much.”
Her mother closed her eyes and mouthed something, but said nothing aloud. After several seconds she gave a tremendous sigh. “Why do we have to do this? The Dufrenes are in the past, and that’s where they should stay. I knew this would happen. I knew when that boy showed up, the pot would get stirred. I’ve been having bad dreams all week. Premonitions of trouble.”
“Mom,” Renny said, allowing that one word to show her exasperation, her need, her love.
Bev scooped up her dog and stalked toward the open doorway, her kitten heels silent on the thick nearly white carpet. Renny watched with her mouth open, amazed she couldn’t budge her mother on the subject. Bev was tough, but she usually gave Renny what she asked for.
Anger boiled inside her veins. How dare her mother refuse to give an explanation? The woman had played God with her life, setting up a scam to keep two crazy-in-love kids from being together—and she’d had help from the Dufrenes. Renny didn’t know why she hadn’t seen this all along. She knew her mother disliked Darby and the effect he had on her. How many times had she been lectured about her grades, about breaking curfew, about using birth control and taking precautions from getting knocked up? And how many times had Renny ditched classes, stayed out all night drinking and carousing, and practicing safe and unsafe sex in the back of Darby’s truck?
That she hadn’t guessed her mother and Darby’s parents had plotted against them made her feel more than dumb.
Almost moronic.
Almost like one of those blinking lollipops on those retro cartoons.
Sucker.
Hopscotch came zipping back into the room and hopped onto the couch, placing a paw on Renny’s thigh. The fur ball yipped twice then took off back toward where Beverly had disappeared.
“What is it, girl? Has Timmy fallen down a well?” Renny joked to a silent room. She shoved herself off the couch with a huff and followed “Lassie” toward her mother’s bedroom where she heard several thumps and a pretty naughty word from a prayer group leader.
She walked into Bev’s bedroom where the walls were a soft Pepto and the carpet the same ecru as the sitting room. French blue silk swags swooped across the floor-length windows, giving contrast to the assorted shades of pink and cream. It was a powder-puff room for a strong-willed woman.
For a liar.
And that liar was in the huge walk-in closet standing on a step stool, shoving boxes around on the top shelf.
“We weren’t through talking,” Renny said, bracing her hands on the closet doorjamb.
Her mother didn’t look away from her rummaging—merely held up a pointer finger. Her attention lit on an old boot box that she slid her way, yanking the worn cardboard lid upward. She clasped a ragtag manila envelope and held it up. “This is it.”
“What are you doing?”
Beverly turned toward her, teetering in shoes too fussy for a woman who carried as many pounds as she did. She jabbed the envelope at Renny. “Here.”
Renny took the parcel. “What’s this?”
“Those damn letters he sent.”
Her mother climbed down, folded the step stool and stuck it in a corner. She didn’t glance toward where Renny stood holding the envelope.
“You kept them?” Renny looked down at the innocuous-looking envelope that had been stuffed so full the clasp threatened to tear.
“Mmm-hmm, though I wish to hell I’d burned them long ago. Don’t know why I kept them. I never wanted you to see them. Never wanted you to think Darby Dufrene was any kind of option for you.”
Renny looked down at the envelope then back at her mother. “We’re married.”
Beverly froze. “Who’s married?”
“Me and Darby.”
She could feel her mother’s shock. “What?”
“The night we ran off, before the accident, we got married.”
Her mother sank against the built-in shoe racks, her painted nails searching for the cushion on the built-in bench. “How? Martin said your marriage wasn’t legal. Getting married by a boat captain doesn’t hold up in a court of law, so you can’t be married. Darby’s lying to you.”
Renny shook her head. “No. I saw the marriage certificate. We were loaded on champagne, and I don’t remember much because of the accident, but it’s my signature on the license. The boat captain must have filed it in the parish court. Not sure how it worked, but according to the State of Louisiana, I’m Renny Latioles Dufrene.”
Her mother grabbed the bench with both hands, looking as if she might slide to the carpet below her. “You mean he’s known all this time and didn’t tell you? I don’t buy it. This is some kind of hoax. Some kind of way he can get back at you.”
“You’re a piece of work, Mom.”
Her mother glanced up. “What?”
“Why do you hate Darby so much? Why do you always think the worst of him?”
“Because he wanted to ruin you. He made you forget who you were, forget where you were going in life. We had a plan, remember? Valedictorian, full-ride scholarship, doctorate by the time you were thirty. But all
that went away when you met him. Suddenly, I didn’t know you anymore. You failed tests, you shirked your time at the church, and you snuck out all the time, getting into trouble, drinking, screwing around, and to make it worse, you thought he was the answer to your life...but he wasn’t.”
“You took that choice away from me. You didn’t think about me, about what I wanted. You stole that from me.” The memories of her mother stifling her came roaring back. Being with Darby had felt good...free. She’d loved Darby because he never expected anything but love from her, and her mother had done exactly what she accused Darby of—she’d crushed Renny under her ridiculous stilettos, refusing to allow Renny any control of her life.
Her mother rose. “All I thought about was you. Renny. My girl. The girl who had a future that didn’t rely on marrying a Dufrene. I didn’t want him to save you because you could damn well save yourself. And he never would have amounted to anything had he stayed. I could see the future for him clear as daybreak. He’d go to LSU, pledge some fraternity, and come back here to live on his name. He’d drag you with him, and then where would you be? You were bad for each other.”
“No, we weren’t, and it was my life. My choice. Not yours. Not Martin or Picou’s. Mine and Darby’s mistake to make on our own.” Renny couldn’t stop the tears forming in her voice. She was so incredulous she didn’t know whether to cuss or cry. So much of her past had been determined by others—and she hadn’t even realized it. What had her mother thought—she was too stupid to make good choices? Or too horny to see reason? Everyone tried to save Renny from herself, never bothering to think about whether it was right or wrong. Never seeing what they’d wrought in their own motivations—a woman who never felt good enough. “I can’t believe this. What did y’all do? Get together in some kind of secret meeting and make a deal?”
She didn’t have to wait for an answer—she saw the guilt in her mother’s eyes.
“You did. Oh, God, please tell me you didn’t take money or anything. Please don’t tell me they bribed me out of Darby’s life.”
“I didn’t take money.”
“You took something from the mighty Dufrenes. I can see it in your eyes, Mother.”
Beverly knit her lips together and averted her gaze. She said nothing.
“No need to hold back. Let’s get this all out. Tell me what the deal was.” Renny shoved a hand through her unbound hair and waited while her mother swallowed the tears that had welled in her eyes. Lacking anything else to do with her hands, she folded them across her chest, clasping the envelope over her heart, hearing the crunch of the letters within.
Everything had been a lie.
Beverly finally lifted her eyes—brown eyes filled with regret and tears. “I wanted to do what was best for you. Until I started my business, you were the only thing keeping me going. You were my sun and my moon, and when you started dating Darby, I lost you. You listened to him. You dreamed about a future with him. And when he nearly took your life, I went a little crazy.”
Renny sank onto her knees, settling in front of her mother, surrounded by the smell of Estée Lauder Beautiful and a garish arrangement of bright colors and animal prints. “But that wreck was an accident. I could have been the one driving and the results would be the same.”
“I warned you from the beginning your relationship with Darby would end badly, but that never stopped you. You did what Darby wanted you to do. You hid your acceptance letters to colleges because you wanted to go to LSU with him. You drank and smoked pot, and you became some wild creature I didn’t know. Basically, you became me at seventeen, and I wasn’t going to let history repeat itself.”
“Mom, I didn’t smoke pot. Well, once, but I wasn’t out of control.” Renny paused a moment before glancing at the envelope she’d laid beside her. “I loved him, don’t you understand?”
“All too well. It’s how I felt about your father. I rebelled against my folks and followed him from Alexandria to down here. He left me pregnant with no options, and my daddy wouldn’t let me back through their front door. He told me I was dead to him. So I couldn’t go home, and then your father took off to California with some other woman he’d met in Texas. Left me here in a crappy, roach-infested apartment with a baby and no job. Do you think I wanted that for you, Ren?”
Renny shook her head. “I know you didn’t, but that still didn’t give you the right to take away my choice.”
“Well, I thought it did when I saw you lying in that bed fighting for your life. Your leg was so badly damaged they said you’d never walk again, and that you’d be lucky to survive the next few days. Do you know what that feels like? To know he nearly destroyed you both mentally and physically? I didn’t really care what you thought was best for you. And I damn sure didn’t care what the Dufrenes thought. All I wanted was that boy away from you.”
Her mother stopped and caught Renny’s gaze. “Turns out the Dufrenes wanted the same thing.”
Renny felt the sting of tears in her eyes. The Dufrenes had always been so kind to her, but deep down she’d seen their concern over their son dating a housekeeper’s daughter. After all, Darby was a Dufrene, and their family owned half of Bayou Bridge and likely had the governor on speed dial...though in Louisiana that wasn’t always a good thing. “You’re saying they thought I wasn’t good enough?”
Her mother shrugged. “I’d hate to think that about Picou, but I wouldn’t put it past Martin. He was, after all, a social climber himself. His people were from New Iberia and not nearly as influential as the Labordes. But, honestly, I think it had more to do with Darby selling himself short, not with you, but on life in general. He was heading for disaster. Everyone saw it but Darby.”
Renny sat back on her heels and tried to wrap her mind around what her mother had revealed, and she couldn’t help but feel a renewed sense of betrayal. She’d trusted her mother and Darby’s parents, but her trust had been misplaced. Her feelings for Darby should have superseded all the doubts that had been planted, but there was truth in some of what Bev said. Besides, Renny had always wondered about Darby’s intentions. His chief desire in life at seventeen was to rankle his father. As a housekeeper’s daughter, Renny had always felt she’d been a tool in that process of vexing Martin Dufrene. “Darby could be destructive just to prove a point.”
“Two wrecked trucks in one year, a drunk and disorderly charge and a nearly dead girlfriend all seemed to point in that direction.”
“So what did they give you for keeping me away from their son?”
Her mother’s face shuttered. “I didn’t take Dufrene money if that’s what you’re implying. I have some pride.”
“Oh, I know you do, but you’re also not an idiot. Darby was drunk and that meant possible legal problems.”
“True. I was pissed and I let Martin know exactly what I wanted. His son to leave you alone, but I also wanted you taken care of. I didn’t need his money. I had insurance, thanks to the company I worked for, but I did need his influence. I wasn’t going to turn up my nose at a pointed word to the bank president or a phone call to college scholarship committees.” Beverly shrugged as if it were a most natural thing to blackmail a man for what she wanted, and though Renny didn’t approve, she guessed her mother had been forged by the fires of injustice. She knew how to survive and thrive.
“So not money, but it might as well have been.” Renny pushed herself off the plush carpet, snatching up the envelope she’d set beside her on the floor.
“Where are you going?” her mother asked, also rising.
“Home. I need time to think about this.”
“But tomorrow’s my birthday. We’re having lunch.”
“Seriously, Mom? You lay this on me, and that’s what your concern is? Your birthday?”
“Honey, I’m your mama. I did my job. What’s hard to understand about that? You were a girl, and it was a silly infatuation that would have withered.”
“I was a grown woman. Old enough to vote. Old as you were when you got pregnant
with me, so you can’t justify that decision.”
Her mother grabbed her arm as she turned. “One day, if you are lucky, you will have a child of your own, and you will know what it feels like to love someone more than you do yourself. You’ll look down at that baby sleeping in its crib and vow to do whatever it takes to keep her safe. Then, you call me and tell me what a bad mother I was for wanting to protect you.”
Renny pulled her mother’s hand from her forearm. “I’ve never doubted your love, Mother, but love doesn’t give you the right to erase what I felt. And that’s what you did. You took my love for Darby and scrubbed it out. That will never be okay.”
Her mother shook her head. “One day you’ll see why I did what I did. But first you’ll have to love with every fiber of your being.”
“Maybe I already did.”
Renny walked out of her mother’s closet, carrying words written long ago by a boy who loved her, by a man she was still tied to through marriage. She didn’t know if she could forgive her mother for taking him away, but she didn’t think she could hate her for it, either.
Much had been done in the name of love.
And somehow Renny knew she’d only scratched the surface of its power.
Hopscotch dragged a ragged stuffed bunny to the door, dropped it and barked at Renny as she walked out of her mother’s suite.
“Go see your mama, Hopscotch. She needs a friend.”
Then Renny left, wiping away silent tears streaming down her face, leaving her mother sobbing quietly in the closet.
CHAPTER SEVEN
RENNY TOOK ANOTHER SIP of the sweet chardonnay and wiped the dampness from her cheeks with a napkin. Scattered around her on the sofa were dozens of letters from Darby.
She sniffled and tore open another envelope addressed to her old house in Bayou Bridge. Even his slanted handwriting seemed desperate.
More of the same met her eyes.
I’m so worried about you.
Why won’t you talk to me?
