Bayou, Whispers from the Past: A Novel

by Lauren Faulkenberry

  Chapter 21

  Two days later, Jack woke me with a plate of pancakes and a cup of coffee. I propped myself up as he sat next to me with the tray of food. The knuckles on his right hand still showed faint bruises and a small cut. As it turned out, I’d been right about Toph’s black eye and split lip. Jack had gone by the police station and asked to see Toph in his jail cell. He’d gotten the five minutes alone he’d wanted with the guy and had ended up sharing more than the few angry words he’d intended. Jack told me he’d hoped his conversation with Toph would encourage him to leave Bayou Sabine and Lucille.

  It had backfired.

  “You really don’t have to keep doing this,” I said. “You know I’m not some fragile little orchid.”

  He smiled. “That’s one of my favorite things about you, cher. But can’t I take care of you for a few days?”

  Since the night at the river house, he’d taken time off work to stay home with me, rarely letting me out of his sight. Toph was handcuffed to a hospital bed, so there was no chance of him coming back for me, and Jack knew that. But still he stayed close by, making sure Kate was here with me if he left the house for any reason.

  “This is all very sweet,” I said, “but completely unnecessary.”

  “I like taking care of you.” He brushed his fingers over the bruises on my neck, his touch as light as the feathers of a bird.

  He kissed me on the forehead as I cut into the pancakes.

  “These are amazing,” I said.

  He propped himself up on the pillows next to me and sipped his coffee. “Amazing ladies need amazing pancakes.”

  I clinked my coffee mug against his. “You’re quickly becoming my favorite person in the whole world,” I said, running my fingers through his hair.

  “I certainly hope so.”

  When I reached the bottom of the stack of pancakes, he said, “I talked to Josie this morning.”

  “How’s Buck?”

  “He’s fine. He’s tougher than a briar patch. It was Lucille I wanted to talk to, but Josie said she still didn’t want to talk to me.”

  We’d tried to see Lucille, but she wouldn’t see anyone except her parents.

  “She’s hurt,” I said. “And humiliated. And she feels like she let you down.”

  “I know. But I’d feel so much better if she’d talk to me.”

  “She loves you. She’ll talk to you when she’s ready. But you shouldn’t pressure her.”

  “Josie said she’s staying there until spring semester starts. She tried to get her to take the semester off, but Lucy’s insisting on going back to school.”

  “She probably wants to get back to normal,” I said. “I would too.”

  He sighed. “I wish she’d stay close by for a while longer, so I knew she was all right.”

  “She’ll be all right,” I said. “She’s as tough as Buck is.”

  He sipped his coffee, but he didn’t look like he believed me. I could see it in her though. I saw it in the dim light by the canal, when she picked up that brick and aimed it at Toph’s head.

  ~~~~

  There was a thumping on the stairs, the sound of chic wedges clopping on hardwood mingling with the clatter of suitcase wheels. Kate yelled, “Hey, where is everybody?” and the rolling of the suitcase stopped outside my bedroom door.

  “In here,” I called, climbing out from under the covers. I hurried to get dressed as Jack pulled on a pair of jeans and shirt.

  He followed me into the kitchen, where we found Kate by the coffee pot.

  “You sure I can’t convince you to stay longer?” I said. “There’s no telling what could happen between now and the New Year.”

  “Actually,” she said. “I’m not leaving entirely.”

  I studied her as I sipped my coffee, then motioned toward the door. “Your luggage would indicate otherwise.”

  “The sheriff asked me to stay until New Year’s,” she said.

  I grinned. “A little house arrest?”

  “Something like that.”

  Jack smirked.

  “Thought you said he wasn’t your type,” I said.

  She shrugged. “Turns out I was in need of a new type. I can get used to the checkered shirts and the badge.”

  “You shameless little tart.”

  “Something like that.” She poured some coffee in her travel mug and said to me, “I suppose I have you to thank for our meeting.”

  “You came all this way. I figured you could use a little excitement. Plus, I owed you one after all your matchmaking attempts.”

  She tipped her mug toward me. “You might have a better record than me already.”

  “Merry Christmas.”

  She snorted and said, “Jack, it was lovely to meet you. Thanks for letting me be the houseguest you thought would never leave.”

  She hugged him quickly, and he laughed. “Nonsense. You come back any time, and stay as long as you like.”

  “Walk me out?” she said to me.

  “Of course.” I grabbed her smaller bag and followed her outside, where she wheeled her suitcase down the gravel path to her car.

  “Call me before you leave here for good,” I said. “We’ll go get beignets, and you can tell me all about the sheriff.”

  “Deal,” she said. “But you let that man take care of you for a while and quit trying to be superwoman. No more attacking men when they’re in a murderous rage.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  She hugged me tight and then climbed into her car. I watched her until she reached the lane, when she paused and stuck her arm out the window, waving one last time.

  When I turned to go back inside, Jack was standing on the porch. “I think we’ll be seeing a bit more of her,” he said. “But for now, I’m glad to have you all to myself again.”

  “Andre’s pretty smitten.”

  “You could say that.”

  “We could always do something for New Year’s,” I said. “Ask him and Kate over, have a little get-together.”

  “If it’s all the same to you,” he said, slipping his arm around my waist, “I’d prefer we spend it alone.”

  ~~~~

  That afternoon, we went over to the house on the canal. Getting back to normal for me meant getting back to work. Tired of loafing around the house, I longed to pick up a paint brush, a hammer, any tool I could find that would make me feel like I was creating again. Although I loved sleeping in and waking up with Jack’s arms around me, I needed to get back to my project. We were already behind schedule before the holidays, and the damage Toph had done would likely set us back a few more weeks.

  Most of what was ruined was in the living room and kitchen. The open floor plan made it possible to see almost all of the damage in one long look. The smashed cabinets, the broken glass, the busted countertop—it was overwhelming to see all at once.

  Without speaking, we swept up the bits of plaster and broken glass, made piles of the splinters of wood. We filled two trash cans with debris and took them out to Jack’s truck. Once that was done, it was easier to look at the room without feeling rage. It was easier to imagine how to fix what needed repairing and picture the best way to do it. Now it looked like just another fixer-upper house, not one that had been ravaged.

  By late afternoon, we’d moved on to patching the holes in the walls. We’d have to order a new countertop and replace the broken doors of the cabinets, but the one thing we could do without buying more supplies was repair the plaster. Like a lot of old houses in the area, its walls were made of plaster and lath. The holes made it look like the walls had ribs exposed, cracked and broken. Holes in plaster always made it seem to me like a house was wounded; it was one of the first things I had to fix. Toph hadn’t made it out to the garage, where Jack stored his table saw and other heavy equipment, plus our standard supplies. Now, the whirring of the saw pierced the air as Jack cut replacement boards for the lath, slender two-inch slats that he brought me by the bundle so I could begin patching while he cut
.

  When he brought me the last bundle of slats, Jack started on the plaster. He knew it was one of my least favorite things to do and teased me about needing to cultivate a more delicate touch.

  “Just think of icing a cake,” he said, waving his trowel in the air to mimic the swift strokes.

  “I always put it on too thick,” I said. “Then I have to sand for the length of an ice age.”

  He grinned. “We should confront that heavy-handed demon today.”

  I sighed, picking up the other trowel, and watched as he smeared the patching plaster to about half the thickness of the existing plaster. “You just have to remember it swells a bit is all.”

  “I always miscalculate.”

  He moved the trowel in slow, deliberate strokes, smoothing the areas where the patching plaster met the existing wall. He made it look simple, but when I tried again, attempting to mimic the way he flicked the trowel, I just left pointed peaks like meringue.

  “Plastering is my Waterloo,” I said, and he snorted with laughter.

  “It’s a good thing I’m around then, to always patch your plaster.” He leaned over and kissed me quickly on the lips, then moved on to the next bare spot of lath.

  Outside, a car door slammed. A jolt ripped through my chest so hard it hurt. Jack looked up and stared at me.

  It couldn’t be Toph. I knew that, but still I felt a flutter of panic.

  Holding the trowel, Jack walked to the window and looked out. There was a knock at the door, and he said, “It’s Josie’s truck.”

  When he opened the door, Lucille turned to him, her hands stuffed into her coat pockets. She looked tiny in the oversized coat, a military surplus style with lots of buttons and pockets.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “I know you probably hate me right now, and I know I disappointed you and all of those things, but I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

  “Luce,” he said. He stepped forward and hugged her, careful to hold the trowel away, then finally let her go and pulled her inside.

  “Hey, Lucille,” I said, giving her a hug.

  “Mom told me you’d been calling,” she said to Jack. “I’m sorry I kept dodging you.”

  “It’s OK,” he said.

  “None of it is OK. And I feel stupid saying ‘I’m sorry,’ because it’s so useless, but I am. I’m sorry for everything that happened. For your house, for your dinner, Enza, for the other night, for all of it.” Her voice cracked as she spotted the bruises on my neck, and she looked like she might cry. Her eyes had dark circles, like she hadn’t slept since the last night we were here.

  “Shush,” Jack said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and kissing her temple. “We’re not mad at you. We’re glad you’re all right.”

  “Mom’s taking me to Baton Rouge to get my things,” she said. “I just wanted to see you before we leave.”

  “I’m glad you did,” he said.

  “I’m going to talk to the people with the theater, too, before Toph can,” she said. “Although I’m sure they’re less inclined to listen to anything he says about me with a list of pending charges against him.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about the theater job,” I said. Taking the trowel from Jack’s hand, I added, “I’ll give you two some time.”

  I could still hear their voices from the far side of the living room, where I tried to mimic Jack’s plastering technique. I willed myself to be less heavy-handed, leaving a fine layer of plaster over the exposed lath, adding small amounts to keep it the right thickness.

  Every few moments I glanced over at Jack and Lucille. She looked more relaxed now, smiling even. Watching them, I couldn’t help but think of my father. Ignoring him was a silly maneuver. He’d been keeping secrets from me, but I was treating him as if he were the only person in the world with secrets. My mother had had them. Vergie had had them. It was impossible to ever know exactly what lay in a person’s heart, no matter how well you knew them. We all keep parts of ourselves hidden.

  At Christmas, as he stood out in the yard by the bottle tree, my father’s face had been drawn tight with a sadness just like Lucille’s. There was a time when we knew how to talk to each other. There was a time when we didn’t have currents of anger and disappointment tugging us apart like riptides. He’d wanted to tell me more about my mother that day, but I’d pushed him away. I need to explain some things, he’d said.

  I would let him. I knew that now. I would call him in this new year, on a new day, and let him tell me the things he needed to tell me. I would hear him, in the ways I had not let myself before. We would find a way to mend what was broken.

  I dragged the trowel along the finished part of the wall, smoothing the plaster so we’d have only minimal sanding to do. It took finesse to do it right, plus the proper calculations of mixing and application that could be replicated to get the results you wanted. It was easy to predict the outcome if you did your calculations right.

  If only all rebuilding was as easy as the repairs we made in houses.

  ~~~~

  From the doorway, Lucille yelled, “Bye, Enza! I’ll see you in a few days.”

  “Bye,” I called, waving to her.

  Jack closed the door and came over to where I was mixing more plaster compound.

  “She’s lucky to have you,” I said.

  He smiled, inspecting the hole I’d just filled.

  “Not bad,” he said, using his finger to smooth out a rough edge.

  “And so am I.” I tugged on his shirt and kissed him as he turned to me.

  “What do you say we finish up here so we can get on with our New Year’s Eve?” he said.

  “Lead the way.”

  He carried the pail of plaster compound to the last wall of the kitchen that needed repair, whistling as he went.

  I left him to finish a few spots and started sweeping up behind us, packing up tools so we could go home. When I was nearly finished, I glanced over and saw him lift a permanent marker from the surface of the lath, as if he’d been writing something. He capped the pen and shoved it into his pocket.

  “Hey, what are you doing over there?”

  “Oh, nothing,” he said, scooping the trowel into the patching plaster.

  When I walked over to investigate, he kept smoothing the plaster into place, as if this patch was just like all the others. But as I peered around his arm, I could see his neat cursive stretching across one of the slats.

  I pointed and said, “That’s not nothing.”

  He looked at me a bit sheepishly, a boyish grin touching his lips.

  He’d written Enza and Jack Mayronne, Bayou Sabine, followed by today’s date.

  “Jack,” I said, feeling my voice catch.

  “What?” he said. “Builders do this sort of thing all the time. Back when Buck built houses, he used to leave a copy of the blueprints inside the house’s newel post. It’s customary to leave bits of yourself behind for future folks to uncover.”

  I touched the slat by the names and said, “You didn’t write Parker.”

  “The slat’s pretty small.”

  “Are you blushing?”

  “No.”

  I tousled his hair and said, “Oh, yes you are.”

  He smiled his crooked smile and shrugged. “I like the way your name sounds with mine.”

  He scooped one last dollop of plaster onto the trowel and spread it over the lath, covering part of his writing. I liked thinking of it being there, a permanent part of the house now. Etched into its bones.

  “Did you do something like this at Vergie’s?” I asked him.

  His eyebrow arched as he continued his short, swift strokes. “It brings good luck.”

  “Is that right?”

  “You’re still here, aren’t you?” He smoothed out the last edge and turned toward me. He kissed me until I slid my fingers in his hair, then he took a step back and grinned.

  “Ready for a nice night in?”

&nb
sp; “I am.”

  He wiped the trowel clean on a wet rag and took the bucket out to the garage. A few minutes later he came back inside. “You’re still thinking of where it could be, aren’t you?”

  When I didn’t answer, he said, “I’ll show you one day. It’s not covered up with plaster or paint.”

  He laced his fingers in mine and led me outside. We climbed into his truck and rumbled down the little road by the canal, the house growing smaller in the distance. Off to my right, a blue heron launched itself from a stump, its great wings propelling it just above the surface of the water. Its snakelike neck bobbed back and forth as it kept pace with us for a few seconds, and then it made a sharp turn and vanished into the cypress along the bank.

  “You know,” I said, “I like the way our names sound together too.”

  He smiled then, shifting the truck down into third gear, taking the curve by the lagoon slow and easy, steering us in a graceful arc. It wasn’t hard to imagine all the curves that lay ahead, all the pieces of ourselves we would reveal—sometimes slowly, and sometimes in an instant.

  There were some things Bayou Sabine might never reveal to me. There were things I would never know about Vergie, about my mother, about my father. I might never learn how my mother died, and I might never know what drove her and my father apart.

  I was no longer in a hurry to learn these secrets that were not mine to ponder. If I was meant to know them, I would learn them in time. But in the end, knowing the reasons why wouldn’t change the events that had happened. I thought again of the bottles hanging from the branches of the tree in the backyard, how they trapped spirits, the things we wanted to forget and keep away. I imagined Vergie and my mother speaking their secrets into the bottles, hanging them in the highest branches for safekeeping. Only time and the wind could release them, these whispers from the past, and every so often one would fall from its limb and shatter, and the truth might be revealed in a ghost of a breeze, in a dream.