Whispers of the Bayou

by Mindy Starns Clark

To my surprise, the cop let out another whistle. This time, the dog did not bark or respond at all. We all waited for a moment, the cop glancing at me with a bemused expression, and I was torn between rage and embarrassment.

  Did he know this guy?

  Finally, the man in the chair gave two tongue clicks. At that, the creature jumped off of the bucket and ran to him, receiving effusive praise and a good rubbing behind the ears.

  “Thanks for your help, Bubba,” the man finally said, looking up at us. “What’re you doing way out here in the woods?”

  “Sorry to sneak up on you, Spinner,” the cop said as he stepped forward and gestured toward me with his thumb. “We had a report of animal abuse.”

  The man in the wheelchair focused in on me then, his eyes sparkling from under bushy eyebrows.

  “Ah, I see,” he drawled. “Don’t be embarrassed, darlin’. You’re not the first person to see me doing my job and think I’m being cruel.”

  I looked at the dog, just sitting there, her tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth as she breathed heavily.

  “Maybe one of you would like to explain?” I said, looking from the man to the cop.

  “This is Duchess,” the man in the chair said, reaching out again to stroke the dog behind the ears. “I’m testing her out to see if she has the makings of a canine aid.”

  “Canine aid?”

  “Ol’ Spinner here is an expert,” the cop said. “He works with breeders and pounds and organizations all over the country, evaluating dogs to see if they’re fit for service and, if so, what kind.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Everything from guide dogs and search and rescue to K-9 units and therapy,” the man in the chair elaborated. “By the time a dog gets to me, he’s been evaluated for health, intelligence, and general temperament, but then I take it from there, to see what type of fit might be best, if at all. Duchess here is looking pretty darn promising for S and R.”

  “S and R?”

  “Search and rescue. Her balance is excellent, and she passed on distractibility too. Didn’t you girl?”

  Focusing on the dog, he put extra effort into rubbing her neck, and she actually closed her eyes with pleasure.

  “Why the banging pot?” I asked doubtfully.

  “You ever been in a search and rescue situation?” he asked. “They’re noisy as all get out. The dogs have to be able to balance and focus without being bothered by outside distractions.”

  The dog opened her eyes then and looked up at the man, who spoke a few more words of praise.

  “She wants to come say hello,” he told me. “Do you mind?”

  “Um, sure,” I replied, taking a few steps closer.

  With a flick of the man’s wrist, the dog happily bounded toward me, pausing to lick the hand of the cop and then coming to a stop right in front of me. I knelt down and petted her, thinking she had the prettiest brown eyes I’d ever seen.

  “I appreciate your concern for a helpless animal,” the man said, putting his hands on each wheel and rolling in my direction. “But as you can see, she’s just fine.” He gave the cop a wink and continued. “Though now that that’s settled, I suppose I ought to ask you what you were doing way out here in the woods on my property.”

  “Your property?” I asked, standing. “This is my property.”

  Clearly amused, he glanced again at the cop.

  “Oh? And who might you be?” he asked, barely holding back a smile.

  “My name is Miranda Miller, formerly Miranda Fairmont. I just inherited the estate known as Twin Oaks.”

  Suddenly, all expression drained from the man’s face. His skin paled, his eyes widened, and in a voice barely louder than a whisper he said, “Miranda? You’re little Miranda?”

  There was something in his gaze, an intensity, that made me uncomfortable.

  “Not so little anymore,” I said warily. “Did you know me when I was a child?”

  “Know you?” he asked, and then he began to roll toward me again, tears suddenly filling his eyes.

  “Miranda, I’m Holt Fairmont. Spinner’s just a nickname.”

  “Holt?”

  “Yes,” he said, coming to stop. “Miranda, I’m your father’s brother. I’m your Uncle Holt.”

  TWENTY

  Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple and childlike.

  He was beloved by all, and most of all by the children

  The cop left soon after, obviously aware that uncle and niece needed some privacy during this very surreal moment. Holt invited me back to his house, which he said wasn’t too far away. Heading there, we passed all sorts of training equipment in the yard, including some ramps, a slide, and what looked like a bridge, though there was nothing underneath it except grass.

  Soon we came upon the back of his home, a big log cabin that sat on a broad curve of land along the bayou. There was no undergrowth to hide the water here, and as Holt led me around front and up the ramp to a wide, inviting front porch, I couldn’t get over the beautiful view.

  I also couldn’t get over the surprise of meeting an uncle I hardly knew anything about. I was aware that my father had a brother named Holt and that he lived in Louisiana, but I had no idea he lived so close or that he would be so glad to see me. I kept stealing glances at his face, trying to see if there was a family resemblance. I thought he might have same jaw line and high cheekbones that my father and I shared, but it was hard to tell with so much beard in the way.

  Holt seemed nervous, but he tried to be a good host, offering me tea and asking if I wanted to go inside where it was cooler.

  “No, thank you. I’m fine out here,” I said, nervous myself. “It’s just so beautiful.”

  “Thanks. I like it.”

  He gestured toward a rocking chair and so I sat, watching as he dumped the dog’s water bowl over the side of the porch and refilled it from a tap near the door. I asked if he needed help, but he said no, he was fine. He was able to get around really well, considering that he was in a wheelchair, and I wondered what the story was about all that.

  “I hope I’m not making you uncomfortable,” he said, his eyes on mine as he finally rolled himself to a stop a few feet away, “but I just can’t help staring at you. Man, you are such a Fairmont! You look like my mother, your grandmother. The same black eyes, the same face shape. So beautiful. My gosh, Miranda, I haven’t seen you since you were five years old.”

  “I’m sorry that I don’t know very much about you,” I replied, figuring I might as well lay that out up front. “Aunt Janet never talks about the family here, so there are a lot of gaps in my knowledge. I mean, I knew you existed, but that’s about it.”

  He studied my face, nodding.

  “To be honest, I don’t know all that much about you either, Miranda. I talk to your dad about once a year and he catches me up, but obviously that’s not enough.”

  I didn’t mention that I, too, only talked to my dad about once a year, usually on Christmas Day, and more than likely at the urgings of his tightly nipped-and-tucked Arizona wife. She wasn’t exactly my dream of a stepmother, but her vague notions of family obligation at least prevented him from being able to forget about me entirely—which would probably have been his preference.

  “Anyway,” Holt continued, “I hope you’ll be around long enough for us to fill in some of these gaps on both sides. I’d love to get to know you better.”

  “Me too. I mean, I’m not sure yet how long I’ll be here—with work and everything, I can’t stay too long—but I hate to race back home with so many questions left unanswered. Either way, now that we’ve met, I would love to stay in touch.”

  “Cool!” he said, excusing himself to go inside and get a pen and paper so that we could exchange phone numbers and addresses. As he came back out and handed me the paper with his information scrawled on it, I felt as though he were handing me the link for a chain that had long ago been broken.

  Writing out my information for him, I wondered if
it would be possible to put that chain back together again.

  “I’m just so excited to see you. You have no idea,” he enthused as he folded my info and tucked it into his shirt pocket. “Here you are, all grown up and everything. How old are you now, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “I’m thirty-two.”

  “Thirty-two,” he marveled, once again tears forming in his eyes. “So many years, so much lost time. We really need to become more than just strangers meeting in the woods, you know.”

  He grinned, revealing two rows of straight white teeth under the beard.

  I was silent for a long moment, utterly dumbfounded by this conversation. AJ had always led me to believe that the people here wanted nothing to do with me, that I was better off never having contact with any of them. Yet here was this man, my own uncle, in tears twice within ten minutes through the sheer joy of seeing me. It made no sense.

  “I feel the same,” I said, flushing with a mixture of embarrassment and joy. “Being down here after being gone for so long is pretty…intense. It’s nice to know that you’re so close by.” I cleared my throat and continued. “Speaking of that, maybe you should explain to me about the property lines. Where does Twin Oaks end and your land begin?”

  “My land starts about twenty feet beyond the training area, where we just were. I’ve got five acres, but they mostly go the other way, along the bayou. When my parents parceled out my share, they let me pick what I wanted, so I grabbed my favorite section of the waterway—and then I made sure to build up high enough that I wouldn’t have to worry about flooding. It’s my own little piece of heaven on earth.”

  “That was good that your parents were willing to do this, to give you such a nice part of their land.”

  “Yeah, Richard and I were a regular Jacob and Esau, taking our inheritance long before our parents died. Your dad chose money, but I opted for land.”

  Whether they got it early or not, I wondered why their inheritance was so much smaller than mine, considering that I was a second-generation heir. Holt didn’t seem bitter that his niece had been given the lion’s share of the estate that had belonged to his parents, something that by all rights should have been split between him and my father. According to AJ, my grandparents did what they had done without explanation or apology. My father carried a chip on his shoulder about it, a chip nearly as big as Twin Oaks, but Holt seemed perfectly happy with his home and land, which was probably a testament to his character, finding contentment in his situation whatever it may be.

  “But, hey, regardless of where the property lines fall,” he added, “please feel free to come here any time you want—though I hope you won’t always find the need to bring along a police escort.”

  I smiled shyly.

  “Yeah, sorry about that.”

  “Nah, easy mistake.”

  We both smiled at Duchess, who had finished slurping from her bowl and was now trying to find a place to relax. She walked into the area between us, moved around in a circle, and then plopped herself down on the wooden floor.

  “So how long have you been in town?” Holt asked me. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “Gosh, even I didn’t know I was coming until Friday night. The flight was yesterday morning.”

  “How is Willy doing?”

  My eyes widened.

  “I’m sorry. I guess you haven’t heard. He died yesterday afternoon.”

  Holt looked quite surprised. Turning his face toward the water, he slowly nodded his head.

  “Willy was a good guy. Very loyal to the family. This is selfish of me to say, but I’m glad he outlived my parents. They depended on him a lot. It would’ve been tough if he’d gone first.”

  “He spoke very highly of them both, especially his beloved Ya Ya.”

  Holt smiled. “Yeah, Willy and Mom were always so funny together, especially when we would go out on the boat and she could really let her hair down. They could have entire conversations with just a bunch of sounds.” Holt imitated the two Cajuns talking, alternating in a high and low voice as he said things such as “Kee Yoo!” and “Mais La!”

  I laughed, recognizing that the low voice sounded exactly like Willy.

  “Anyway,” Holt continued, “it was always my understanding that you were going to have Benochet handle the property sale and settlement for you, on your behalf. I’m guessing you changed your mind and decided to come here for yourself?”

  “It’s kind of complicated,” I said. “Willy wanted to talk to me before he died, so I flew down at his request.”

  “What will you do now? Are you going to put the house on the market?”

  His question was a simple one, the answer obvious, yet I was having a hard time bringing myself to say the words or even nod my head.

  “Before I do anything,” I told him finally, “I just want to get a feel for the place, maybe bring back some childhood memories. But, yes, eventually I’ll be putting it on the market.” I wanted to ask if that would be hard for him, seeing his family home sold to some stranger, but I held my tongue.

  “Was the place familiar to you at all?” he asked.

  I looked out at the water, spotting a log as it floated down the bayou.

  “To be honest, I don’t remember anything about Louisiana. I have no memories prior to the age of six. AJ—uh, my Aunt Janet—says I was traumatized when my mother died and that my mind just erased everything up to then. The late seventies are a complete blank to me.”

  To my surprise, Holt laughed.

  “Join the club!” he said. “Those years are a blank to me too! I was a stone-cold drunk, wasted out of my mind most of the time. In fact, I have more than a decade that’s just one big blur. It’s only through the love of some buddies and the good Lord Himself that I was able to survive and dry out and start my life fresh.”

  I glanced around at the tidy house, at the satisfied dog at my feet, at the man who sat across from me. He did look a little swamp-wild with the bushy beard and long hair and all, but I wouldn’t have pegged him for a drunk.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Were you an alcoholic?”

  “Am. I am an alcoholic. And, sober or not, I will be until the day the Lord calls me home.”

  I nodded, thinking how ironic it was that my uncle drew a blank on the same years that I did. The reasons were different, of course, but the effect was probably much the same.

  “Have you ever tried to get those memories back?” I asked.

  “I did what I could, so that I could make amends,” he replied. “But the bulk of that time is still pretty fuzzy. From what I’ve been able to piece together, I pretty much lived out of bottle from 1976 to 1988.”

  I wondered what the full story was, why he started drinking, how he got sober, and how he stayed that way. More than that, I wanted to know why he was in a wheelchair and whether he’d been handicapped his whole life or if some illness or accident had put him there.

  “Listen, that’s enough about me. Tell me about you, Miranda. Your dad says you and your husband are real movers and shakers, living in New York City, doing very well…”

  “Movers and shakers. I don’t know about that,” I said, smiling shyly. “My husband’s an architect and I’m an art restorer.”

  “An art restorer. How fascinating.”

  I talked about my position as senior preparator for the museum, how it was my job to receive and evaluate new acquisitions, assign to my staff the various cleaning, repair, and restoration tasks that were needed, supervise their progress, and do the highest level restoration work myself. As I heard myself talk I realized that there was a lot about my job I didn’t like. Administration and supervision were not fun for me, and neither was all the paperwork that went with sorting, arranging, and classifying the museum’s holdings. The only part of what I did that was actually enjoyable was the hands-on stuff, particularly inpainting, which was my specialty. For the first time I wondered if I had allowed myself to be promoted too far too fast. Just because I
had the ability to do a job well didn’t mean that was the job I should be doing.

  “My mom—your grandmother—was an incredible artist. I’m sure you got your talent from her. Is that what you studied in school? Art?”

  I nodded, telling him a bit about my education, my internships, and my career, finding myself as eager for this man to know me as I was to know him. He seemed genuinely interested in what I was saying, and I kept thinking, Is this what it’s like to have family? Is this what it’s like to have an uncle?

  “You have one child, right?” he asked.

  “A daughter. She was here with me, but now she’s on her way to Houston to stay with my in-laws.”

  “Oh, that’s a shame. I can’t believe I missed her.”

  “I thought it would be better for her to go so I could…you know, handle the house matters and deal with the funeral and everything.”

  “Makes sense. How old is she now? I’m thinking four? Five?”

  “She’s five. Her name is Tess.”

  He lifted his head in surprise.

  “What’s her name?”

  In the distance, I could hear rumblings of thunder. Looking out at the water, I saw that it wasn’t yet raining, but the sky was much darker than it had been before. I turned back to Holt, squinting my eyes.

  “Why does everyone around here react that way when I tell them my daughter’s name? Tess. Her name is Tess. It’s not that unusual, is it?”

  “Tess,” he repeated softly. “I thought you said…” his voice trailed off.

  “Cass?” I prodded. “That’s what Willy thought.”

  “I guess, yeah.”

  The thunder rumbled again, much closer this time. “Anyway,” he told me, looking up at the sky and obviously trying to change the subject, “it looks like I might need to drive you home. I was having some problems with my van’s alternator earlier, but I might be able to get her up and running long enough to drive you next door and back.”

  I glanced toward the old van with the handicapped plate that was parked beside the house. I didn’t want to make him have to go to all that trouble. As the sky grew even darker, I knew I could probably make it if I ran.