“What happened?” Em wanted to know.
“We were having lunch… the birthday lunch. When you didn’t come and you didn’t come, and the praline ice cream cake I made with his favorite frosting began to melt, your father got more and more agitated. He guessed that you might be with ‘that LeBlanc loser.’ Sorry.” She gave Cage an apologetic shrug.
He shrugged back. He knew how the old man felt about him seventeen years ago. No big surprise that he wasn’t forming a fan club for him now.
“Then when I got your text message that you wouldn’t be coming,” Francine continued, “your father went into a rage. Before I knew what was happening, he was bent over, complaining of chest pains.”
Oddly, Em didn’t appear guilty over her failure to attend her father’s birthday lunch. She was concerned, though. “Have you spoken with the doctors?”
Francine nodded. “We got here in the ambulance about three hours ago. I kept trying your cell phone but got no answer. After an examination in the emergency room, a heart specialist was called in. It wasn’t a major heart attack, but your father has a blockage that could prove fatal in the future if not corrected. So they decided to operate right away.”
“Why don’t I go down to the coffee shop?” Cage suggested. “Give you two a chance to talk.”
Em nodded her thanks to him.
When he was about to purchase three coffees, he noticed the woman standing in line before him. “Adele?” he asked.
“Justin!”
He hadn’t seen Adele Hebert since high school, but she hadn’t changed all that much with her flaming red hair and six-foot-tall frame. They hugged, though they hadn’t been close friends back then.
He noticed she was wearing a white medical-type jacket with a name label: DR. ADELE HEBERT.
“Whoa! Look at you,” he said. “A doctor?”
She nodded. “Physical therapist.”
“Now that’s synchronicity.” He grinned and told her how he was in need of a good physical therapy program.
Then she smacked him on the shoulder playfully. “And how ’bout you, cher? I hear you’re a Navy SEAL now. Talk about!”
Guys in the teams didn’t advertise their jobs. In fact, they kept a pretty low profile. But there were no secrets on the bayou grapevine.
“Yep. Lieutenant, second grade. A lifer.”
“Well, you always were wild. Guess special forces kind of work can be wild sometimes, too.”
“Sometimes,” he agreed. “Other times it’s as boring as any other job.”
“And you live in California?”
He nodded. “Coronado.”
“What are you doing back in Louisiana?”
He explained about his grandmother’s cancer.
“I’m so sorry. Is she here at the hospital?”
“No. I came in with Emelie Gaudet. Her father had a heart attack.”
“Ah,” she said. “You two are a couple again.”
He hesitated. “Nah. Just friends.”
She glanced at his ringless finger. “You’re not married?”
“Nope. Never have been.” He pointed to her badge. “Hebert. So you never married either?”
“Actually I did, but it didn’t work out. Luckily I kept my maiden name.”
“Listen, give me your card and I’ll set up an appointment for therapy. I’ve got to get back into a regular routine.”
“I don’t have any cards with me. They’re in my office. I’ll bring one up to the lounge in a bit. And maybe I can get some inside info on Claude Gaudet for you.”
“Thanks a lot.”
Adele squeezed his arm. “It was good meeting you again, Justin.”
“Likewise,” he said, and knew instinctively that he could hook up with her if he was so inclined. She was a very attractive woman. A few years under the belt, just like him, but sexy as hell. Unfortunately, he was not inclined. Maybe JAM or Geek would be interested.
When he got back to the lounge with a cardboard container of three coffees, Emelie was alone, Francine having gone off to the ladies’ room.
“Have you heard anything?” he asked her.
“Not a thing.” She took one of the coffees and sipped at it with a sigh of appreciation.
He drank from his cup, too, and it wasn’t all that bad, for hospital coffee. “So is Francine the same woman your dad was dating way back when? A schoolteacher, I think.”
She nodded. “She retired a few years ago, as did my dad.”
So he’d still been the sheriff for most of those seventeen years. “And he hasn’t made an honest woman of her yet.”
“Francine is divorced. A marriage when she was very young. You know my dad, Catholic to the core.” She shrugged.
“I didn’t think they were still so strict about those things today.”
“Some are. And yes, I know what you’re thinking. A warped set of morals that has my father refusing to marry a divorced woman, but doing the kind of things he’s done to… you, among others.”
What others? he wanted to ask, but Francine had returned and was grateful for coffee and the caffeine she claimed to need. Soon after that, Adele came in and he introduced her to Em and Francine.
Em looked from him to Adele and back again before saying, “Nice to see you again. I was sorry to hear that your mother died last year.”
“Thanks. It was a shock. A car accident.”
And Francine said, “I taught you in first grade, didn’t I?”
Adele laughed. “Yes. I can’t believe you remember that.”
“Hard to forget your pretty red hair. You wore it in pigtails, though, as I recall.”
Adele told them that her father was in recovery, and that the physician would be here soon to talk with them. Just before leaving, Adele handed him her card and said, “Call me.”
A silence followed. When he glanced up, he saw Em staring at him with arched brows.
“What?”
“You and Adele Hebert?”
“She’s going to hook me up with physical therapy for my knee,” he said.
“Hooking up is about right.”
He loved the fact that Em was jealous. That was jealousy sparking in her eyes, wasn’t it?
The doctor came in then, wearing green surgical pants and shirt and cap, booties still on his shoes. He scarcely looked old enough to drive a car, let alone perform a heart operation. How was it doctors were getting younger and younger? Maybe Cage was just getting older.
Dr. Dumaine, who turned out to be thirty-five years old, told them that the operation was a success. If Claude exercised and changed his diet and avoided stress, he could live a long, normal life.
“Stress?” Em said weakly.
“Well, at least during the beginning stages of recovery. He’ll be in the hospital for observation and therapy, but if he progresses as we expect, he could go home in a week.”
“Can we see him?” Francine asked.
“In about an hour. Once he wakes, they’ll bring him up to the intensive care ward.”
“Thank you so much,” Emelie and Francine both said, each shaking the doctor’s hand.
The doctor leaned over and shook Cage’s hand, too. “A Navy SEAL, huh? Adele told me about you.”
Small world!
Emelie was back to glowering at the mention of Adele. A good sign, in Cage’s opinion.
“I appreciate you being here, Justin. More than you can know. But I think you should go now.”
He agreed. What Claude Gaudet didn’t need was the bane of his life standing at the foot of his hospital bed, shocking him into another heart attack.
Em walked him to the elevator and said, choosing her words carefully, “It was nice of you to be here today for me, as a friend, but that’s all you and I can ever be. Don’t be offended.”
“Offended? Who’s offended?” He yanked her into his arms and kissed her like a bloody maniac with open lips and teeth and tongue until she moaned. Only then did he lean back and say, “See ya, friend.??
?
A young orderly, who came up and pressed one of the elevator buttons, grinned and winked at Em. “Can I be your friend, too?”
“Over my dead body,” Cage muttered and entered the elevator after the chuckling young man.
Em was still there staring at him, dazed, as the doors closed.
Hoo-yah! Cage thought and gave the orderly a high five.
Home is where the heart is, for sure…
Mary Mae LeBlanc sat at her kitchen table early that evening, a small computer, of all things, sitting before her. Alone, except for Justin’s computer genius friend over there sleeping on the couch in front of the television—Who was babysitting who? she wondered with a smile—just waiting for her grandson to return from the hospital.
What a day it had been! Like old times on the bayou… when everyone pitched in to help.
She should have been exhausted, dead on her feet. Inwardly she laughed at her choice of words. She’d be just that soon enough. Death didn’t scare her. In fact, she welcomed it. She could hardly wait to meet her Maker. Just not yet. Too much unfinished business. Still, she wondered, was her husband, Rufus, up there preparing a place for her already? She liked to think so. And her boy, Beau, Justin’s daddy? Please, God, let Beau be up there. He’d been a good boy at heart.
She couldn’t think about Beau now, or the tragic turn his life had taken after meeting Marie, Justin’s mother, and her addiction. Not that they’d called it that then. Could she and Rufus have done a better job guiding Beau? Maybe. It broke her heart to think they were at fault for all that happened.
Her heart ached and her breath turned wheezy when she thought of the suffering in Beau’s short life, mostly due to that lost wife of his. And lost she had been, whether in the bottle at a young age or later in a needle. Mary Mae didn’t like to remember the last time she’d seen the once pretty Marie. Pitiful! Pretty no more by the time she died.
Mary Mae’s mind seemed to be racing tonight. So many images.
Even after taking a nap this afternoon, she’d needed to take a pain pill. And she’d been sucking up oxygen like it was manna from heaven. Maybe it was. The blasted disease was growing throughout her body; she could practically feel it. Her clock was ticking away. So far she’d been able to hide its progress from Justin, but she knew there would come a time when he would see with his own eyes how bad off she was becoming. She would spare him that if she could.
She ought to make a list. “Things to Do Before I Die.” Oh, not a bucket list like folks on the television talked about. She had no wish to go jumping out of an airplane like an idiot or climbing some high mountain, just to get to the top, or dancing a jig, though she wouldn’t mind one more Cajun two-step. No, hers would be a “taking care of business” list. And no, she wouldn’t be making her list on this machine in front of her that Justin’s friend Darryl—she refused to call any man Geek—had set up for her. She could write faster with a pad and pencil. She could make a mental list for now.
—Give Justin my will and explain my wishes.
A copy of the will was in the office of Tante Lulu’s nephew Lucien LeDeux, a Houma lawyer, along with some important papers, such as insurance, bankbooks, burial plots.
—Make arrangements with Father Matthew at Our Lady of the Bayou Church about last rites.
None of this waiting until the last minute for her, when she would be tied up to machines or unconscious with drugs. She wanted a priest to pray over her when she was still aware of what he was saying. Would they do that? She wasn’t sure. Betcha Tante Lulu would know.
—Ask Tante Lulu about the Church’s stand on extreme unction for the living.
—Don’t sell the house.
She shouldn’t put that kind of pressure on her grandson, but deep down, she sensed that Justin would need this place someday. A place to come back to. In fact, deep down, she wished he would stay now, but that was unrealistic, him having a job in California and all.
With all her heart, she wished she could see Justin here, with a family. A woman to love, who loved him, and children. Oh, how she would have loved to hold Justin’s baby! But that was not to be. Like so many things. “If wishes were kisses…” like Rufus used to tell her before giving her a bunch of little kisses to make up for some hurt or other.
—Care for the animals.
Well, that job was mostly done today, with the good folks spending the day building pens and runs, and a few of them even taking some of the animals home as pets. Remy’s teenaged children had taken a cat and a potbellied pig. The pig caused an argument with their father, but their father lost.
Charmaine’s husband, Rusty Lanier—Lordy, was there ever a handsomer man in all the world!—carried off the midget horse, and Charmaine knew a neighbor up in Northern Louisiana who raised sheep; so that annoying baaing beast was gone. For some reason, Mary Mae never could cozy up to a sheep.
Belle Pitot had a friend who might take the chickens, but Mary Mae didn’t want to give them all up… yet. There was nothing like fresh eggs, whether for breakfast or in a cake. A far cry, for sure, from those ones in the supermarket that were weeks away from having been anywhere near a laying hen’s butt.
There were two small dogs, one of which Belle’s sons begged her to adopt. She was thinking on it. And everyone kept saying that the big dog, Thaddeus, had taken a special liking to Emelie, though Emelie was resisting. Time would tell.
And speaking of liking… that Navy buddy of Justin’s—the dark one from Mexico or Spain or something—sure did like Belle. She’d heard him making a date with her. And that was another odd thing in her life that was becoming odder by the minute. He had studied to be a priest at one time, a Jesuit. Maybe he was the one she should be asking about last rites for the living. JAM, his nickname was, which struck Mary Mae as silly. Good thing he didn’t become a priest. Imagine his congregation calling him Father Jam? She giggled at the image, and realized that she hadn’t giggled for ages. Weren’t giggles wonderful little gifts from God?
Back to the animals.
Justin and his friends had taken a liking to the squawky birds here inside the house. Even if they didn’t take them across the country to their homes, apparently these noisy feathered friends wouldn’t be hard to unload, them being expensive pets. A thousand dollars for a bird? She couldn’t imagine. Their departure wouldn’t be too soon for Mary Mae, especially since Justin, and now his friends, were teaching them naughty words.
—Finally, she needed to have a sit-down, serious talk with Justin about his daddy. There was so much her grandson didn’t know, had refused to know, but it was important before she passed that Mary Mae give him all the missing pieces, even the ones he might not like to hear.
She heard a car pull into the driveway. The slamming of a car door. The crunching of boots on crushed shells. A few animal sounds, mostly the three dogs. Then a stomping over the porch and through the screen door. It must be Justin.
Tears welled in her eyes, and her heart swelled with sheer joy.
Even before he announced, “I’m home,” she thought, He’s home.
Some gifts cost no money…
It was good to be home.
Not just good to be back in Louisiana after all these years, but good to come back to the welcoming atmosphere of his grandmother’s house after hours spent in that dismal hospital waiting room.
But then he took in the setting. His grandmother was sitting at the kitchen table, puffing away on her oxygen with a small notebook computer in front of her. MawMaw wouldn’t know a cursor from a curser. At least she never had before.
Then there was Geek, popping his head up, like a gopher in that old movie classic Caddyshack, from where he’d been lying on the sofa, in front of the television. He’d been having a little catnap, so to speak, if the cat sprawled out over his chest was any indication. Carefully Geek lifted the cat off him so its claws wouldn’t do bodily injury and stood, stretching with a wide-open yawn.
“Where is everyone?” Justin asked, com
ing up to give his grandmother a kiss on the cheek.
“All gone home, ’ceptin fer Darryl here, who was babysittin’ me.”
Justin glanced meaningfully at the couch; Geek just grinned. But then SEALs were trained to sleep on a dime and wake on a rustle as soft as a feather. If his grandmother had hiccoughed, he would have shot off that couch like a bullet.
“And what’s with the computer? You gonna turn inta some kinda Bill Gates or somethin’?”
“Yer friend was kind enuf ta teach me ta play Internet poker,” she explained.
Justin laughed and gave Geek a pretend scowl. “Turnin’ my sweet grandmother into a gambler?”
“Hey, she was the one who hustled me into a card game, but then she couldn’t find any cards.”
“A likely story!”
“I’m only playin’ fer nickels.”
“You really are gamblin’? Holy shit! I mean, holy crawfish!”
The two men exchanged grins at his cleaning up his language for her.
“How is Emelie’s father?” MawMaw asked.
“He’ll survive. The bad ones always do.”
“Tsk-tsk-tsk!” she clucked her tongue. “You shouldn’t talk lak that.”
“Sorry,” he said, but he didn’t look one bit sorry. He knew for damn sure the old man would be bleeding his condition for all it was worth, making Em kowtow to his every wish. Just like old times. “He had a mild heart attack, but on examination they discovered a blockage that could prove fatal. So they went in and did an emergency bypass. He’s in recovery now.”
“All that in one afternoon?” she asked.
“My grandfather had a bypass and was playing golf the following week. Heart surgery isn’t the big deal it used to be,” Geek told them before walking off to the bathroom.
“But Emelie stayed at the hospital with her father?” MawMaw wondered. “I mean, she dint seem ta want to be with her father t’day, even on his birthday.”
Yeah, and that was another puzzle in a myriad of puzzles that Cage needed to solve before he left the bayou. “She stayed, along with Francine Lagasse, Claude’s girlfriend. Em isn’t too happy with her dad for some reason—hell, Claude always gives a person reason to hate his guts—but when somethin’ like this happens, I guess past grievances prove unimportant.”