The Legacy

by Shirley Jump

  Marjo opened her mouth to protest, then realized she couldn’t even lie to herself. “Yeah, I am. It’s not working very well, though. Maybe I need a brain transplant.”

  Cally laughed. “Didn’t you tell him how you felt before he left?”

  “I was going to. I even went over to his room at La Petite Maison with this cool little speech all worked out. I had visual aids and everything.” Cally raised her eyebrows. “No, not the kind of visual aids you’re thinking of, though maybe those might have worked better. I took along the love letters of Alexandre and Amelie, thinking I could just casually mention how romantic the letters were, and that being at the opera house with him had ignited these feelings…”

  “But?”

  “But I didn’t. Good thing, too, because he made it very clear that he was leaving. That Indigo, and me, were a temporary layover in his travels.”

  “Then he’s an idiot, because in my opinion, you—and me—are the best catches in this entire bayou, and any man who can’t see that doesn’t deserve us.” Cally clinked her bottle against Marjo’s. “So there.”

  Marjo laughed. “You do know how to make me feel better.”

  “It’s the beer talking. Makes me all self-righteous.”

  “Well, despite my deplorable love life, one that I don’t need, I might add, I’m glad to see everything finally moving forward with the opera house. The CajunFest is all set to happen on Saturday.”

  The workers Paul had hired had been working all week. The plumbing updates were done, the chairs had been fixed and an air-conditioning system had been installed, which would provide a welcome respite for the festival-goers from the heat outside.

  “And not a moment too soon. This town could use the boost.” Cally spun the bottle between her hands. “What I’m worried about is afterward.”

  “Afterward? Far as I know, we don’t have any other events planned.”

  “I meant, with you. This festival and the restoration have consumed all your spare time for months. What’s going to happen when it’s all over?”

  The thought had occurred to Marjo, too. What would she do when all this was over, and she was left with a big hole in her life? She’d be alone again, with nothing to fill her days but the funeral home and Gabriel. “I’ll still have my work at the funeral home.”

  “Is that what you want to do?”

  What Marjo wanted hadn’t been a consideration since she’d turned nineteen. Her life had been built around responsibilities. The business. Gabriel. “It’s what my parents expected. What they needed me to do.”

  “No. They needed you to keep it open to provide an income for you and Gabriel. I’d say you’ve done your duty, Marjo. You’ve been there for sixteen years. They didn’t say you had to run it forever or to make it your whole life.” She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. From far off, a bullfrog let out his loud, belching song. “Do you think they’d be happy if they could see you so unhappy?”

  Marjo was ready to fire back an argument, to disagree with Cally as she had a hundred times before. But she hesitated and then shook her head. “No, they wouldn’t.”

  “Then hire a funeral director and go work in the opera house. Make it a center for music once again. Sing your heart out every day, and find the happiness that you deserve, my friend.” Cally reached out and grasped her hand, her palm cool against Marjo’s. “It’s your turn now.”

  “What about Gabriel?” Marjo worried her bottom lip. For so many years, that had been her number-one concern. What about Gabriel?

  “He’s getting older, in case you haven’t noticed. He doesn’t need you as much as you think. And besides, you don’t have to sell the business—you just don’t have to run it. Gabriel can work with Henry as long as he needs the job, and you can stop worrying so much.”

  Worry. It had become such a constant companion she couldn’t imagine a life without it.

  She allowed herself a moment to think about the audience in the bar a few nights earlier. When she’d gotten up on the stage and started singing, a butterfly had taken wing inside her chest.

  For too long she’d suppressed that side of herself. But in Skeeter’s, people had responded to her song, and the praise had reawakened her long-neglected desire to sing professionally. Not just sing occasionally with the Indigo Boneshakers, but to do it every day of her life.

  “Maybe…” Marjo said, not making any promises, “I’ll give it a shot. After the festival. And only on a part-time basis.”

  “Wow. You’re agreeing with me?” Cally winked. “Must be the beer talking.”

  “Speaking of beer, this was a good idea.” Marjo hoisted the her bottle in appreciation. “Thanks for this, and for being such a good friend.”

  “Aw, you’d do it for me. And you have, a hundred times over. You’re the kind of friend who’s there whenever someone needs you.” Cally rose and gave her a quick hug. “Especially when someone has just had their heart stomped on by Remy Theriot. Remember when he dumped me last year, right in front of the Blue Moon? He tells me, and half of Indigo, that he’d only asked me out to bide his time until a better offer came along. Heck, I was the better offer. He was just too stupid to realize it.”

  Marjo opened her mouth to agree, but before she could speak, a car careened into the driveway. Anything moving that fast in the bayou meant one of two things: a lost and panicked out-of-towner or a life-and-death situation. Jenny leaped from the car, leaving the engine running. “Marjo! Come quick!”

  Marjo was already halfway down the stairs, Cally close behind. “What happened?”

  “The funeral home—it’s on fire!”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BEFORE JENNY COULD finish her sentence, Marjo was in the car, her chest so constricted with worry she doubted she’d ever breathe normally again. Cally climbed in, too, then they took off down the road, Jenny’s two-door Escort squealing around the curves.

  The sky above the funeral home had turned blood-orange, as if the sun had descended on the bayou. For a heartbeat, Marjo told herself it wasn’t fire. It was a sunset. Something, anything but her family’s business going up in smoke.

  But as Jenny stopped the car, Marjo knew. This was no sunset. No happy ending. It was devastation.

  “Oh, my God,” Cally said. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  Dancing, vibrant flames licked at the timber construction, climbed the pillars, crossed the roof. Once they’d engulfed the building, they leaped over to the sign, devouring one letter at a time as if erasing the Savoy Funeral Home.

  Marjo was out of the car before Jenny put it in Park. She ran toward the scene, screaming, though she couldn’t hear her own voice. Luc Carter caught her in his arms, holding her back. “There’s nothing you can do, Marjo. It’s gone.”

  “Gabriel! Henry!” The words were torn from her throat. She lunged forward again, but Luc held tight.

  “They’re okay,” he said, repeating the words until they finally overrode her panic and sank into her mind. She looked up at him, waited for him to say the words one more time, in case she’d misheard. When he did, relief swamped her senses and she sagged against his chest. “They got out, Marjo. Don’t worry.”

  She thanked God for that, and also that there’d been no loved ones inside the funeral home. It had been a slow week, which she now saw as a blessing.

  Tears threatened but she brushed them away, trying to think, to determine the next step. For a moment she drew a blank, seeing nothing but the orange flames waving at her, taunting her.

  Stop the fire. Save the building.

  She pivoted, still secure in Luc’s grasp, and saw dozens of Indigo residents dousing the flames with water. Chuck Bell, the head of the volunteer fire department, was heading up a bucket brigade and directing Indigo’s sole fire truck into place on the other side. Alain was also there, helping to coordinate the effort, shouting orders and waving in the fire trucks from St. Martinville and New Iberia. His face was blackened from soot, his hair gray with ash.
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br />   “Where are they?” she asked Luc. “Where’s Gabriel?”

  “Doc Landry’s looking after them. The new doc is way down the bayou, at the Landreaux place.”

  “Where did Doc Landry take my brother?” Marjo asked, needing to see Gabriel with her own eyes, to be sure he was okay. She couldn’t lose him.

  Luc pointed to the left. “They’re over on the Melancons’ porch, right next door.”

  Marjo broke away, crossing the divide between the two properties in seconds. Her throat, her lungs burned. She heard Cally call out to her, but she didn’t stop.

  Finally she stumbled up the steps, eyes watering, gaze darting wildly from one corner of the porch to the other. At first, she didn’t see anyone, and panic clawed at her.

  Then, a familiar shoe, a well-worn pair of jeans. Gabriel. Henry.

  Henry was sitting up against the side of the house, his skin and clothes as black as a chimney, an oxygen mask clutched to his face. Gabriel had retreated into himself, standing against the edge of the porch railing, as far from the doctor and Henry as he could get. His arms were crossed tight over his chest, and he was rocking back and forth. He, too, was blackened, his hair a mess, his arms dark.

  “Gabriel!” Marjo rushed to him, pulling her brother into a grateful hug. He smelled of wood and smoke, but most of all of home. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded, stiff in her arms for one long moment before finally relaxing.

  “That boy saved my life,” Henry said, pulling off the oxygen mask. Doc Landry gave him a stern look, then gently pushed the mask back into place. “Came right in and dragged me out, he did.”

  “You didn’t!”

  Gabriel nodded again, clearly proud of himself. “I did. Ran right—”

  “But you could have died!” Her voice rose in pitch as the possibilities flashed through her mind. “Don’t ever do something that stupid again!”

  The words were out before she could stop them, brought about by the rush of panic. Gabriel recoiled, as if she’d struck him. “You think I’m stupid?”

  “No, no, Gabe. I—”

  “I’m not stupid!” he shouted back. “You don’t think I can make my own decisions. But I’m smart, Marjo. I am.” He jerked out of her arms, then turned and ran down the steps.

  The tears Marjo had held back earlier threatened again. She pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes and forced herself to remain where she was, instead of running after Gabriel.

  Right now, she’d only be making a bad situation worse.

  When Gabriel got like this, there was no arguing with him. He could be as stubborn as a weed. So she watched him go, helpless, her heart cracking.

  “He’s a brave boy,” Henry said, grabbing for Marjo’s hand. “Don’t be so hard on him.”

  “He could have died. I can’t lose him.” She shook her head, wiping at the tears in her eyes. “I just couldn’t bear it.”

  “He’s a grown man now, Marjo,” Henry said, again lowering the oxygen mask and ignoring Doc Landry’s glare. “You gotta trust him to know what to do.”

  “Run into a burning building? Henry, that’s a lot different from just staying out too late with Darcy.” Suddenly exhausted, Marjo sank to the porch floor beside the older man. He’d worked at the funeral home longer than she could remember and had always been a friend to the family. He’d been so patient, guiding and teaching Gabriel over the years. In fact, she considered Henry more of an uncle than an employee. She reached over and gave him a hug. “I’m glad you’re all right. Really glad.”

  “Now there, Marjo,” Henry said. “Don’t you start crying or you’ll make me cry too.”

  She laughed and pulled back, wiping at her eyes. “I’m not crying, I’m watering the flowers,” she said, using the old joke they’d exchanged during especially emotional moments at the funeral home.

  “Gabriel is gonna be just fine,” Henry said, reading her mind. “He’s got a good head on his shoulders.”

  In some ways, yes. Gabriel dressed to suit the weather, knew how to do laundry and dishes and had never crossed a street, even in quiet-as-a-tomb Indigo, without first looking both ways. But he also forgot to eat sometimes, or left the water running or lost his house key.

  Henry patted her hand. “Don’t worry so much.”

  “All I can do is worry.” She leaned forward, peeking through the slats on the porch at the charred funeral home. The fire still seemed unreal.

  But the funeral home was gone. Three generations of Savoy history, destroyed by flames in minutes. It was as if a part of herself had been ripped out. Memories flashed through her mind of her parents, Henry, Gabriel. Helping her dad after school, playing cards with Henry during downtime, planting flowers around the outside of the building with Gabriel. “Without Savoy,” Marjo said, “I have to worry about putting food on my table. And yours.”

  “Me? I’m just fine. I’ve always been good about putting some of my paychecks aside, and now I’ve got enough that I can retire. I was thinking about doing it anyway. All I needed was a good kick in the rear.”

  She watched the fire trucks hose down the building, knowing there would be nothing left. “That’s a hell of a kick in the rear.”

  Henry chuckled, then replaced the oxygen mask. “What about you?”

  “I’ll rebuild,” she said, resolute, yet at the same time knowing it wouldn’t be the same. “We’ll get the Savoy up and running once the insurance money comes in. And get back to work.” The prospect of doing that seemed daunting, and she wasn’t sure she had the heart for it. It had to be the smoke, the shock that had her feeling more indigo blue than sunshine yellow.

  “Take some advice from an old man who should have quit earlier to smell the roses,” Henry said, his hand closing over hers. “Leave the Savoy behind. Let ’em put a gas station on that land if they want. And you go back to your singing.”

  “But Gabriel—”

  “Will be fine if you quit trying to take such good care of him. The boy is ready to jump out of the nest, Marjo. Let him go.”

  But as Marjo bade Henry goodbye and went off in search of Gabriel, her doubts began to multiply. For a moment she wished Paul were here.

  She searched up and down the streets of Indigo, but Gabriel was gone. She headed back to the funeral home and was immediately pulled into the welcoming embrace of the residents of Indigo, who surrounded the dying building, mourning the loss with her.

  Her livelihood was gone, her brother wasn’t speaking to her and the one man she’d started to care about had headed off to the far ends of the world to take photographs.

  As Grandma Savoy would have said, things couldn’t have gotten worse if she’d woken up to a spider in her gumbo.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  IT TOOK TWO days for Paul to catch a break. The fishermen Joe had sent him to photograph were indeed wary of the media, even someone from their own province. He’d worked his way down the list of the men, trying to get any of them to share their story. It wasn’t until he finally tracked down the last man, who was working the docks while his broken arm healed, that he got the piece his editor had sent him to find.

  “You understand what it’s like to be part of a crab boat?” Papoose, as he was called, because he’d been small enough to fit in the pocket of his mother’s housecoat when he was born, settled his extra-large frame onto the captain’s chair of the Ocean Queen. “It’s not like no other job.”

  Growing up in the area, Paul was familiar with the shellfish industry. Men signed on for the life-threatening crab trips—the most dangerous job in the world, the experts said—because they had the potential to make a year’s salary in a few days. “Is it because of the danger?” Paul asked. “The excitement?”

  Papoose snorted, dug around in his shirt pocket and came up with a cigar stub. “Danger’s always on the boat. Get your leg torn off by a rope, get yourself washed over by a storm. It’s not the danger that makes crabbin’ different. It’s the men.”

  For the first time eve
r in an interview, Paul lowered his camera, even his notepad, and sat on the edge of the boat. “What do you mean?”

  “Crabbers, they’re all about takin’ care of each other,” Papoose said as he lit the cigar stub and puffed away. “Off the boat, they may hate each other, knock out some teeth in a bar over a woman, but put ’em on a wet deck in the middle of crab season, and you’ll find one man jumpin’ overboard to save another. When we’re out there, we’re family. Good, bad, ugly or wet. Family.” He gestured toward Paul with the cigar. “You gonna write any of this down with that fancy pen?”

  Paul grabbed up his notepad and scribbled down his thoughts and the fisherman’s words. He snapped a few pictures of Papoose, then sat again and listened as the man told a harrowing tale of a storm, a wave and a boat that nearly sank.

  These men, he realized, worked harder than anyone he’d ever met. They worked in an industry that was fraught with danger, tight competition and an enemy larger than them—the sea.

  His thoughts went to the bayou, to the determination of the people he had met in Indigo. In some ways, they were like the family on Papoose’s crab boat. Only they were scrambling to hold on to a past that the present kept trying to absorb.

  One thing Papoose had said to him remained long after the scent of the cigar had been washed from Paul’s clothes. He’d asked Papoose if it was the money that kept him going back to the boats, the docks.

  The man had thought for a long while, then shook his head. “When you find something that gives you family, you stick with it. I don’t care who you are or where you find it. These guys, these boats, they’re mine. And I’m coming back until I can’t come back no more.”

  Now, in the dining room of his sister’s house, Paul flipped through the slide show of images on his computer. He’d nabbed some really great photographs, the kind that would make his editor sing.