Grandmere and I walked to town to cash my check. On the way we stopped at Mrs. Thibodeau's and Mrs. Livaudis's homes to invite them to our dinner of celebration. Then Grandniece began to cook and bake like she hadn't done for months. I helped her prepare and then set the table. She decided to stack the crisp twenty dollar bills at the center of the table with a rubber band around them just to impress her old friends. When they set eyes on it and heard how I had received it, they were astonished. Some people in the bayou worked a whole month for this much money.
"Well, I'm not surprised," Grandmere said. "I always knew she would become a famous artist someday."
"Oh, Grandmere," I said, embarrassed with all the attention, "I'm far from a famous artist."
"Right now you are, but one day you will be famous. Just wait and see," Grandmere predicted. We served the gumbo and the women got into a discussion about varieties of recipes. There were as many gumbo recipes in the bayou as there were Cajuns, I thought. Listening to Grandmere Catherine and her friends argue over what combination of ingredients was the best and what accounted for the best roux amused me. Their spirited talk became even more so when Grandmere decided to bring out her homemade wine, something she saved for only very special occasions. One glass of it went right to my head. I felt my face turn crimson, but Grandmere and her two friends poured themselves glass after glass as if it were water.
The good food, the wine, and the laughter reminded me of happier times when Grandmere and I would go to community celebrations and gatherings. One of my favorites had always been Flocking the Bride. Each of the women would bring a chicken to start the flock for a newlywed, and there was always lots to eat and drink, and lots of music and dancing. Grandmere Catherine, being a Traiteur, was always an honored guest.
After we served the cake and cups of rich, thick Cajun coffee, I told Grandmere to take Mrs. Thibodeau and Mrs. Livaudis out to the galerie. I would clear the table and do the dishes.
"We shouldn't leave the one in whose honor we're celebrating with all the work," Mrs. Thibodeau said, but I insisted. After I cleaned up, I realized we still had the stack of money on the table. I went out to ask Grandmere where she thought I should put it.
"Just run up and put it in my chest, Ruby dear," she said. I was surprised. Grandmere Catherine never let me open her chest or rifle through it before. Occasionally, when she opened it, I looked over her shoulder and gazed in at the finely woven linen napkins and handkerchiefs, the silver goblets, and ropes of pearls. I remembered wanting to sift through all the memorabilia, but Grandmere Catherine always kept her chest sacred. I wouldn't dare touch it without her permission.
I hurried away to hide my new fortune. But when I opened the chest, I saw how empty it had become. Gone were the beautiful linens and all but one silver goblet. Grandmere had bartered and pawned much more than I imagined. It broke my heart to see how much of her personal treasure was gone. I knew that every item had had some special value beyond its money value. I knelt down and gazed at what remained: a single string of beads, a bracelet, a few embroidered scarfs, and a pile of documents and pictures, wrapped in rubber bands. The documents included inoculation certificates for me, as well as Grandmere Catherine's grade school diploma, and some old letters with ink so faded they were barely legible.
I sifted through some of the pictures. She still kept pictures of Grandpere Jack as a young man. How handsome he had been when he was a young man in his early twenties, tall and dark with wide shoulders and a narrow waist. A charming smile flashed brightly from the photograph and he stood so straight and proud. It was easy to see why Grandmere Catherine would have fallen in love with such a man. I found the other pictures of her mother and father, sepia colored and old and faded, but enough left for me to see that Grandmere Catherine's mother, my great
grandmother, had been a pretty woman with a sweet, gentle smile and small delicate features. Her father looked dignified and strong, tight-lipped and serious.
I put back the packets of documents and old family photographs, but before I deposited my money in the chest, I saw the edge of another picture sticking out from the pages of Grandmere Catherine's old leather-bound Bible. Slowly, I picked it up, handling the cracked cover carefully and gently opening the crisp pages that wanted to flake at the corners. I gazed at the old photograph.
It was a picture of a very good-looking man standing in front of what looked like a mansion. He was holding the hand of a little girl who looked a lot like me at that age. I studied the picture more closely. The little girl resembled me so much it was like looking at myself at this young age. In fact, the resemblance was so remarkable, I had to go to my room and find a picture of myself as a little girl. I placed the two side by side and studied them again.
It was me, I thought. It really was. But who was this man and where was I when this picture was taken? I would have been old enough to remember a house like this, I thought. I couldn't have been much less than six or seven at the time. I turned the picture over and saw there was scribbling on the back near the bottom.
.
Dear Gabrielle,
I thought you would like to see her on her seventh birthday. Her hair is very like yours and she's everything I dreamed she would be.
Love, Pierre
.
Pierre? Who was Pierre? And this picture, it was sent to my mother? Was this my father? Had I been somewhere with him? But why would he be telling my mother about me? She had already died. Could it be he hadn't known at the time? No, that made no sense, for how could he have gotten me even for a short time and not known my mother was dead? And how could I have been with him and not recalled anything?
The mystery buzzed around inside me like a hive of bees making my stomach tingle. It filled me with a strange sense of foreboding and anxiety. I looked at the little girl again and again compared our faces. The resemblance was undeniable. I had been with this man.
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself so when I went back downstairs and saw Grandmere and her friends, they wouldn't know something had disturbed me, disturbed my very heart and soul. I knew how hard, if not impossible, it would be for me to hide anything from Grandmere Catherine, but fortunately, she was so involved in an argument over crabmeat ravigote, she didn't notice how disturbed I was.
Finally, her friends grew tired and decided it was time for them to leave. Once again, they offered me their congratulations, kissing and hugging me while Grandmere looked on proudly. We watched them leave and then we went into the house.
"I haven't had a good time like that in ages," Grandmere said, sighing. "And look at what a wonderful job you did cleaning up. My Ruby," she said, turning to me, "I'm so proud of you, dear and . . ."
Her eyes narrowed quickly. She was flushed from the wine and the excitement of all her arguments, but her spiritual powers were not asleep. She quickly sensed something was wrong and stepped toward me.
"What is it, Ruby?" she asked quickly. "What's stirred you up so?"
"Grandmere," I began. "You sent me upstairs to put the money in your chest."
"Yes," she said, and then followed that with a deep gasp. She stepped back, her hand on her heart. "You went looking through my things?"
"I didn't mean to snoop, Grandmere, but I was interested in the old pictures of you and Grandpere Jack, and your parents. Then, I saw something sticking out of your old Bible and I found this," I said, holding the picture out toward her. She looked down at it a if she were looking down at a picture of death and disaster. She took it from me and sat down slowly, nodding as she did so.
"Who is that man, Grandmere? And the little girl--it's me, isn't it?" I asked.
She lifted her head, her eyes swollen with sadness and shook her head.
"No, Ruby," she said. "It's not."
"But it looks just like me, Grandmere. Here," I said, putting the picture of me at about seven years old next to the one of Pierre and the little girl. -See."
Grandmere nodded.
"Yes, it'
s your face," she said, looking at the two, "but it's not you."
"Then who is it, Grandmere, and who is this man in the picture?"
She hesitated. I tried to wait patiently, but the butterflies in my stomach were flying around my heart, tickling it with their wings. I held my breath.
"I wasn't thinking when I sent you up to put the money in my chest," she began, "but maybe it was Providence's way of letting me know it's time."
"Time for what, Grandmere?"
"For you to know everything," she said, and sat back as if she had been struck, the now all too familiar exhaustion settling into her face again. "To know why I drove your grandpere out and into the swamp to live like the animal he is." She closed her eyes and muttered under her breath, but my patience ran out.
"Who is the little girl if it's not me,
Grandmere?" I demanded. Grandmere fixed her eyes on me, the crimson in her cheeks replaced by a paleness the color of oatmeal.
"It's your sister," she said.
"My sister!"
She nodded. She closed her eyes and kept them closed so long, I thought she wouldn't continue.
"And the man holding her hand . . ." she finally added. She didn't have to say it. The words were already settling in my mind. ". . is your real father."
6
Room in My Heart
.
"If you knew who my father was all this time,
Grandmere, why didn't you tell me? Where does he live? How did I get a sister? Why did it have to be kept such a secret, and why did this drive Grandpere into the swamp to live?" I fired my questions, one after the other, my voice impatient.
Grandmere Catherine closed her eyes. I knew it was her way to gather strength. It was as if she could reach into a second self and draw out the energy that made her the healer she was to the Cajun people in Terrebonne Parish.
My heart was thumping, a slow, heavy whacking in my chest that made me dizzy. The world around us seemed to grow very still. It was as if every owl, every insect, even the breeze was holding its breath in anticipation. After a moment Grandmere Catherine opened her dark eyes, eyes that were now shadowed and sad, and fixed them on me firmly as she shook her head ever so gently. I thought she released a soft moan before she began.
"I've dreaded this day for so long," Grandmere said, "dreaded it because once you've heard it all, you will know just how deeply into the depths of hell and damnation your grandpere has gone. I've dreaded it because once you've heard it all you will know how much more tragic than you ever dreamed was your mother's short life, and I've dreaded it because once you've heard it all, you will know how much of your life, your family, your history, I have kept hidden from you.
"Please don't blame me for it, Ruby," she pleaded. "I have tried to be more than your
grandmere. I have tried to do what I thought was best for you.
"But at the same time," she continued, gazing down at her hands in her lap for a moment, "I must confess I have been somewhat selfish, too, for I wanted to keep you with me, wanted to keep something of my poor lost daughter beside me." She gazed up at me again. "If I have sinned, God forgive me, for my intentions were not evil and I did try to do the best I could for you, even though I admit, you would have had a much richer, much more comfortable life, if I had given you up the day you were born."
She sat back and sighed again as if a great weight had begun to be lifted from her shoulders and off her heart. "Grandmere, no matter what you've done, no matter what you tell me, I will always love you just as I always have loved you," I assured her.
She smiled softly and then grew thoughtful and serious again.
"The truth is, Ruby, I couldn't have gone on; I would never have had the strength, even the spiritual strength I was born to have, if you hadn't been with me all these years. You have been my salvation and my hope, as you still are. However, now that I'm drawing closer and closer to the end of my days here, you must leave the bayou and go where you belong."
"Where do I belong, Grandmere?"
"In New Orleans."
"Because of my artwork?" I said, nodding in anticipation of her response. She had said it so many times before.
"Not only because of your talent," she replied, and then she sat forward and continued. "After Gabrielle had gotten herself into trouble with Paul Tate's father, she became a very withdrawn and solitary person. She didn't want to attend school anymore no matter how much I begged, so that except for the people who came around here, she saw no one. She became something of a wild thing, a true part of the bayou, a recluse who lived in nature and loved only natural things.
"And Nature accepted her with open arms. The beautiful birds she loved, loved her. I would look out and see how the marsh hawks watched over her, flew from tree to tree to follow her along the canals.
"She would always return with beautiful wild flowers in her hair when she went for a walk that lasted most of the afternoon. Gabrielle could spend hours sitting by the water, dazzled by its ebb and flow, hypnotized by the songs of the birds. I began to think the frogs that gathered around her actually spoke to her.
"Nothing harmed her. Even the alligators maintained a respectful distance, holding their eyes out of the water just enough to gaze at her as she walked along the shores of the marsh. It was as if the swamp and all the wildlife within it saw her as one of their own.
"She would take our pirogue and pole through those canals better than your Grandpere Jack. She certainly knew the water better, never getting hung up on anything. She went deep into the swamp, went to places rarely visited by human beings. If she had wanted to, she could have been a better swamp guide than your grandpere," Grandmere added, nodding.
"As time went by, Gabrielle became even more beautiful. She seemed to draw on the natural beauty around her. Her face blossomed like a flower, her complexion was as soft as rose petals, her eyes were as bright as the noonday sunlight streaming through the goldenrod. She walked more softly than the marsh deer, who were never afraid to come right up to her. I saw her stroke their heads myself," Grandmere said, smiling warmly, deeply at her vivid memories, memories I longed to share.
"There was nothing sweeter to my ears than the sound of Gabrielle's laughter, no jewel more sparkling than the sparkle of her soft smile.
"When I was a little girl, much younger than you are now, my grandmere told me stories about the so-called swamp fairies, nymphs that dwelled deep in the bayou and would show themselves only to the purest of heart. How I longed to catch sight of one. I never did, but I think I came the closest whenever I looked upon my own daughter, my own Gabrielle," she said and wiped a single fugitive tear from her cheek.
She took a deep breath, sat back, and continued.
"A little more than two years after Gabrielle's involvement with Mr. Tate, a very handsome, young Creole man came from New Orleans with his father to do some duck hunting in the swamp. In town they quickly learned about your grandpere, who was, to give the devil his due," she muttered, "the best swamp guide in this bayou.
"This young man, Pierre Dumas, fell in love with your mother the moment he saw her emerge from the marsh with a baby rice bird on her shoulder. Her hair was long, midway down her back, and it had darkened to a rich, beautiful auburn color. She had my raven black eyes, Grandpere's dark complexion and teeth whiter than the keys of a brand-new accordion. Many a young man who had chanced by and had seen her had lost his heart quickly, but Gabrielle had become wary of men. Whenever one did stop to speak with her, she would simply toss a thin laugh his way and disappear so quickly he probably thought she really was a swamp ghost, one of my grandmere's fairies," Grandmere Catherine said, smiling.
"But for some reason, she did not run from Pierre Dumas. Oh, he was tall and dashing in his elegant clothes, but later, she would tell me that she saw something gentle and loving in his face; she felt no threat. And I never saw a young man smitten as quickly as young Pierre Dumas was smitten. If he could have thrown off his rich clothes that very moment and gone
into the swamp to live with Gabrielle then and there, he would have.
"But the truth was he was already married and had been for a little over two years. The Dumas family is one of the oldest and wealthiest families living in New Orleans," Grandmere said. "Those families guard their lineage very closely. Marriages are well thought out and arranged so as to keep up the social standing and protect their blue blood. Pierre's young wife also came from a well-respected, wealthy old Creole family.
"However, to the great chagrin of Pierre's father, Charles Dumas, Pierre's wife had been unable to get pregnant all this time. The prospect of no children was an unacceptable one to Pierre's father, and to Pierre as well. But they were good Catholics and divorce was not an alternative. Neither was adopting a child, for Charles Dumas wanted the Dumas blood to run through the veins of all of his grandchildren.
"Weekend after weekend, Pierre Dumas and his father, more often, just Pierre, would visit Houma and go duck hunting. Pierre began to spend more time with Gabrielle than he did with Grandpere Jack. Naturally, I was very worried. Even if Pierre wasn't already married, his father would not want him to bring back a wild Cajun girl with no rich lineage. I warned Gabrielle about him, but she simply looked at me and smiled as if I were trying to stop the wind.
"Pierre would never do anything to hurt me," " she insisted. "Soon, he was coming and not even pretending his purpose was to hire Grandpere Jack to guide him on a hunting trip. He and Gabrielle would pack a lunch and go off in the pirogue, deep into the swamp to places only Gabrielle knew."