The Witch of Bourbon Street

by Suzanne Palmieri

  But then I found out I was pregnant. Again. And all that fear came rising up inside. Old Jim convinced me to go on over to the Voodoo and call him at school. And it was killing me, because I was the only one who knew that this wasn’t my first time. One mistake, it’s a lesson. Two mistakes, and you got no one to blame but yourself.

  “I don’t want him to know, Jim. He’s got that nice football thing goin’ on and he wants to be a lawyer! This’ll ruin him!”

  “What’s done is done, Little Bit. This baby changes everything. If Danny chooses to make it a wall in his life, that’s on him. Not you. Either way, you got to let him know. I know Millie always says an honest person knows when to tell a lie, but honey, trust this old pirate grampa of yours: A liar lies when he’s too scared to tell the truth. Now, you really believe with all your heart it’s best not to tell him, then by all means, don’t call. But if you ain’t callin’ him ’cause you be afraid to call him? Well now, that there’s a liar’s lie.”

  I have to give Old Jim credit, because when I made that call, Danny came running. He dropped out of school and asked me to marry him. He got down on one knee right there on the second-floor porch of the Voodoo. I remember thinking, It’s a good thing me and Millie washed this floor down with vinegar this morning, because it wouldn’t be right to start off a new life on a dirty note. As it turned out, we didn’t need to worry much about that. Things got messy all on their own.

  “I don’t know, Danny. I was thinkin’ you could go back to school and then we could try raising him together when you graduate. Take things from there, you know? It’s probably best to just live together or something. Later, I mean. When you get your life just like you want it. And besides, we don’t really get married in this family. You know that.”

  “It’s a boy?” I could practically see the visions of playing catch filling his head.

  “Yes. Sorry if you didn’t want to know.”

  I’d had to know. I’d made Dida do all her root work to find out, because if it was a girl, I was putting rocks in my pockets and walking into the sea.

  “It’s a boy! You hear that, Old Jim? I know you’re all in there listening. Hot damn! It’s a boy. How did you find out? Oh, right!” He had winked then, happy about my magic for once.

  That’s how I knew he wasn’t going to listen to reason. Sometimes the present can color the future way too bright.

  “Don’t you see?” he’d said, trying to convince me. “This is what you’ve wanted your whole life. You get to be normal. All those nights we spent last summer at the cottage over at the Sorrow Estate, you did nothing but complain. About being alone, about having to live the way you did, about not having a phone or TV. You even complained about the magic. Now you can start over, Frankie!”

  I’d stared at him with wide eyes. Gave him a look, They are listening. He’d just shrugged.

  “I never complained about phones or TV, Danny.”

  “See? We’re so in love I can’t even tell where you leave off and I begin. Let’s do this thing, honey. Let’s have this baby and grab this life. Come build a home with me.”

  I’m not sure his logic made sense, but it was sure as hell romantic. And I’d already taken a glance at my future. Bartender at the Voodoo. Hermit. Maybe alligator hunter. I hadn’t made up my mind. The idea of a lifetime of nights next to Danny and a bathtub that ran hot water, now that was appealing. And I thought it would give me some kind of second chance, I really did. That one baby would somehow substitute for the other.

  So I did it. I got married. We went to a justice of the peace in Tivoli. Dida, Millie, and Claudette all wore black and stood in the back, weeping.

  “It goes against everything we stand for! Marrying, giving yourself over to a man. What would Serafina say?” Dida cried.

  The whole thing was clinical and cold. Pete came, with his girl of the moment. They stood up for us. She popped gum the whole time. Old Jim was out trawling.

  Pete was going to let us live in the trailer out behind his gas station and let Danny work there until we got on our feet. Danny didn’t want me going into New Orleans while I was pregnant, and he didn’t like the idea of me telling fortunes or using any type of magic while Jack grew inside me. I thought he was ashamed, and that feeling grew into quiet resentment. But it did it slowly. So slowly. Like most things, it just festered until it exploded into a world of bad news. So when we left the courthouse and drove right past Pete’s, I was confused.

  “What’s goin’ on, Danny? We got us a honeymoon you didn’t tell me about?”

  “Nope, not quite yet, though Pete’s givin’ me a nice wage as we’re family and all. So if we save up I can take you somewhere real exotic in a few years. No, it’s not a honeymoon, Gypsy. But it is a surprise.”

  We turned off of Main Street and ended up in the neighborhood where he grew up. One of those ticky-tacky places with a crooked basketball hoop in front of a two-car garage that some half-assed do-it-yourself husband put on what probably started out as a nice house somewhere along the line.

  He pointed out things he’d already pointed out a thousand times before on those endless drives we took the previous summer. When you’re young and you got a car and just enough money for gas and a six-pack, you drive around a lot. I’d oohed and ahhed back then, because I was falling back in love with the football star. And he was in love with me. But that day, with a silver band on my finger and a baby growing inside me, all I was was carsick.

  “You okay, honey? I bet you’re tired. Let’s get you home.”

  “Thank you, Danny. I hope I didn’t ruin the surprise. Maybe we can come back tomorrow and you can show me where our boy will play Little League.” He smiled at that. Just like I knew he would. I could give a shit about Little League.

  “Well, that’s just it, Gypsy. Here we are. Home is the surprise!”

  He pulled into the driveway of his aunt Lavern’s house. The house Danny grew up in. I knew it well enough to know it wasn’t one of those “bigger on the inside” homes. It was what it was. All my words stuck in my throat just then. Making myself look and sound happy about his surprise should have won me an Academy Award.

  We moved into his aunt Lavern’s house the next day. And I’d put on shoes. It was a fine mess.

  When she’d died a few months earlier, Danny had been pretty broken up. But Aunt Lavern had left the house to Danny, and the estate was settled the very day we got hitched. So he felt it was serendipity, while I felt, knew, it was bad luck. But I tried to convince myself he was right. That this kind of place was better for raising up a child. It had wall-to-wall carpet and plastic-covered furniture. I spent a full month spiffing it up. Ripping things out and adding a little bit of comfort and greenery wherever I could.

  “We ain’t in the bayou, Frankie,” Danny would say.

  “Hell, your aunt likes it. Says she never really wanted to keep her things all covered up like that.”

  “You see her. She’s here?”

  While I was trying out my normal life, I had let a little of the magic back in. Because it annoyed Danny—which was always fun for me—and because I was homesick. Kind of like falling off the wagon when you hit a whole bunch of stress.

  “Of course I see her. She can’t cross over. I’m trying to figure out why. She’s as stubborn as always. Still has curlers in her hair. Says she won’t meet Jesus until it’s set.”

  “She watch us in the bedroom?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “I sure as hell hope not.”

  We started to argue right after Jack was born. About everything. And I started to wonder what the hell I was doing.

  “What do you want from me?” I’d whisper at first. And then shout. And then, in the end, scream. “What do you want from me?!”

  “I don’t want you to forget to go to the stupid store,” he said harshly. “I want you to cook a decent meal once in a while. I want you to stop reading those damn hoodoo cards and pay attention to your son. And while you’re at it, I
think everyone would appreciate it if you brushed your damn hair.”

  It doesn’t really matter if you know that a person speaking in anger doesn’t mean the hurtful things he says. It stings just as bad. I’d counseled enough of those love-lost ladies who came to me complaining about “her man” this and “her man” that to know “his mouth is acting the fool” and “can’t leave a man because his stupid lips don’t know no better.”

  Only this wasn’t happening to any of them hens. It was happening to me.

  I was so hurt by those things he said that I knew for sure if I said, “Go to hell!” a crack might spring up right between us in that cheap linoleum floor and he’d get sucked under that prissy, ordinary house. And once the earth had filled up his sorry lungs, he’d be forced to spend a good amount of his eternity making amends to me. It was one of the few times during my “I am not a witch” life that I wanted all that power back.

  But at the end of all the roads in my life, there was Danny. Danny, whom I loved even if he didn’t love me. Danny, Jack’s father. And because of that, I figured that he didn’t need to go to hell after all.

  At least yet.

  So instead, I got real quiet and asked, “How is it you call yourself a man, Danny?” And I meant it. I thought men were supposed to love, adore, protect. Listen, partner, admit to their failings. I’d watched Old Jim and Dida. I’d heard the stories of Serafina and her two lovers. I’d read The Book of Sorrows. And Danny wasn’t acting like any man I ever saw. He was acting like a spoiled child.

  “Oh, good. You gonna take away that, too? Strip me of the one thing I got left? That’s low, Frances,” he said, glowering at me.

  Honesty can hurt more than a hundred lashes.

  “Not as low as I could have got, and you know it. You think it’s manly to bully me? You know I can’t fight back. You hurt me, you make me angry, and I have to worry I might do something to you that neither of us intended.”

  “Speak for yourself, Frances. Speak for your goddamn self. I’m sick of worrying that one day I’ll do or say the wrong thing and you’ll work those evil ways on me. I see you fight it. I saw you fight it a second ago. How do you think that feels?”

  For one single, solitary moment I thought we’d be okay. Because he’d told me a deep truth, one I understood. So I knelt by him and put my head on his lap, the denim of his jeans rough on my face.

  “Is that what this is all about, Danny? Why didn’t you just tell me that you were scared? I can handle—”

  Suddenly he flew into an even bigger rage, throwing me off of him. I slid across the floor. The man was about to have an honest-to-God tantrum right in front of me, in his aunt Lavern’s house of all places.

  “You’ve ruined my life, Frances Green Sorrow, so I don’t really care what you do. Do your worst. I ain’t got nothin’ to lose! You already took everything.”

  All I could think about was that I couldn’t remember the last time I wore socks. It’s funny the things the brain will do to protect the heart.

  That tantrum he had is one I played over in my mind for years. Every word he said cutting me deeper and deeper. Being a Sorrow, I knew a thing or two about love. I knew how much it hurt people and how much damage it could do. Love is a dark thing.

  “I can’t turn you into anything. You know that. That’s magic from a storybook. But I can sure as hell make you disappear.”

  “Trust me,” he said, “if I could be anyplace else, I would be. I got an idea, why don’t you zap me right out onto my boat. Put a fishing pole in one hand and a beer in the other. Come on, do it,” he said sarcastically, closing his eyes and puffing out his chest.

  How did we get this way?

  “I can’t do that either, Danny. My plan was to remove you from my line of sight by leaving you. This time for real. No bluffing. I’m sorry, I tried,” I said sadly. And I walked out of that kitchen to the bedroom and started throwing my clothes into a bag. Then I got my crying toddler, gave him to Danny, and walked out of that ticky-tacky house.

  “Where are you going?” he yelled.

  “Oh, look! Poof! I made you disappear,” I said with a flourish of my fingers.

  What he didn’t know, what I never told him, was that I couldn’t stay because the ache for my lost baby was too much for me to bear.

  We punished each other for dreams deferred. Both knowing, deep in our hearts, that the dream was what we could have had together if we just learned how to get over ourselves. Been more patient, given ourselves more time. Isn’t that always the truth? I laughed a little, sitting there in that gray room thinking that all I had right then and there was time.

  * * *

  That’s when I heard things in my own head clear for the first time. Right there in that police station. And I was still trying to escape just by being there because I couldn’t think about how Jack was missing and how I couldn’t seem to find him. How I’d been a terrible mother.

  Too much honesty was making my face hurt.

  The door to the little gray room opened up and a young, baby-faced officer walked in.

  “I need to get out of here. Can one of you fine men in blue call my ex-husband, Danny? I need to talk to him.”

  “Ain’t got to make no phone call, Ms. Frances. He’s been here the whole time, waiting on you. We got no charges anyway. Millie never come in to fill out the papers. So we got a lot of nothin’ holding you. Come with me, I’ll take you to him.”

  I saw Danny through the glass, waiting on a long wooden bench. He was ripping off pieces of a Styrofoam coffee cup bit by bit, balling them up, and putting them in the cup. He always picked at things when he was nervous. His shoulders were tense with worry, and when he looked up as I came through the doors, his eyes were all bloodshot.

  19

  Finding the Bones

  Danny

  “Why are you here and not out there lookin’ for our boy!” Frances yelled irately. The five people in the small precinct turned to stare, but Danny just fell more in love.

  “Mind your own damn business, fools,” he said to the officers and then turned to Frances. “I told them to go find her.”

  “Her?”

  “Millie. She took him, and she’s hiding him. I know, I know. But listen, Frances, we … I … look … the whole goddamn world is looking for them.”

  “I knew it,” she said incredulously as they walked out into the humid night.

  “Danny?” she said, stopping him before they got to his truck, parked haphazardly on the curb.

  “What is it, Gypsy?”

  “Once, when I was pregnant with Jack, I was in the grocery store, with its canned music and fluorescent lighting. I was already uncomfortable. And I saw this lady holding her daughter’s hand. She would have been about Sippie’s age, and I just … I left. And you thought I forgot to go to the store.”

  “Gypsy,” he said softly.

  “No, wait. Every time I looked at Jack, I saw her. Each time he did something new, I cried. I thought the aching would go away. That he’d replace her. How could I think like that?”

  “You got to stop, Frances. Come with me.”

  “Wait!” she cried out. “Back there, when I yelled at you? I didn’t mean it. What I wanted to say was, ‘Dan! I was just tellin’ these fools I wanted to call you and there you were, right when I needed you.’ Only that’s not what came out of my mouth.”

  “You remember back when we were first starting to fight and Pete suggested we see some kind of crazy doctor, and you said we didn’t need anyone messing with our minds? You said we needed a translator. You remember?” asked Danny.

  “Of course I do.”

  “Well, you were right. Our whole problem has always been a lack of translation.” He opened the passenger side of the truck, helping her in.

  “You think he’s okay, Danny?” Frances asked quietly. “Do you think she hates me enough to hurt him?”

  “I think he’s fine. He’s a strong boy. He’s our boy. We’ll find him, Frances. I promise.�
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  “I can’t feel him, Dan. I can’t feel him when I close my eyes. But I don’t see him on the dead side either. And I don’t know what it means. It’s like, he’s not dead, but he’s not alive. I can’t figure it out.” She was crying, but they weren’t the angry tears Danny was used to. It was a steady stream of remorse.

  “You aren’t alone, Frances. I said we’d find him and we will. We. Now, come on over here and let me put my arm around you while I drive you home.”

  She slunk over close to him, tucking herself in nice and tight.

  “I’m sorry about Millie. It’s all my fault, you know,” he spoke up again once they were on the road.

  “And I’m sorry about Sippie. I’m sorry I … there’s too many sorrys, Danny.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “Danny, pull over.”

  They’d just passed Pete’s and the lights of Tivoli Proper were fading in the rearview mirror.

  “You gonna be sick?” he asked, pulling the truck to the side of the road.

  “No. Come here, look at me.” Frances pulled him in close. “Translate this,” she said, and kissed him.

  That’s when the police cars started flying by them, all headed out of Tivoli, which was never the case. Bayou people had bayou justice and took care of their own.

  And just as quick as she’d kissed him, Frances smacked Danny. “Whatcha waitin’ for?! Go!”

  Haste and speed and fear-laced panic brought them to Tivoli Bridge, where Danny slammed to a stop and JuneBug was already waiting with his boat to follow the police boats back to the Sorrow Estate. The entire back of Sorrow Bay was lit up. The glow from what seemed like hundreds of boat lights and lanterns illuminating the night bayou was as disturbing as it was beautiful. A helicopter hummed with a loud buzz above as divers gave a thumbs-up sign just before a stretcher twirled up into the sky.

  “Is that a body? Danny, oh God, Dan. Is that a body?” Once docked, they pushed through people—where did they even come from?—to get closer to the shore. Sippie saw them and ran down the back steps of Sorrow Hall toward them. Frances turned, opening her arms. Danny watched the two of them fall into each other and felt weak for a moment, as though he might crack open.