Snow on the Bayou: A Tante Lulu Adventure (4 page)

Now her hair was short. Very short. Pure white, not gray. And curly. The chemo, he realized immediately, and braced himself. He had thought he’d prepared himself, but apparently he hadn’t.

As he held her, he could feel a wetness on the curve of his neck where her face was nestled. She was sobbing softly.

Deep shame overwhelmed him. Despite all his reasons for staying away, none of them were worth a hill of beans if he’d hurt this precious old lady like this.

He set her down and away from him to look her over. “Lookin’ beautiful as ever,
chère
.” And she was, to him.

“Oh, you!” she said and put her hands nervously to her head. He could tell she was embarrassed and, yes, still a little vain. Good for her!

“It’ll grow out, MawMaw. It ain’t worth frettin’ over. Isn’t that what you always say? Besides, my hair is short, too.” He rubbed his white walls to demonstrate. “Everyone will think it’s the latest fashion. Grandmother and grandson matching do’s.”

She smiled… at least she still had all her teeth… and linked her arm in his, tugging him toward the house. “I have gumbo on the stove. Mus’ be my guardian angel was whisperin’ in my ear that I would be gettin’ company.”

Cage had stopped believing in guardian angels a long time ago. Hard to accept the concept of God, or angels, when you’ve witnessed a kid strapped with explosives going up in a pink mist after a suicide bombing in Iraq. And not just once.

“I’m not company,” he said. “I’m family.”

“Thass jist what Tante Lulu said last week,” she remarked as she seated him at the kitchen table and proceeded to put enough food for an army in front of him. “Do ya remember her?”

How could I forget?
Walking through an airport with the geriatric firecracker, stopping every five minutes so she could pee, or more likely, check out the restrooms for cleanliness and then file a report, was a memory that Cage would keep for a lifetime. And the airline attendant! Had Tante Lulu really told the woman her butt was too big
for the skirt she was wearing and she ought to consider two sizes larger? Or check out Charmaine’s beauty spa? Then she gave half the people on the plane little St. Jude statues, scaring them half to death because they thought she had inside info on an impending crash.

But Cage didn’t want his grandmother to know just yet that it had taken the bayou busybody to get his ass home. So all he said was, “Yeah, I remember her. Louise Rivard, right?”

“Yep, but everyone calls her Tante Lulu.”

While they were eating—him three platefuls, her only picking at one small one—he asked, “What’s with all the animals?” Aside from the menagerie outside, there were three birdcages in the living room, one holding canaries or parakeets, or whatever… small birds. Then the other two held brightly colored tropical birds… toucans or macaws or whatever you called those big-ass birds. They were all squawking or chirping at his unwelcome presence.

At least the ginormous lizard in a glass tank wasn’t making any noise.

“Yer grandfather and me took in some animals after Hurricane Katrina. I thought I tol’ you that in one of my letters.”

“You did, but you never mentioned how many, or all the different kinds. I thought you meant a dog or two. Maybe a few cats.”

She shrugged. “There weren’t so many in the beginning, but then folks that didn’t want their pets anymore started droppin’ them off in the driveway in the middle of the night. What could we do?”

“Find them homes?”

“We tried, and we did get homes for lots of them, but more kept comin’.”

“Isn’t it hard for you to take care of all of them?”

“It dint usta be, but lately…” Her voice trailed off. But then she straightened and said, “Remy LeDeux’s boy came over yestiddy to help out, but it was raining so hard, I tol’ him ta go home.”

That was just great. She was having to rely on one of Tante Lulu’s relations, not wanting to bother her own irresponsible grandson.

Neither of them had yet mentioned the portable oxygen tank sitting on the floor next to her chair, not even when she’d matter-of-factly inserted the nasal cannula. Apparently, she didn’t need it all the time.

“Mebbe you could help find them good homes, if you have the time while yer here,” she suggested tentatively as if she didn’t want to ask too much of him.

“I’ll make time,” he said and reached over to squeeze her bony hand. “But only if you eat everything on your plate.”
Shit! I’m talking to her like she’s a child. She’s sick, not senile.

“Oh, you!” his grandmother said, not at all offended, and she did eat everything in front of her, including the two beignets he forced on her. Afterward, he talked her into letting the dishes go ’til later, and they went out on the porch with their coffee, the thick, strong chicory kind you could only get in Louisiana. An Elvis song, “Love Me Tender,” provided a soft background through an open window. Probably from the old stereo console his PawPaw had bought for MawMaw on one of her birthdays.

She sank down onto a musty-smelling couch—was it only Louisiana where folks put upholstered sofas on an open porch? It about killed him to see her wheel the oxygen tank with her. It didn’t escape his notice that there was an ashtray and a package of cigarettes—coffin nails,
for sure—on a TV tray beside her. If he weren’t here, she’d probably be lighting up.

Meanwhile, about two dozen animals were lined up on the steps before the gate, waiting to be fed.

“Should I feed them?” he asked.

“If you don’t mind, sweetie.” She pointed toward a large wood chest at the other end of the porch that presumably held the various pet foods. Water and feed bowls were scattered all over the porch floor.

If I don’t mind?
he scoffed inwardly. No wonder she hadn’t contacted him about her illness if she thought this little chore was a hardship.

When he was done, and a couple of the dogs, including the polar bear, lay on the floor surrounding his grandmother, he went down and scooped some oats into the pony’s feed trough, or whatever the hell you called it. He didn’t know what to give the flamingos, so he just scattered an extra amount of chicken feed. The pig got leftover crawfish étouffée. On the way back, he gathered a dozen eggs in his shirttails. The eggs were everywhere around the yard. He’d come back later with a basket. What the hell did MawMaw do with all these eggs? And the chickens, for that matter? He hoped he wouldn’t be expected to kill and pluck one of them for Sunday dinner.

His coffee was lukewarm by the time he returned to the porch, but it was still good. He sat on the swing, taking in the ambience. Even with all the animals, there was nothing like dusk on the bayou. It was mid-January, but the temperature today had been in the high sixties. Balmy. In this humid, sub-tropical climate, the flowers grew profusely and they were almost too fragrant. In truth, all the senses seemed heightened here in the bayou. The colors, the scents, the sounds, the textures.

He hadn’t realized until this moment how much he’d missed his bayou home. But all that was beside the point.

“How bad is it?” he blurted out.

To her credit, she didn’t lie or attempt to softsoap things.

“Bad. ‘Terminal’ is the word the sawbones use.”

No! I will not accept that.
“When’s your next doctor’s appointment? I’ll go with you. I’m gonna call the doctor back at the base. Maybe he can recommend the best specialist for your kind of… of… cancer. Hell, science is moving forward every day. There might be a treatment your doctor doesn’t know about.”

She put up a hand and shook her head. “No. I’ve put this old body through too much already.”

“How about chemo?”

“I’ve done all the rounds.”

“Radiation?”

She shook her head some more. “They want me to, but I doan wanna. All it would do is extend my life by a couple of months… an mebbe cause me to lose my hair again.” She laughed. “I refuse to go ta my Maker with a bald head. And there ain’t no way I’m gonna let Rufus lead me through the Pearly Gates lookin’ like a doorknob.”

“Oh, MawMaw!” He was down on his knees beside her chair, holding her. Or was she holding him?

He cried openly… he couldn’t help himself. He hadn’t cried at the carnage he viewed in his work, some of which he’d caused. He hadn’t cried when the judge had ordered him at seventeen to enter the military or go off to prison. He hadn’t cried when Em had turned her back on him. He hadn’t cried when his grandfather died. But this! His helplessness gutted him. “I should have come sooner.”

“Yer here now. Thass all that matters.” She was patting
his back, as if he was the one who needed comforting, not her.

“I’ll stay as long as you… as you have,” he choked out, “and I pray to God it will be a long time.” There was no way he accepted her pronouncement that nothing more could be done, but he’d save that argument for later, after he’d met with her doctors. He raised his head and blinked back the tears that continued to sting his eyes.

“My only regret is that I hoped ta hold one of yer babies in my arms one day.”

Oh, fuck!
“If you promise to stick around, I’ll get me one in nine months give or take.” His joke appeared lame, even to him. There would be snow on the bayou before a mini-me LeBlanc was born.

They both laughed at the ridiculous promise. Even if he’d been willing or able to find someone receptive to taking on his swimmers, it was hopeless. Time was critical.

He could swear he heard a voice in his head say,
Hopeless? Did someone say hopeless?

Just then, he saw snow floating around that stupid St. Jude statue in the yard. It wasn’t snow, of course. Just blossoms from a fig tree.

Still…

And why were there blossoms in January?

A full body shiver came over him. He shrugged it off and turned to his grandmother. “Whataya say we crank up Priscilla and head on down ta the Dairy Queen, darlin’?”

Daddy Dearest was back…

E
melie was up at dawn, fully dressed, and in her workshop downing her second cup of thick chicory coffee by 6:30 a.m. It was five weeks until Mardi Gras, and she was swamped with orders to be filled. In fact, yesterday she’d had to turn away two lucrative, last-minute requests for specialty masks because there was no time to spare.

Among her clients this year were the governor and his wife, the proprietor of a well-known New Orleans eatery, and HBO actor John Reed, who was this year’s celebrity monarch for the Krewe of Bacchus.

At seven, her phone rang. It was Belle.

“Em, do you mind if I work from home this morning? I can come in about noon.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No more than usual. I need to use my Quattro on that blasted leopard gown that Simone Grant wants by Friday.” The Quattro was a hugely expensive, high-tech
sewing machine with every bell and whistle imaginable, including a built-in video camera. Belle often said it was like a Singer on steroids.

There just wasn’t enough room here on the bottom floor of Emelie’s house for all the equipment needed to produce Belle’s voluminous costumes, along with Emelie’s masks and other Mardi Gras decorations. Emelie’s house was a traditional shotgun style, running one room into another from street to back courtyard. The pre–Civil War appellation came from the fact that a shotgun shot from the street could travel back straight through the three rooms.

The front room housed a typical French Quarter shop with counters and display cases and costumed mannequins. The walls were painted with traditional Mardi Gras colors… purple walls with green and gold trim, purple denoting justice; green, faith; gold, power… and they were adorned with Emelie’s decorative masks and framed photographs of past Mardi Gras events. Shelves held quality costume jewelry, purses, and lacy shawls. Inside glass showcases were collections of historical Mardi Gras parade throws… doubloons, beads, medallions, stuffed animals… as well as Carnival ball favors.

The middle of the house was Belle’s headquarters, where she had a dressing room for customers to try on her gowns, bolts of fabric and trimmings, dress forms, and tables for doing handwork on the exquisite gowns and waistcoats… embroidery, beading, and such. It wasn’t just the parades Belle and Emelie designed for, but all the numerous krewe and debutante balls, some of which were aristocratic and extravagant. In fact, in the old days… Mardi Gras went back more than 150 years… invitations were die-cut and printed in Paris. Even today, the invitations were considered works of art… highly collectible.
In any case, there was no room for the Quattro or the many other intricate sewing machines that Belle needed for her work.

Then in the back was a studio with French doors leading onto the courtyard. This was Emelie’s workshop. She needed all that light for her artistic endeavors.

“Are you there, Em?” Belle asked.

“Yes. Just thinking. My brain’s in its usual pre–Mardi Gras fuzz.”

Belle laughed. “Listen. I know you’re super busy, too. How about if I send Mike and Max in to hold down the fort in the front shop until I get there? It’ll only be about three hours.”

“Belle! They’re only thirteen.”

“I know, but how hard can it be for them to answer the phone and wait on folks who walk in? It will save you getting up every time the bell rings on the door. They can come get you if something important comes up, or if there’s a customer whose questions they can’t answer.”

Emelie feared the boys would be more trouble than she needed today, but she didn’t want Belle to come in when she needed to work at home.

“Don’t the boys have to be in school today?”

“Teacher in-service day.”

Emelie was beginning to understand. Belle needed her kids out of her hair so that she could work.

“Sure. Send them in.”

“They can take the bus. Expect them about eight thirty, and don’t you be worryin’, hon. I told them they would be grounded for life if they used one swear word, flirted with any young girls who happened to come in, wrestled with each other on the shop floor, made any personal phone calls, farted out loud, tried on your masks, had anything
stuck in their ears—like iPods—told dirty jokes, mooned each other or, God forbid, a passerby, or wore that current favorite T-shirt of theirs.
I’M NOT A GYNECOLOGIST, BUT I CAN TAKE A LOOK
.

Emelie groaned.

“Hey, it will be good experience for you to know what it’s like having a kid.”

“I was thinking about dipping my toe in that particular water, not belly flopping into the deep end.”

They both laughed and hung up.

Emelie worked diligently for a half hour hot-gluing aquamarine blue crystals in the form of scales on a mask that would complement a mermaid gown Belle was creating. All of her masks were demis, covering only the upper half of the face, but the sky was the limit when it came to their height, width, and various extensions. A CD of Billie Holiday blues classics played softly in the background. Peaceful.

But then, she heard a vehicle pull into her driveway.
At 7:30 a.m.?
she wondered, glancing at her watch.
Who would come so early?

She soon found out. As she turned and peered through the glass doors, she saw her father emerge from his old Lincoln and walk toward the stone-flagged verandah. There was an expression of worry on his face before he glanced up and noticed her watching him. Immediately, he broke into a smile.

Emelie and her father had been estranged for more than a decade, and they’d reconciled only two years ago. Even then, it was a tenuous relationship. They spoke on the phone once a week, and occasionally she visited his home in Houma, but he rarely came into the city, and then only at her invitation.

She unlocked the door and held it open for him to enter. Once inside, she kissed him on the cheek. Her father was sixty-nine-plus, but he looked eighty-nine today. His gray hair appeared rumpled, and his face wrinkled with some worry or other.

“This is a surprise,” she said, waiting for him to tell her what the problem was.

He nodded. “I have a meetin’ at the Petrol offices and thought I’d stop by ta see mah little girl first.” Ever since her dad took an early retirement as sheriff in Terrebonne Parish, he’d been working security part-time for one of the Gulf’s oil companies. She couldn’t imagine what reason he’d need to visit their main headquarters.

It must be an awfully early appointment, she almost said, but bit her tongue, not wanting to rock the already shaky boat of their relationship.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” she asked.

He shook his head and walked around the room, examining her works in progress. “Yer busy, I see.”

“Very. It’s that time of the year.”

“Yer mother, bless her soul, woulda been so proud of yer success.”

Oh, boy! When he mentioned her mother, Emelie knew he must have big things on his mind. Mary Gaudet died of MS complications when Emelie had been five years old. Her only memories of her mother were in a wheelchair and then bedridden. Her father had raised her single-handedly. He should have remarried. Hell, he’d been “seeing” Francine Lagasse, like forever. Maybe then he wouldn’t have been so overprotective, interfering in every aspect of his daughter’s life. Maybe then, he wouldn’t have… well, that was water over the dam now.

“Sit down, Dad. Tell me what’s wrong.” Oh, God!
Maybe he was ill. On the brighter side, maybe he was finally going to make an honest woman of Francine.

“LeBlanc! Thass what’s wrong. That rat bastard is back in town. Lak a bad penny, he is. Allus showin’ up.”

Emelie inhaled sharply. Justin LeBlanc was a taboo subject between them. The only condition she’d demanded when they’d finally made up was that her father never discuss Justin LeBlanc again, not after what her father had done. “Dad! Don’t even start.”

“You already knew?” He jerked back, as if she’d struck him. “Holy crawfish! Has that lowlife been here already?”

“This is so not a subject we are going to discuss. Yes, I heard he was back, visiting his sick grandmother, I believe. And no, he hasn’t visited me. Why would he?”

“That boy, he was always sniffin’ after yer tail, girl, and you know it. Doan think he won’t be wantin’ more. Remember the condition he left you in before he skipped town. Talk about!”

She stood and braced both arms, palms down, on her worktable, glaring at her father. “That was crude and totally uncalled for. I think it’s time for you to leave.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, it’s jus’ that I worry ’bout you. All alone. You shoulda stayed with Bernard. I doan want you ta be hurt again. Please, promise you’ll show LeBlanc the door if he comes here. Better yet, let me read him the riot act. He’s a Navy SEAL. He won’t want his superiors ta hear anything bad ’bout his shenanigans.”

Shenanigans? Good Lord! What world does my father live in?
“Don’t. You. Dare!” Her hand was shaking as she pointed to the door. “Leave. Before I say something we’ll both regret.”

“Now, Emelie, I’m only thinkin’ of yer well-bein’.”
He was halfway through the now open door before he turned. “Doan be mad at me fer caring.”

“Caring? That’s not caring. It’s smothering. And downright none of your business. I’m thirty-three, almost thirty-four years old. I can make my own decisions. Seriously, Dad, if you approach Justin… if you say anything at all to him, I swear, I won’t speak to you again. And I mean it.”

After he left, Emelie put her face in her hands and wept with sheer frustration. She did not need this stress today, not when she had so much work to do.

Her father’s interference was pointless anyway. Justin had no reason to contact her. It was her father’s fault he’d left seventeen years ago, having threatened to charge Justin, without her knowledge, with statutory rape. Her father and the judge between them came up with an alternative. Justin had to leave Louisiana immediately and join the Navy, with no notification to Emelie or even his grandparents. For months, none of them knew where he was, not even when she’d needed him most.

But Justin hadn’t been blameless either. Why had he continued to break the law when he knew his bad acts just made her father, the sheriff, hate him even more? He was continually in trouble… at school, with the police, at home, everywhere. Why, after leaving, when he had already broken so many other rules, had Justin complied with her father and the judge, and cut himself off from her, the girl he’d sworn to love forever? Not one single letter or phone call.

She grabbed a tissue from the box and wiped her eyes, then blew her nose loudly.
Enough!
She had work to do, and no time to waste on childhood fantasies of love ever after.

The phone rang a short time later. When she saw on the
caller ID that it was her father, she let it go to voice mail. After a few minutes, she dialed in to listen to the message.

“Emelie, I’m sorry. I shouldn’ta interfered. Old habits die hard, I guess. I won’t punch out LeBlanc’s lights. Ha, ha, ha. Not that I’m in any shape ta fight a Navy SEAL these days. Just kiddin’. Seriously, I’ll back off. Be careful, though, and forgive yer old man, okay? Love ya.”

What could she say? Of course she would forgive him.
Unless
he interfered again.

Mike and Max arrived soon after that. She got up to open the shop door for them and turned the
OPEN
sign in the window. They carried cardboard containers the size of buckets holding soft drinks. No coffee for them. They also brought a carton of Krispy Kreme donuts they’d purchased the night before while shopping with their mother in Baton Rouge. Belle knew the sweet treats were Emelie’s favorites. A bribe. Or guilt gift. She took two of the glazed ones for herself and, after giving the boys some instructions, went back to her workshop to resume her unfinished project.

It was only later that something her father had said registered with her. A Navy SEAL. She’d learned eventually that Justin had joined the Navy, but he was a Navy SEAL? She never knew that. Well, it was understandable that she wouldn’t know. Once she’d married, and after everything that happened from then on, she’d let it be known that she never, ever wanted to hear anything about the boy who’d abandoned her.

But a Navy SEAL? The baddest boy of the bayou, the one her father was sure would end up at Angola, a member of that elite special forces group? She’d seen a History Channel documentary on Navy SEALs, and they were presumably the best of the best. What could have happened to change Justin so? Back seventeen years ago,
even Justin wouldn’t have described himself as the best of anything, always being conscious of his roots. A father who died in prison and a mother hooking for drugs, God only knew where since she seemed to move from city to city and state to state with her pusher boyfriends. Emelie hadn’t judged him for that, but others had, especially her father, and Justin was hardest of all on himself. That was why he’d acted out.

It was probably a woman who had turned him around, she concluded. Something she hadn’t been able to do.

A sudden clenching, like a fist, surrounded her heart. She bent over with pain, gasping for breath.

After all these years, how could it still hurt so badly? And why now, when she was finally moving on to a new chapter in her life?