by Cora Kenborn
“It’s in Highland, sweetie. We want to help, but we also have standards.” As she blinked her mascara-caked tarantula eyelashes, the thick layers of affluent pretentiousness in the room smothered me.
“Why don’t we give the proceeds to Affluenza Awareness?” I smirked, shoving my hand into my long reddish-brown hair.
I’d catch shit for that.
Courtney gasped. “Oh my God, that Affluenza disease is deadly. I didn’t have my shot this year and had to wear a face mask the whole time at the mall.”
Somewhere, I was convinced Courtney’s family tree didn’t fork.
I was just about to correct her when a buzzing on the side table diverted my attention. I’d planned to ignore it, my goal was to get this meeting over with as soon as possible. Then, my eye caught the area code on the caller ID.
985. Terrebonne Parish.
Blocking out everything else, I dove for the phone. “Mama?”
“Addie?”
A nervous twitch pooled in my stomach.
“Daddy, what’s wrong?” He hesitated. Daddy never hesitated. At least, he never used to. Not that I’d know what was normal for him these days.
Background noise from the bitch brigade and elevated voices competing for dominance on the other end of the line had me shoving one finger in my ear and charging out of the room.
Something was very wrong.
Pacing the marble hallway of the mansion I’d called home for the better part of a decade, I strained to decipher the voices shouting simultaneously in my ear. My father yelled in a tense voice for someone to put out the fire, while a string of garbled Russian and English interrupted him with alternating laughter, tears, and what sounded like plates crashing.
“Daddy!”
“Addie,” he repeated in a tired voice. “It’s your grandfather.”
I grabbed the banister for support. “What’s wrong with Pappy?”
“He passed away last night.” The sadness in his voice squeezed my chest with worry. “It was his heart. I told him all those cigars and Russian vodka would kill him. The old man thought he knew everything.” He paused, clearing his throat. “The funeral is Saturday.”
“Oh, Dad...” Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes and blurred my vision. Scrubbing my palm down my face, I glanced over my shoulder to make sure no one was within earshot. “I…”
“Look, Addie, I know you can’t come.”
I swallowed hard as his words tore me apart. He didn’t mean them rudely, but I heard the bitterness creep into his tone.
Not that I could blame him. Why would he expect me to come? I hadn’t been back to Terrebonne Parish in five years, and that visit ended with Roland being chased with a shotgun and Babs being charged with aggravated assault.
“Dad, it’s not that I don’t want to come, it’s just that—”
“Addie, let’s not…” His voice trailed off as another crash diverted his attention. “Mama! Put the dishes down. No, Mama! What the hell are you doing?”
More garbled words filled the line as heavy breathing and an older, much less accommodating voice commanded my attention. “This time you spend with bull’s ass is over,” my grandmother declared in a deep Russian accent.
“Babs…” Sighing, I fisted my hands by my side. “He’s my husband.” My grandmother had a stubborn streak a mile wide and didn’t take shit from anyone. I envied that about her.
My grandfather had met my grandmother during World War II while he was stationed in Poland. No one thought she’d adapt as well as she did to life in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, but somehow, she managed to embrace her new home. No one was like my Babs. She was a mix of Southern swamp lady and hard-nosed Russian from the old country.
A rattling noise filled the line followed by a long slurp. Babushka—or Babs as we called her—had just taken her teeth out and spit on the floor—her favorite expression of displeasure.
“He no man, Addie. No man keep girl from family. He dog. He flea on dog.” I heard her spit on the floor again and shove her teeth back in her mouth.
There was no use arguing with her. Babs had never approved of Roland. No one in my family did. Besides, we’d lost our grandfather, but Babs had just lost her soulmate. “Babs, are you all right? I’m so sorry about Pappy.”
She sighed. “Adelaide Rose, sometimes we wear hat, sometimes hat wear us.”
“What the hell does that even mean?”
“Get in car. I see you soon.”
“Babs! I just can’t…Babs?” I pulled the phone away to make sure she hadn’t hung up.
My father’s voice took over the line again as my stomach twisted. “Mother, sit down and give me the vodka. Addie?”
“I’m here.”
“One more thing. I can’t get in touch with Savannah.”
I rolled my eyes in reaction to my sister’s nomadic ways. “And this surprises you?”
“No, but I know if she’ll respond to anyone, it’ll be you.”
“Doubtful.”
“Just try, Addie. Savannah and your Pappy were close, and she needs to know.”
Another glance toward the parlor confirmed the natives were restless. “Fine, I’ll take care of Sav.”
As always.
My little sister and I were as opposite as any siblings could be. She never approved of my ticket out of Terrebonne, and I always thought her lack of financial planning would land her on a park bench with a newspaper blanket. Maybe half our issues with each other stemmed from the fact that no one called me out on my bullshit like Savvy did. I both hated and admired her for it. But, I’d never admit it to her.
“Thanks, honey.” I held my breath in anticipation of more bad news. “Addie?”
“Yeah?”
“I miss you.”
My dad worked a blue-collar job all his life. He wasn’t a callous man. I came from a loving family, but it took a lot for my proud, disciplined father to crack.
And his voice cracked.
It wobbled.
It freaking broke.
Maybe that was the reason my mouth opened and the most asinine, ridiculous, suicidal thing came out without a single regard for my well-being.
“I’ll be there.”
The pastel colored contents of my closet lay in a pile on my bedroom floor, and I still had nothing to wear. Roland hated me in black. He claimed it wasn’t ladylike and didn’t befit a Bordeaux.
However, it wasn’t my taste that didn’t fit Bordeaux standards; it was me. I’d conformed to something I loathed. Glancing around at the clothespocolypse, I dug my heels into the hardwood and pushed them as far away as I could.
They were safe. They were obedient. They looked like the Easter Bunny threw up all over them. I hated everything they stood for.
Nowhere in the three-foot high pile of designer labels and expensive fabric, could I find something appropriate to wear to Pappy’s funeral. Nothing to pay my respects to the man who’d called me a sissy for taking dance classes, and then snuck into the back of the recital hall to watch me destroy the stage with my horrific tapping. Nothing to honor the man who’d tried his best to teach me to bait a hook and catch a fish. I’d humored him just to pretend like I belonged in his world, but when his back was turned, I’d set all the fish and worms free. I never had the stomach for it.
Savannah was the one who’d liked to get her hands dirty. She and Pappy would fish for hours and come back proud of their loot. Me? It broke my heart to see the destruction of life, so I sat in my room and studied as they loaded up the truck with poles and coolers, laughing.
Glancing at the hurricane of clothes, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony.
Had I known then that the biggest destruction of my life would be my own doing, baiting worms wouldn’t have seemed so inhumane. Shaking my head, I popped my suitcase open and neatly folded some pants and a few dresses inside.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I closed my eyes, gathering courage. I knew this was c
oming. I’d given myself the internal pep-talk needed to combat Roland Christopher Bordeaux III. I thought I was ready to face him, but the man had a way of making me feel like the hired help getting caught inside the main house.
“My grandfather died,” I began. “I’m going to Terrebonne Parish for the funeral, Roland.”
“The hell you are.”
“It’s just for a few days.”
He eyed the pile of clothes, slowing the cadence of his phrasing as if I were a child incapable of comprehending big words. “I don’t care if it’s for a few hours, Adelaide, I forbid it.”
“You can’t keep me from being with my family right now.”
Taking a step forward, he laughed while lifting a slow and deliberate eyebrow. “Adelaide, I’ve kept you from being with your family for ten years. If you think you’re traveling anywhere unaccompanied, you’re sadly mistaken.”
“That’s just it. You don’t have to be inconvenienced. I’ll drive to Terrebonne Parish today, and I’ll be back right after the funeral on Saturday.” I held my breath.
“And risk that group of swamp-swimming inbreeders rubbing off on you again?” He kicked a designer gown out of his way and buttoned his suit jacket. “Absolutely not.”
“He was my grandfather, Roland.”
“He was a blue-collar fish peddler with a crazy mail-order bride. Trust me, I did you a favor by taking you away from there before you married one of your cousins.”
I fought hard to control my temper. Sugarbirch Plantation was my home, and the last thing I wanted to do was cause a scene with a house full of people. However, the more he talked, the Sugarbirch pedigree that coated my exterior melted as the down-home Terrebonne that ran through my veins boiled from the inside out.
My prim and proper smile slipped, and my lip curled into a murky smirk straight out of the bayou. “I’m going to see my family,” I repeated. I’d never challenged Roland in ten years of marriage. I’d always worried about the consequences. I was way overdue.
“You know what your problem is, Adelaide? You don’t know your place. You’ve never fit into my world. God knows, I’ve tried give you class, but I guess you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” A self-satisfied sneer plastered across his face, and he crossed his arms as if he’d won the battle.
But the war had just begun.
Slamming the suitcase closed, I ran a hard stare over my husband. Six feet of carefully constructed, spray tanned, manicured muscle glared back at me. Every dyed brown hair was in place as he snarled, baring perfectly veneered, obscenely white teeth.
“I’m sorry, dear, I can’t hear you over the inbred voices in my head screaming at me to punch you in the dick.” Grabbing my suitcase, I stormed out of the room, and ran down the stairs, praying in my grand exit that I didn’t fall flat on my ass.
“Adelaide, come back here! You know what? Fine. Leave. But don’t bother coming back.”
Stopping mid-stride, I spun around, not sure if I wanted to laugh or cry. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I’m serious. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to tell you for weeks, and this stunt of yours makes it that much easier.”
All the fire that had just lit my confidence now pooled at my feet. “Tell me what?”
“I’ve met someone,” he admitted, palming the back of his neck at the bottom of the stairs. “Our marriage has been a joke for a long time, and the sex…” He rolled his eyes and nodded at my sensible yellow dress. “Let’s just say you’re hardly the co-ed you were ten years ago.”
“What?” I gasped, horrified. “You made me this way. This is what you wanted, Roland!”
He relaxed his posture and picked at an invisible piece of lint on his suit. “I wanted a respectable wife, not a frigid ice queen.” Tears burned my eyes, but I held them back as he threw flame to the fire. “I don’t love you anymore, Adelaide. I’m not sure if I ever did.”
This wasn’t happening. I saw the words come out of his mouth, but my twisted brain refused to process them. Instinct begged me to scream at him, but shock glued my mouth shut. Roland, of course, mistook my silence for weakness.
“Go back to the swamp, Adelaide DuBois. Crawl back to where you came from just as you crawled out ten years ago— with nothing. I’ll send the papers to Gator Junction.” He punctuated the words with such an over-exaggerated Southern accent I wanted to sink a heel in his nuts.
Instead, I did what I’d done my whole life.
I ran.
However, as I passed by the parlor I stopped.
It was deathly quiet. Most of the ladies sat with worried hands, tight lips, and raised eyebrows as if they had been waiting for Roland to realize what a mistake he’d made in marrying me. I glanced at Ashley as she messed with her stupid side bun, patting it with a smirk she fought to hide.
Then there was Courtney. Queen of Shreveport. Bitch of the South. The woman who stared at my husband’s cock like it was her last meal in prison. I’d bitten my tongue so many times, I assumed it had scars. If I was going out, I was going out with a bang.
Stomping into the parlor, I flashed Roland a brilliant smile over my shoulder. “Hey, y’all,” I placed the suitcase on the floor and ran a hand over the finger sandwiches. Finally picking one up, I took a bite and frowned. “You know? They look so good, but once you get a taste, you find them to be as unsatisfying as they are tiny.” Picking up my suitcase, I swung my hips dramatically toward the door. Pausing at the threshold, I winked at them. “Kind of like Roland’s dick.”
The only thing I heard before I slammed the front door was shocked female gasps and one low male curse quickly moving away from the parlor.
As an idealistic twenty-year old, I didn’t think about five years down the road, much less ten. If I had, I sure as hell wouldn’t have signed a pre-nuptial agreement that left me driving down Highway 90, penniless, jobless, and homeless.
Home.
Jesus. How the hell could I come crawling back to my family after pretending Terrebonne Parish had been wiped off the face of the earth? They were good people. They didn’t deserve the radio silence I’d given them over the years. I’d even let Roland manipulate me into a Christmas card relationship with my little sister.
Pressing the gas pedal harder, I turned up the radio. Faith Hill’s, “Cry” blasted through the car and I sniffed back an impending breakdown. I envied my sister. A free spirit from birth, Savannah didn’t give a rat’s ass what people thought of her. People respected her. Women, and even some men, feared her, but most of all, people wanted to be her. You always knew where you stood with Savvy.
Me? I smiled sweetly and told everyone what they wanted to hear.
I was four hours into my trip with a little more than half an hour to go until I had to face them. Running the scenario over in my head didn’t help matters. All it made me do was chew Rolaids like they were Tic-Tacs. A quick glance in the rear-view mirror reminded me why God invented sunglasses. Crying did nothing for the lines around my eyes. Roland reminded me of that every day.
“God, give me a sign. Am I making a huge mistake here?”
Fear was a four-letter word that had me ready to make a very illegal turn through the median and beg for Roland’s forgiveness when a song came on the radio.
Not just a song. The song. My sign.
I listened to the first few lines, absorbing the wisdom of Taylor Swift’s “Never Getting Back Together”. As my confidence grew, so did a surge of empowerment, and I rolled down the window to get my first taste of it.
With the music blaring in my ears, I held onto the wheel with one hand and stuck the other out of the window, feeling the Southern Louisiana weather coating my palm. Absorbing every word, every guitar strum, and every middle finger the song had to offer, I belted it out right along with Taylor as the tears flowed.
“Never, ever, ever, you cheating son of a bitch!”
Unfortunately, during the chorus of my cathartic cleanse, something resembling a bat flew into the window and
committed suicide between my face and my sunglasses.
Crying and now blind, Jesus took the wheel as I slapped myself stupid and swerved all over the road, crossing the double yellow line into oncoming traffic. Lights flashed, horns honked, and I made deals with God, Satan, and Dolly Parton to let me live.
Still screaming, I finally pulled my prized little blue BMW over and tried to calm down until I realized the bat was still fluttering around on the floorboard. Throwing a road side tantrum, I jerked off my seat belt, kicked it out of the car and stomped the shit out of it.
“Stupid bat! You messed up my song! You. Messed. Up. My. Song!” I punctuated each word with another stomp to the bat’s shell.
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a bat.
Closer inspection told me it was some kind of swamp bug.
Or it used to be a swamp bug.
Now, it looked like something Babs spit on the floor before putting her teeth back in.
“Ew.” Climbing back into the car, I made my way further down the highway, eventually seeing the old, beat up road signs for Terrebonne. Maybe it was another sign? Maybe the smack of the bug was my slap of reality back to the swamp I abandoned?
Sighing, I steadied the wheel and the sun hit the diamond on my ring finger. It was a brilliant stone, and had been in Roland’s family for generations. A perfectly cut, five carat, pear-shaped diamond next to an equally impressive wedding band. One that had kept me in line while his dick roamed free.
I balled my fist around both and tossed them out the window.
“Screw you, Roland Bordeaux. Screw you and your whore.”
As I said the words, I glanced up at the mammoth sign welcoming me back to Terrebonne Parish. A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. “I’m back, y’all,” I announced to no one.
Then, realizing I’d just tossed a three-hundred-thousand dollar ring out the window, I slammed my foot on the brake and threw it in reverse. “But I’m not stupid,”
Ten minutes later, after a thorough highway shoulder search on my hands and knees, I stashed my rings in the glove box. Although nerves still ate at me, I winked at the sign as I made the turn this time. “Now, I’m back.”