"Me neither. I would have sworn on a stack of wild deuces that I'd go before she did. I thought that woman would outlive most of the world; she had that much grit in her. She was like some old tree root, just clinging to the things she believed in. I couldn't move her with a herd of elephants, not an inch off her ways."
"Nor could she move you, Grandpère," I quickly replied. He shrugged.
"Well, I'm just a stupid old Cajun trapper, too dumb to know right from wrong, yet I manage to survive. But I meant what I said out there, Ruby. I'm goin' to change somethin' awful and make things right for you. I swear it," he said, holding up his right palm, blotched with grime, the finger ends stained with tobacco. His deeply serious expression dissolved into a smile. "Could you give me another bowl of this. Ain't ate somethin' this good for ages. Beats the hell out of my swamp guk," he said, and chuckled to himself, a slight whistle coming through the gaps in his teeth as his shoulders shook.
I gave him some more and then I excused myself and went back to sit beside the coffin. I didn't like being away from Grandmère Catherine's side too long. Toward evening, some of Grandpère Jack's swamp cronies arrived supposedly to offer comfort and sympathy, but they were soon all going around behind the house to drink some whiskey and smoke their rolled, dark brown cigarettes.
Father Rush, Mrs. Thibodeau, and Mrs. Livaudis remained as long as they could and then promised to return early in the morning.
"You try to get yourself some rest, Ruby dear," Mrs. Thibodeau advised. "You're going to need your strength for the difficult days ahead."
"Your Grandmère would be right proud of you, Ruby," Mrs. Livaudis added, squeezing my hand gently. "Now look after yourself."
Mrs. Thibodeau raised her eyes and gazed toward the rear of the house where the laughter was growing louder by the minute.
"If you need us, you just holler," she said.
"You're always welcome at my house," Mrs. Livaudis added before leaving.
Grandmère Catherine's friends and some of the neighbors had cleaned up and had put everything away before they had left. There was nothing for me to do but kiss Grandmère Catherine good night and go to sleep myself. I heard Grandpère Jack and his trapper friends howl and laugh long into the night. In a way I was grateful for the noise. I lay awake for hours, wondering if there was anything else I could have done to have helped Grandmère Catherine, but then I thought, if she couldn't help herself, what could I do?
Finally, my eyelids became so heavy, I had to let them close. Someone was laughing in the darkness. I heard what sounded like Grandpère's howl and then all was still; and sleep, like one of Grandmère Catherine's miracle medicines, brought me some hours of relief and eased the pain in my heart. In fact, when I awoke early the next morning, I felt so relieved from my deep repose, that for a few moments, I actually believed all that had happened had been some terrible nightmare. In moments, I expected to hear Grandmère Catherine's footsteps as she made her way down to the kitchen to start our breakfast.
But I heard nothing but the soft, sweet sounds of the morning birds. Slowly, the reality of what had occurred settled in again and I sat up, wondering where Grandpère Jack had slept when he had finally stopped cavorting with his trapper friends. When I discovered he wasn't in Grandmère Catherine's room, I thought he might have gone back into the swamp; but when I went down, I found him sprawled out on the galerie, one leg dangling over the edge of the porch floor, his head on his rolled up jacket, an empty bottle of cheap whiskey still clutched in his right hand.
"Grandpère," I said, nudging him. "Grandpère, wake up."
"Huh?" His eyes flickered open and then shut. I shook him harder.
"Grandpère, wake up. People will be arriving here any moment. Grandpère."
"What? What's that?" He kept his eyes open long enough to focus on me and then groaned and folded his body into a sitting position. "What the. . ." He looked around, saw the expression of disappointment on my face and then shook his head. "Must have just passed out with grief," he said quickly. "It can do that to you, Ruby. You think you can handle it, but it seeps into your heart and it just takes you over. That's what happened to me," he said, nodding, trying to convince himself as well as me. "I just couldn't handle the tragedy. Sorry," he said, rubbing his cheeks. "I'll go out back and wash myself with the cistern water and then come in for some breakfast."
"Good, Grandpère," I said. "Did you bring any of your other clothes?"
"Clothes? No."
I remembered there were some old things of his in a box upstairs in Grandmère's room.
"You have some clothes still here that might fit," I said. "I'll find them for you."
"Well, that's right nice of you, honey. Right nice. I can see where we're going to make out just fine. You tending after the house and me, and me trappin' and huntin' and guidin' rich city folks through the swamp. I'll make us more money than I ever did. I'll fix up everything that's broke. I'll make this house look as fresh and as new as it did the day I built it. Why, in no time, I'll change . . ."
"Meanwhile, Grandpère, you'd better go and wash like you said you would." If anything, the stench rising from his clothes and hair had grown doubly worse. "It's getting close to the time people will be coming," I said.
"Right, right." He stood up and looked with surprise at the empty whiskey bottle on the floor of the galerie. "I don't know how I got that. Must have been Teddy Turner or someone who laid it on me for a stupid joke."
"I'll throw it away for you, Grandpère," I said, picking it up quickly.
"Thank you, honey. Thank you." He stuck his right forefinger in the air and thought for a moment until it came back to him. "Wash up, that's first," he said, and stumbled off the galerie and around to the back of the house. I went upstairs and found the old carton of clothes. There were a pair of pants and a few shirts, as well as some socks buried under an old blanket. I took everything out, pressed the pants and shirt, and laid the clothes on Grandmère's bed for him.
"I think I'll do just what Catherine would tell me to do with these old clothes I'm wearing," Grandpère said after he came in from washing himself. "I'll burn them." He laughed. I told him to go up and put on the clothes I found. By the time he had come down again, I had some breakfast made and Mrs. Livaudis and Mrs. Thibodeau arrived to help set up the food for our mourners. They ignored Grandpère even though he did look like a new man washed up and in his fresh clothes.
"I got to trim my beard and hair some, Ruby," Grandpère said. "You think if I sit on a rolled over rain barrel out back you could do it for me?"
"Yes, Grandpère," I said. "I'll do it right after you finish your breakfast."
"I thank you," he said. "We're going to do just fine," he added, more for the benefit of Mrs. Thibodeau and Mrs. Livaudis than for me, I thought. "Just fine. Long as people lets us be," he added pointedly.
After he had finished eating, I took the sewing shears and chopped off as much of his long, ratty hair as I could. Much of it was matted and there were lice, so I had to shampoo him with some of Grandmère Catherine's mixture specially made to get rid of lice as well as crabs and other tiny insects, too. He sat obediently, his eyes closed, a grateful smile on his lips as I worked. I trimmed the beard and cut the excess hair out of his ears and nose. Then I trimmed his eyebrows. When I was finished and I stepped back to look at him, I was surprised and proud of how well I had done. It was possible to look at him now and see why Grandmère Catherine or any woman might have been attracted to him when he was young. His eyes still had a youthful, mirthful glint and his strong cheekbones and jaw gave his face a classic, handsome shape. He gazed at his reflection in a piece of broken glass.
"Well, I'll be. Lookee here now. Who is this? Bet you didn't know your Grandpère was a movie star," he said. "Thank you, Ruby." He slapped his hands together. "Well, I'd better go out front and greet some of the mourners, right and proper like," he decided, and went around to take a seat in one of the rockers on the galerie and play the part of
a bereaved husband, even though most everyone knew he and Grandmère Catherine hadn't lived together for years.
However, I was beginning to wonder if I couldn't help him change. Sometimes, dramatic events like this made people think harder about their own lives. I could just hear Grandmère Catherine say, "You'd have a better chance of changing a bullfrog into a handsome prince." But maybe all Grandpère Jack needed was another chance. After all, I thought as I cleaned up the gobs of matted hair that had fallen around the barrel, he's the only Cajun family I have left, like it or not.
We had just as many mourners if not more than we had the day before. A steady stream of Cajun folks came from miles and miles away to pay their last respects to Grandmère Catherine, whose reputation had spread much farther through Terrebonne Parish and the surrounding area than I had ever imagined. And so many of the people who arrived had wonderful stories to tell about Grandmère, stories about her earthy wisdom, her miraculous touch, her wonderful remedies, and her strong and always hopeful faith.
"Why, when your grandmother walked into a room of frightened, anxious people concerned over one of their loved ones, it was as if someone lit a candle in the darkness, Ruby honey," Mrs. Allard from Lafayette told me. "We're gonna miss her something terrible."
The people around her nodded and extended their condolences. I thanked them for their kind words and finally got myself up to get something to drink and nibble on some food. It never occurred to me that simply sitting by the coffin and greeting mourners would be so exhausting, but the constant emotional strain took a greater toll than I had imagined it could.
Grandpère Jack, although he wasn't drinking, was holding court vociferously on the front galerie. Every once in a while, he would give out with a shout and rant and rave about one of his pet subjects. "Those damn oil derricks poking their heads above the swamps, changing the landscape from the way it's looked for more than one hundred years, and for what? Just to make some fat Creole oil man wealthy in New Orleans. I say we burn 'em all out. I say—"
I went out back and closed the door behind me. It was nice that all these people came to show their respect and comfort us, but it was beginning to get overwhelming for me. Every time someone came over to squeeze my hand and kiss my cheek, she or he would start up the tears behind my eyes and close-my throat until it ached worse than any sore throat ever made it ache. Every muscle in my body was still rope tight from the shock of Grandmère's passing. I took a short walk toward the canal and then felt my head begin to spin.
"Oh," I moaned, bringing my hand to my forehead. But before I could fall backward, a strong pair of arms caught me and held me upright and steady.
"Easy," a familiar voice said. I let myself rest against his shoulder for a moment and then I opened my eyes and looked up at Paul. "You'd better sit down, here, by this rock," he said, guiding me to it. He and I had often sat together on that same rock and thrown little stones into the water to count the ripples.
"Thank you," I said, and let him guide me to it. He sat beside me quickly and put a blade of marsh grass in his mouth.
"Sorry I didn't come yesterday, but I thought there would be so many people around you . . ." He smiled. "Not that there aren't today. Your grandmother was a very famous and beloved woman in the bayou."
"I know. I never fully appreciated how much until now," I said.
"That's usually the way it is. We don't realize how important someone is to us until he or she is gone," Paul replied, the underlying meaning of his words telegraphed through his soft eyes.
"Oh, Paul, she's gone. My Grandmère Catherine is gone," I cried, falling into his arms and really beginning to cry. He stroked my hair back and there were tears in his eyes when I looked, as if my pain were his.
"I wish I had been here when it happened," he said. "I wish I had been right beside you."
I had to swallow twice before I could speak again. "I never wanted to send you away from me, Paul. It broke my heart to say the things I said."
"Then why did you?" he asked softly. There was so much hurt in his eyes. I could feel what it must have been like for him and I could see the tears that had emerged. It wasn't fair. Why should the two of us suffer so horribly for the sins of our parents? I thought.
"Why did you, Ruby, why?" he asked again; he begged for the answer. I could understand his turmoil. My words, words spoken right near here, were so unexpected and so abrupt, they had to have made him question reality. Anger was the only way in which he could have dealt with such a surprise, such an unreasonable surprise.
I turned away from him and bit down on my lower lip. My mouth wanted to run away with the words and exonerate me from all blame.
"It's not that I didn't love you, Paul," I began slowly. Then I turned back to him. The memories of our short-lived kisses and words of promise flitted like doomed moths to the candle of my burning despair. "And not that I still don't," I added softly.
"Then what could it have been? What could it be?" he asked quickly.
My heart, so torn by sorrow and so tired of sadness, began to thump like an oil drum, heavy, ponderous, as slowly as the dreadful drums in a funeral procession. What was more important now, I questioned: that there be truth between Paul and me, truth between two people who care for each other with such a rare love, a love that demanded honesty, or that I maintain a lie that kept Paul from knowing the sins of his father and therefore kept peace in his family?
"What was it?" he asked again.
"Let me think a moment, Paul," I said and looked away. He waited impatiently beside me. I was sure his heart was beating as quickly as mine was now. I wanted to tell Paul the truth, but what if Grandmère Catherine had been right? What if, in the long run, Paul would hate me more for being the messenger of such devastating news?
Oh, Grandmère, I thought, isn't there a time when the truth must be revealed, when lies and deceptions must be exposed? I know that when we are little, we can be left to dwell in a world of fantasy and fabrication. Maybe, it's even necessary, for if we were told some of the ugly truths about life then, we would be destroyed before we had a chance to develop the had crusts we needed to shield us from the arrows of hardship, of sadness, of tragedy, and, alas, the arrows that carried the final dark truths: grandmothers and grandfathers, mommies and daddies die, and so do we. We have to understand that the world isn't filled only with sweet sounding bells, soft, wonderful things, delightful aromas, pretty music, and endless promises. It is also filled with storms and hard, painful realities, and promises that are never kept.
Surely, Paul and I were old enough now, I thought. Surely, we could face truth if we could face deception and live on. "Something happened here a long time ago," I began, "that forced me to say the words I said to you that day."
"Here?"
"In our bayou, our little Cajun world," I said, nodding. "The truth about it was quickly smothered because it would have brought great pain to many people, but sometimes, perhaps always, when the truth is buried this way, it has a way of coming out, of forcing itself upward into the sunlight again.
"You and I," I said, looking into his confused eyes, "are the truths that were once buried, we are in the sunlight."
"I don't understand, Ruby. What lies? What truths?"
"No one back then when the truth was buried ever dreamed you and I would come to love each other in a romantic sense," I said.
"I still don't understand, Ruby. How could anyone have known years ago about us anyway? And why would it matter then if they had?" he asked, his eyes squinting with confusion.
It was so hard to come right out and say it simply. Somehow, I felt that if Paul came to the understandings himself, if the words were formed in his mind and spoken by him instead of formed in my mind and coming from my lips, it would be less painful.
"The day I lost my mother, you lost yours, too," I finally said. The words felt like tiny, hot embers falling from my lips. The moment I uttered them, that feeling was followed by a chill so cold it was as if someone ha
d poured ice water down the back of my neck.
Paul's eyes rushed over my face, searching for a clearer comprehension.
"My mother . . . died, too?"
His eyes lifted and he took on a far-off look as his mind raced from point A to point B. Then his face turned crimson and he gazed at me again, this time, his eyes more demanding, more frantic.
"What are you saying . . . that you and I . . . that we're . . . related? That we're brother and sister?" he asked, the corners of his mouth pulled up into his cheeks. I nodded.
"Grandmère Catherine decided to tell me only when she saw what was happening between us," I said. He shook his head, still skeptical. "It was very painful for her to do so. Now that I think back, it wasn't long afterward that age began to creep into her steps and into her voice and heart. Old pains that are revived sting sharper than when they first strike."
"This has got to be a mistake, an old Cajun folktale, some stupid rumor conjured up in a room filled with busybodies," Paul said, wagging his head and smiling.
"Grandmère Catherine never spread gossip, never fanned the flames of idle talk and rumors. You know she hated that sort of thing; she was someone who despised lies and more often than not made people face the truth. She made me do it even though she knew it would break my heart; it was something she had to do, even though it hurt her so much, too.
"But I can't stand your not liking me, your hating me and thinking I wanted to hurt you anymore, Paul. I die every time you look at me furiously at school. Still, almost every night, I go to sleep crying over you. Of course, we can't be in love, but I can't stand our being enemies."
"I never thought of you as an enemy. I just . . ."
"Hated me. Go on, you can say it now. It doesn't hurt for me to hear it now, now that I have suffered through it," I said and smiled through my tears.
"Ruby," Paul said, shaking his head, "I can't believe what you're telling me; I can't believe that my father . . . that your mother . . ."
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