After Grace was gone and she heard her car drive away, Lena put a CD on the portable player, and they all listened in an almost prayerlike fashion to their mother and father singing “Devil Blues,” followed by “Stormy Monday,” “Baby, Please Don’t Go,” and “Hard Luck Blues.” A series of Bessie Smith hits came next, including those old standbys “ ’Taint Nobody’s Bizness if I Do” and “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.” They all knew these homemade CDs by heart, and, although Lena had no great musical talents, she was thinking about studying music history in college. So maybe her parents had passed something on to her.
Lena glanced up from her balloon stringing, then did a double take. A young girl, about her age, was standing on the road in front of the cottage. With long red hair pulled back into a ponytail, she wore a black Atlanta Braves T-shirt and shorts leading down long legs to athletic shoes with no socks. She carried a worn purple backpack.
Although they’d been warned not to talk to strangers, this girl looked harmless. Lost, actually. The odd thing was, there was no car or bike. How had she gotten here?
Standing, Lena cautioned with a motion of her hand for the others to stay put. Walking around the house, she asked, “Can I help you?”
“Is this where Grace O’Brien lives?”
Lena nodded. “But she’s not here right now.”
The girl nodded back, studying the place. “It’s pretty here.”
It was pretty, Lena had to admit, with all the pink roses climbing up the sides of the cottage, but it had been a tight squeeze these many weeks with all of them inside and only one bathroom.
“Do you wanna come back and have some lunch with us… while you wait?”
The girl licked her dry lips. She looked hot and sweaty, but then, everyone got hot and sweaty in this humidity. Still, she must be thirsty.
Without waiting for an answer, Lena turned to walk back around the house.
The girl followed.
“I’m Lena Duval. This is my sister, Ella, and my brothers, Lionel and Miles.” She arched her brows at the girl, who was shifting her weight from hip to hip.
“I’m Andrea Fletcher.”
“C’mon. We were just about to eat.”
“Where you from?” Lionel asked as they each loaded up with homemade po’ boy sandwiches and potato salad, accompanied by frosty glasses of the sweet tea.
Andrea, who had been eating ravenously, wiped her mouth with a St. Jude paper napkin and replied, “Atlanta.”
“How’d you get here?” Miles wanted to know.
“Flew in to New Orleans, took a bus to Houma, and then hitched a ride out here.”
“Hitchhiking is dangerous, isn’t it?” Lena would never hitchhike herself. That was just asking for trouble.
Andrea shrugged. “Seems everyone in Houma knows who Tante Lulu is.”
“You’ll understand that when you meet her.” Lena refilled all their glasses from the big St. Jude pitcher.
“She’s crazy,” Ella said.
“Ella!” Lena told Andrea, “Tante Lulu is a little eccentric, but she’s been very kind to us. So has Grace.”
“They built us a house. That’s more than kind,” Lionel pointed out. “We’re moving in there tomorrow.”
“And they’re payin’ fer all of us ta go to college someday,” Miles added.
Andrea’s jaw dropped open, before tears welled in her eyes. “Grace O’Brien is paying for a house and college for four people.”
“Well, not just Grace. Mostly the LeDeux family,” Lena explained, “but I guess Grace is like an honorary member of that family.”
“Are they rich?” Dubious, Andrea gazed at Grace’s cottage and Tante Lulu’s next door.
“Oh, yeah,” Lionel said. “Don’t judge them by the way they live. They’re loaded, all right.”
Lena smacked Lionel on the arm. “It’s not nice to say that.”
“Well, it’s true,” Ella backed up her brother. “Grace used to be a nun, she tol’ me so, but then she became some kind of world poker champion, then a treasure hunter. So she must be rich.”
“A nun and a… a poker player?” Andrea was clearly stunned. Who wouldn’t be?
Still Lena couldn’t let Ella get away with that kind of gossip. “I swear, Ella, your tongue must have a motor on it. Some things are meant to be private.”
Ella ducked her head sheepishly.
Andrea swiped at the tears that continued to brim her green eyes and lifted her chin pridefully.
The tears puzzled Lena, but she wasn’t sure how to ask what they meant.
“So, are you all Grace’s children? Adopted children, I mean.”
“Nope. Not even foster children,” Lena informed her. “Grace has just been letting us stay with her while our trailer was torn down and a new house built. Our parents are dead. It’s a long story.”
“What are all these statues around the yard?”
“St. Jude. Tante Lulu’s favorite saint.” Lena laughed, surveying the St. Jude shrine, surrounded by a circle of flowers, the St. Jude birdbath, and the St. Jude wind chimes. “He’s the patron saint of hopeless cases.”
“Hmpfh! I could use a pigload of those. What’s with all the balloons and crepe paper?
“We’re making decorations for the big housewarming party tomorrow night,” Lionel said. “Wanna come? Our house is at the other end of Bayou Black, about ten miles away, on Live Oak Lane.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Andrea’s expression was really sad, Lena realized, and she wasn’t sure what to do about it. She wished Grace or Tante Lulu would hurry home.
“Can I use your bathroom?” Andrea asked suddenly.
“Sure. You can’t miss it. The left door off the living room. You’ll probably find Ella’s Hannah Montana pj’s on the floor.”
“Are not!” Ella protested. “I put them in the hamper.”
“For once,” Lena commented.
After Andrea entered the house, taking her backpack with her, they all turned to Lena with questioning eyes.
“Who is she?” Lionel wanted to know.
“She asked a lot of questions about Grace,” Miles said.
“She kinda looks like Grace,” Ella remarked.
They all went silent at that last observation, then turned as one to stare at the house where Andrea had gone.
Could it be?
Chapter Fifteen
The long-lost daughter wasn’t lost anymore…
Andrea could barely restrain herself from sitting on the edge of the bathtub and bawling her eyes out, but she knew that once she started she wouldn’t be able to stop.
When she’d arrived in New Orleans yesterday, she’d worried that she might run into her stepfather. Luckily, she hadn’t. He was probably already here knee-deep in his blackmail attempt. What a scuzzball! Why couldn’t her mother see what a creep he really was? Well, she would be out of their home soon, for good, although she had no idea where she would be living or what she would be doing.
After washing the tears from her face, she left the bathroom and glanced through the window to see the Duvals still out in the back yard, which gave her the opportunity to snoop a bit. There were only three tiny bedrooms. She was interested in the one that must be Grace’s.
She immediately homed in on the bureau, where a number of framed photographs were displayed. One of those showed Grace with a handsome, dark-haired man, their arms looped around each other’s waists. Was it her boyfriend? Oh, God! Could it be my father? Another photo showed Grace with a trophy, smiling at the camera, with a banner behind her reading “World Texas Hold ’Em Poker Championship.” In yet another photo, Grace wore a nun’s habit. Everything the kids outside had told her must be true. Then there was a picture with a gang of people, including Grace and the dark-haired man, standing in front of a pile of gold. Beside the photo was a framed newspaper article about a Jinx, Inc., treasure-hunting team finding pirate coins right here in Bayou Black last year.
So, that was probably
the reason why her mother had given her away. A baby had been disposable in this woman’s full life. Still, how could she?
My own mother gave me away, and yet she’s helping to give four strangers not just a new home, but college educations. And here I don’t even have enough money to go to community college.
It hurt. No doubt about it, Andrea was hurt. Deeply. She wanted to confront the woman who had given her life and tell her what she thought of her. She wanted to hurt her in return… almost eighteen years of hurt.
How best to do that?
Maybe she should show up at that party tomorrow night and humiliate her in front of all her friends? Yeah, that would be good. Let her feel what it was like to ache so bad you just wanted to curl up in a ball and die.
Then she could get on with her own life.
Alone.
But not hopeless. She wouldn’t let her life be hopeless. Somehow she would work her way through college and prove she didn’t need a mother who had never wanted her.
Just then, the sound of adult voices came from the back yard. Oh, no! Andrea wasn’t ready to confront Grace yet, not in light of all she’d just learned. She had to get out of here. There was a campground about a mile back that she should be able to afford for one night. Yeah, that’s what she would do. Wait ’til the party tomorrow night. Make a big splash, then head out of Dodge for parts unknown.
She grabbed her backpack and was sneaking through the front door when she heard Lena call from the back porch, “Andrea, Tante Lulu and Grace are back. Come out and meet them.”
A surprised and confused Lena entered the house and searched each room, soon realizing that Andrea was gone.
She loves him, she loves him not, she loves him, she…
“Do you think it was my daughter?”
Grace was sitting out on her back porch later that night after everyone else had gone to bed. Apparently, the old lady had trouble sleeping, too; so, seeing her light on, she’d come over to chat, bringing a bottle of her dandelion wine with her.
“Prob’ly. Didja check the bus station in Houma?”
“Yes. And every other place I could think of.” After they’d got home this afternoon, and Lena had relayed the story about the red-haired stranger arriving unexpectedly, Grace had suspected it might be Andrea. And it broke her heart to think the girl had needed to come searching for her, and not vice versa. And it scared her to death to think of where she might be wandering on her own out there tonight.
Ever since the disastrous meeting with George two days ago, Grace had hired a PI friend of John LeDeux to investigate a George Smith from Atlanta. And now she also had him looking for Andrea.
“What a mess!” Grace said on a sigh. “I’ve dug myself into such a hole, I don’t think I’ll ever get out.”
“Well, now, honey, there’s a rule of thumb about holes.”
“Oh?”
“When yer in one, stop diggin’.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that all this started with lies and secrets. Ya gotta undo that mess first.”
“You mean tell Angel.”
“Thass a start. Even if ya have no desire ta wed up with him, he deserves ta know the truth.”
“If you could have seen his face that day at the hotel—he was so hurt. I’ve tried to call him at least a dozen times since then, but all I get is voice mail.”
“What do ya really want, Grace? It ain’t fair ta go cozyin’ up ta Angel again iffen ya doan plan on marryin’ him.”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“Do ya love the boy?”
“I don’t know. All I know is I ache over the hurt I’ve caused him, and… and I do miss him.”
“How’s the sex?”
“Tante Lulu!”
“What? Ya think I doan know nothin’ ’bout hankypanky?”
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
“That good, huh?”
She had to smile at the old lady’s persistence.
“Ain’t it ’bout time ya stopped bein’ such a scaredycat?”
It was true. Her whole life had been based on guilt and the fear of discovery. She still felt guilty, especially since she might have to explain herself to the child she’d left so cavalierly. And she was embarrassed, if not fearful, of what people—especially Angel—would think of her now. “Will Angel be at the party tomorrow night?”
“Prob’ly, but that sure is waitin’ ’til the horse has left the barn, sweetie. His plane is leavin’ from N’awleans at nine a.m. on Saturday.”
“It’s hopeless, isn’t it?”
Tante Lulu chuckled. “Ya came ta the right place with that question.” She pointed to the yard.
Thanks to a full moon, one particular star seems to radiate in a straight line down to the St. Jude mini-shrine.
As a sign of her disintegrating mind, she could swear the statue winked at her. Accompanied by freakin’ celestial music.
It was probably just a blink of the starlight and some frogs ribetting.
I beg your pardon!
Thunder on the bayou… uh-oh!…
Angel wasn’t going to the party. There was only so much battering of the heart that one guy could stand.
In fact, he had this image of himself as the donkey at this affair—more exactly, the donkey’s ass—and all these tails being pinned on him. Each of those one of the many slings and arrows tossed his way by Grace.
Feeling sorry for thyself, my son?
Oh, shut up!
Is that any way to talk to God?
I thought you were St. Jude.
Is that any way to talk to St. Jude?
I give up!
Are you perchance… hopeless?
“I’m out of here, and just in time,” he muttered aloud, “before I go totally bonkers. I wonder if anyone has ever been committed for St. Jude Syndrome.”
Tsk, tsk, tsk!
“Or Tante Lulu-itis?”
She’s a saint, you know.
Oh, good Lord! Angel would have put his hands over his ears—as if that would do any good!—if they weren’t needed on the steering wheel.
His bags were packed and in the back seat of the pickup; his flight booked for tomorrow morning; all loose ends tied up with the Duval house project; and he had an appointment with Ronnie at the Jinx offices on Monday. As for the LeDeux gang, good-byes weren’t his style, and he sure wasn’t looking for thanks.
He probably could have uncovered Grace’s big honkin’ secret by pumping one of the LeDeuxs, but he’d be damned if he’d pursue her anymore. What was the point? Still, he’d been stunned that she could confide in others and not him. Even if she didn’t love him, he’d thought she trusted him.
It was still daylight, and nothing of interest was on the TV, so he’d decided to clear out of the houseboat early. Maybe he’d go over to the Swamp Tavern and have a beer before getting a room near the airport in New Orleans.
Cruising down the rural two-lane road, he noticed a backpack-carrying young girl hitchhiking. Was that stupid, or what? Girls today should know better. Didn’t she watch any of the crime shows on the tube?
He glanced her way as he approached, her red ponytail catching the late-day sun. Then he did a double take as he passed.
“Oh. My. God!” He slammed on the brakes and pulled over to the side of the road. Turning in his seat to look through the rear window, he saw the girl approaching. She must think he had stopped to pick her up.
The girl was Grace, except younger, probably still a teenager. The red hair was longer, the green eyes a little darker, about three inches taller, but he would bet his left nut that this doppelgänger was Gracie’s sister.
No, no, no! That’s not it.
It’s Gracie’s daughter.
Holy shit!
So this is the big secret.
But how could it be? At closer range, he could see that she was over sixteen, and Grace was almost thirty-five. When she gave birth, she would have had to be only
fifteen or sixteen, at most, he swiftly calculated in his head. “Oh. My. God!” he muttered again.
As the girl opened the passenger door, she inquired, “Hi! You goin’ anywhere near Live Oak Lane? It’s at the other end of Bayou Black, I think.”
The Duval house. He inhaled and exhaled several times before he said, “Sure. Hop in. You goin’ to the party?”
“Um, sorta.”
Sorta? Okaaay! Once she closed her door and snuggled as far away from him as she could, he put the truck in gear and drove on.
“How’d you know about the party?” Even her voice was Grace-husky.
“Honey, down the bayou everyone knows everyone’s business.”
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
“Nope. Mostly New Jersey, but I move around a lot. You?”
“Atlanta. But I sorta expect to move around a lot now, too.”
He didn’t bother to probe further about that enigmatic response; she probably wouldn’t tell him, anyway. In the ensuing silence, he kept glancing her way, repeatedly. The resemblance to Grace was uncanny.
Was this how Grace looked in pre-nun days?
Was this why she became a nun?
Was this why she was so screwed up emotionally?
No, no, no, I am not belly smacking into that pool again. I’ll drop the girl off at the end of the lane and get the hell out of stinkin’ Louisiana as soon as possible. Maybe I can even get a standby flight tonight.
“I’m Angel Sabato. What’s your name?”
She hesitated, then said, “Andrea Fletcher.”
“How old are you?”
“Why?”
Good Lord, she probably thought he was fishing to know whether she was jailbait or not. “Just making conversation.”
“Almost eighteen.”
He smiled at that. As if almost eighteen was tons better than seventeen! “You been in Louisiana long?”
She shook her head. “Just two days.”
“Staying long?”
She shook her head again.
He pulled into the parking lot of a Kluck-Kluck Chicken Palace, turned off the motor, and stared at her.