by Shirley Jump
But for the first time since he’d gone into photography, the satisfaction of a job well done wasn’t there. Every time he looked at the photos of the grizzled, tough fisherman, he saw instead images of cypress trees, Spanish moss and a stream that moved so slowly he’d have sworn it was standing still.
And in every frame, he was reminded of Marjo.
When you find something that gives you family, you stick with it.
He kept scrolling through the thumbnails of the digital camera’s memory, through the pictures of Indigo, the opera house and then, near the end, the close-up of Marjo that Gabriel had taken that first day by the bayou.
He touched the screen with a finger, tracing the outline of her lips, curved up into a smile. Against the green of the bayou, her blue eyes were ten times more vibrant.
“It’s good to see you,” Faye said, coming up behind him. She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a tight, quick hug. In the background he could hear Lizzie, his newborn niece, cooing in the playpen in the living room.
A pang went through Paul’s heart. He had missed Faye and her family more than he’d thought. All this living out of a backpack, crashing at a friend’s house whenever he was in New York for a meeting with his editors, the constant grind of shoot after shoot, had finally taken its toll.
Either that or the days spent in Indigo had created a craving inside him for something more than what he already had. What that something was, he had no idea.
Paul rubbed at his neck. Whatever this feeling was, it was temporary. He’d go on to Tibet in a few days and be back to normal.
“Hey, who’s this?” Faye asked, pointing at Marjo’s picture.
“Someone I met in Indigo.”
“Someone special?”
“Someone who lives in Louisiana, which is where I don’t,” he said, closing the subject.
“Yet,” Faye said, grinning.
“Never. It’s nice to be back here, Faye.” After he’d sold his house in the divorce, Paul had taken Faye up on her offer to move into her spare bedroom. He knew she’d offered because she wanted to take care of him, to help him nurse his broken heart.
But he hadn’t needed Florence Nightingale. All he’d needed was a few assignments from World, along with some freelance corporate work, and he was gone again, happier by far when he was on a plane than when he was wandering Faye and John’s four-bedroom Dutch Colonial.
Or at least it used to be that way. But when he’d walked into her house three days ago and inhaled the scent of fresh-baked bread, baby powder and something else he couldn’t define, he’d felt an unfamiliar warmth spread through his chest.
“I’m glad I came,” he added, meaning it, though at the same time reminding himself not to get too comfortable. “I needed to spend some time with my sister.”
She arched a brow in surprise. “Is that you telling me I was right?”
He gave her a grin. “If I did, would you ever let me live it down?”
“Of course not, big brother.” She gave him a light jab, then plopped into the seat beside him. As she did, her foot hit his backpack, sending the envelope Marjo had given him tumbling to the floor. “Hey, what’s this?”
“I don’t know. I never looked.” He didn’t tell Faye that he couldn’t look. That merely opening the folder on the plane had caused him to miss that tiny spot in the bayou more than he’d expected.
So he’d left it in his bag, figuring once he was back in the old groove again, he would have enough distance between him and Indigo to flip through whatever it was Marjo had given him.
Yeah. Five days now, and he had yet to find that distance.
“Who’s it from?” Faye asked.
“A friend.”
A corner of Faye’s mouth turned up. “I know that look. It’s from that woman in the pictures, isn’t it?” She danced the envelope back and forth, her blue eyes taunting. “Is it love letters?”
“Actually, yes, but they’re not Marjo’s. They’re our aunt Amelie’s.”
“Our…” Faye’s voice trailed off and she took a peek inside the envelope. “Holy cow, you’re right. And you haven’t read them?”
“Not yet.”
“Are you kidding me? Paul, you have the will-power of an ox, I swear. How could you not look?” She withdrew the sheaf of letters, the paper fragile and tea-stained with age. “I’d be dying of curiosity.”
“Which is why they’re in my hands instead of yours. You can’t even resist peeking at your Christmas presents.” He gave her a good-natured grin.
“You aren’t the least bit curious?” She read through the first few pages, skimming over the sentences. “Wow, Paul. This is incredible.”
“I’m sure it is.” He opened his e-mail program, intending to zap the proofs over to his editor.
Faye put a hand on his screen. “No, I mean really incredible. It’s like opening a door to the past. Listen to this.”
Faye began to read the letters, which were written in French. Although some of the expressions were new to Paul, he understood the sentiment, if not the exact translation.
“‘My dearest Alexandre,
“‘Mama has forbidden me from seeing you again, but she can’t stop my heart from loving you. You have brought a sunshine to my days that I have never known before, a new song to my voice. Meeting you has changed everything—
“‘Everything.
“‘I wish to see you again. Soon. My darling, I can not wait for the sun to set, the moon to rise, for another day to pass so that I know I am closer to the day when we will meet again.
“‘Until then, remember I am yours, always.
“‘Amelie.’”
Faye looked up from the letter and Paul could swear he saw a tear glistening in her eye. “That’s so sweet, don’t you think?”
“Only a woman would think so—”
She swatted him. Hard. “You don’t have a romantic bone in your body.”
“I do, too.”
“Oh, yeah? Then prove it.” She thrust the sheaf of papers into his hands. “Read these.”
“I don’t—”
“You do, too, need to read them. For Pete’s sake, Paul, you can’t go through your life believing that happily-ever-after is only something that happens in Disney movies. You’ll end up a hermit living in some ramshackle place in the middle of nowhere, wearing the same ratty sweater every day and muttering to yourself.”
“Thanks for the vision of my future, my psychic friend.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “Read them. Or I’ll stop feeding you.”
“Hey, that’s not playing fair,” he called after her retreating figure. Faye was a damned good cook, something he’d forgotten in the time he’d been gone. Now that he’d been back at her house for a few days, he could already feel a tightening of his waistline from too many second helpings.
A second later he heard his sister in the nursery, cooing to the baby. He rose, taking the pile of papers with him, and crossed to the sunroom. Outside, fall was in full swing, the trees nearly bare now in the cool temperatures. This was a world away from the lush, humid bayou he’d left last week.
He settled into one of the padded wicker chairs, then started to read, working his way chronologically through the stack.
With each letter, he traced the story of Alexandre and Amelie, the same tale that Marjo had told him. Only, with the parchment-thin papers in his hands, the centuries-old ink fading on the pages, it all seemed so much more real.
Paul was a visual man, and this evidence of his ancestral roots suddenly drove home the reality of what Marjo had told him.
These people had lived. Loved. Died. And they’d left behind a building that had been passed down from one generation to another, because they’d believed in their family, in continuing the legacy they had started so many years ago.
And ended when it got to him.
Faye came into the sunroom and sat on the cushioned wicker sofa, the baby on her lap. She bounced the baby on one kne
e, which made Lizzie laugh and the slight wisp of blond curls on her head blow in the breeze. Faye gave Paul an expectant look. “Well?”
“Well what?” he said, feigning innocence.
“I’m making steak and potatoes for dinner,” Faye said. “Or I could serve Alpo.”
He chuckled. Knowing Faye, she would leave him a can of dog food on the counter. When they’d been kids, playing practical jokes on each other had been de rigeur. Paul held up the papers he’d just finished reading. “This is a hell of a story.”
“In other words, I was right.”
He gave her a grin. “Okay, you were right.”
She leaned down and pressed a kiss to Lizzie’s head, pausing a moment to inhale her baby scent. A sharp pain hit Paul in the chest—
Jealousy.
He wanted a little of that—that look, that contentment—for himself. He shook off the thoughts. All he needed to do was to get back to work and the feeling would go away.
Only, he had been back at work for a few days now, and if anything, he was more unhappy than before. Papoose’s words nagged at him, intertwining with memories of Indigo and Marjo. Was the family Papoose had talked about possible for a man like him?
“Will you think about the rest?” Faye asked. “Settling down? Giving me some nieces and nephews to spoil ruthlessly? I still need to get back at you for that drum set you sent to Lizzie.”
“One step at a time, sis. I read the letters. That was a start. It’s not so easy for me, you know.”
“Because you were the older one.” Her gaze softened. “You went through more.”
“There wasn’t anything to go through, Faye. Dad worked all over Canada. Mom made her bedroom into a prison.”
“Uh-huh.” Faye crossed her arms over her chest. “And you don’t think that might have skewed the way you look at marriage and family in any way?”
“Of course not.” He paused. “Okay, maybe a bit.”
“We didn’t have the best example of marriage or family life. The only time we had anything resembling a family was when the aunts and uncles came over, but that was temporary, and then it was closed doors and absent parenting all over again. You had to be the grown-up, when you weren’t grown up yet yourself.”
He thought of Marjo then, how she had been left to raise Gabriel on her own, only under more tragic circumstances. Was it possible that the two of them had the same skewed view of family and relationships? That each of them pushed away the very thing they craved?
And yet, Faye had turned out okay, ending up happily married. Perhaps there was some key he was missing, a key Faye had clearly found.
“Why do you always say things that make me think?” he said to his sister.
“Because that’s my job as a woman,” she teased. “So what are you going to do now?”
Paul looked out over the cold, fall landscape, nearly devoid of green, already hinting at the bitter white winter ahead. It wasn’t the temperature he was worried about. It was something else that he was afraid was going to freeze if he didn’t get back to Indigo.
He rose, leaving the packet of letters on the coffee table for Faye to read, too. “I’m going to tie up a few loose ends.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
PAUL PUSHED the doorbell of the massive white Colonial he used to own, then waited, sure that when the door was opened, he’d be sent packing. And probably deserve it, too.
“Paul!” Diane’s voce was friendly, not accusatory. He’d expected his ex-wife to react differently, but clearly, he hadn’t known her as well as he’d thought. She opened the door wide, and waved him inside. “Come on in.”
Diane looked nearly as young as she had the day they’d dissolved their marriage fifteen years ago. Her blond hair was a bit lighter and cut in a bob, her eyes had laugh lines that hadn’t been there before, but otherwise, she hadn’t changed much.
“How are you?” she asked.
“The same. More or less.”
“Still a man of few words, I see.” She gave him a good-natured grin as she led him down the hall and into the formal living room.
Once they were seated on the plush velvet sofas, Diane indicated a pile of World magazines on the end table. “I see your pictures from time to time. I even have a subscription.”
“Really?” She had never taken that much interest in his career when they were married, mainly because the travel he did had become a bone of contention between them. “You surprise me.”
“I guess I started it because I wanted to see what stole you from me,” she said, toying with one of the magazines. “And after a while, I understood.”
“Diane…”
“No, don’t feel bad. I’m okay with it, really. And I understand now.”
“You do?” He’d expected her to be unwelcoming, distant. After all, he’d been the one who had deserted her, and their marriage. He’d never have thought that she would understand why.
“It wasn’t anything you had against me,” she said. “It was simply that the call of the story was stronger than anything you felt for me and our marriage. We never talked about it.” She sighed. “We never talked at all, and maybe if we had, it might have changed things. Or maybe we just weren’t right for each other and were trying to shove square pegs into holes.”
Diane was right. Always, it had been the story that had nagged at him whenever he’d been in this house. He’d felt as if he were only doing time until he could head off into the jungle or wherever the story was, camera in hand. “I never meant to hurt you. I should have been a better husband.”
Diane rose, reached out and placed a hand over his. “It’s okay. We were young and we rushed into things.”
They had, indeed. He’d been looking, he supposed, for someone to care for him, after so many years of worrying about Faye and his parents.
“We should have talked,” Paul said. “Actually, I should have.”
Diane smiled. “It’s not exactly one of your strong points. You can speak a novel’s worth of words with your pictures, but when it comes to relationships, you just don’t know how to articulate your feelings.”
Was it the same for Marjo? Should he have opened up and shared his feelings with her?
“Are you happy now?” he asked his ex-wife. “Really happy?”
“Yes. Very.” Diane’s gaze went to a photograph that hung on the wall. It featured her and her husband, dressed in matching khaki pants and white shirts, smiling on the white sands of a Caribbean beach. A soft smile crossed her face as she looked at the photo—the same smile Paul had seen on Luc Carter’s face whenever he looked at his fiancée. The same one he’d seen on Alain Boudreaux when the police chief talked about Sophie.
Paul envied them all. Although he was glad to see Diane so happy, a little part of him felt as if she had something he could never hope to experience.
“And,” she added, pressing a hand to her abdomen, “we’ll be having an addition to our family this spring.”
“You’re pregnant?”
She nodded, joy suffusing her face. “Due May first.”
“That’s wonderful, Diane.” He meant it. She deserved to be happy.
“You could do the same, you know. Meet the right woman, settle down.”
Paul rose from the sofa and crossed to the window, watching a trio of birds dipping into a wooden bird-feeder hanging from the old oak in the backyard. The yard was better tended than when he’d lived here. Shrubbery now ringed the old tree, with colorful, hardy mums circling the base. The sight made him think of Marjo’s camellias. “I think I already have.”
“Really?”
He turned back to her. “Anyway, I came by because I wanted to apologize. A long overdue apology.”
“Apologize? For what?”
“For marrying you and then pretty much ruining your life.”
“Oh, it wasn’t so bad being married to you,” she said. “I like to look at it as a…learning experience.”
Paul chuckled. “That’s an interesting per
spective on divorce. Maybe you should go on Dr. Phil.”
Diane crossed the room and stood beside him. “When I married you, Paul, I did it because I wanted to get out of my parents’ house. I thought putting a ring on my finger would make me grown up. But it didn’t. All it did was push me into a role I wasn’t ready for yet. You weren’t the only one who made a bad choice.” She took in a breath and for a moment watched the birds out the window. “From that experience, I learned a lot about what I did want out of life. After our divorce, I went back to college, finished my degree in communications and worked my way up in an ad agency. I learned who I was, way before I met Dave.”
“I’m happy for you.” The words were honest, true. He was happy for Diane, and wished his ex-wife nothing but the best.
“If you have found the right woman, Paul, you should go after her, and never let her go. And take my advice—leave your camera behind.”
“Leave my camera…?”
“I think that’s one of those things you’re going to have to figure out for yourself, Paul.”
As he left his ex-wife’s house a few minutes later, Paul realized he had just closed one chapter of his life. It was time to start the next one.
Assuming, of course, that it wasn’t too late.
WHEN PAUL GOT BACK to Faye’s, he made a call to Joe. Then, as he logged on to the Internet with his laptop to book a flight, he found himself Googling Indigo and followed a link to a news story in New Iberia’s online paper.
He read the small headline once. Twice. Dread filled him as he scanned the paragraphs below.
He didn’t have to worry about being too late—he already was.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MARJO SPENT the day after the fire picking through the rubble. She found a few photos, charred around the edges, a cushion from one of the armchairs, the pink fabric turned a sad, dark gray, a file cabinet that had remained oddly untouched while everything else in the office had disintegrated. Nearly the entire contents of the funeral home were either burned or so blackened and infused with the smell of smoke that they were unusable.
