by Ciji Ware
Jacques let go of the mantel and put both arms around Serena, his forehead resting on her shoulder. Jack felt he, too, might not be able to keep the tears rimming his eyes from streaming down his cheeks. He knew perfectly well the secret Serena referred to... and that he was the only person she’d trusted enough to tell about her affair with Marco Leone.
We all have sins for which we need forgiveness... he reminded himself.
Much to Jack’s shock, Serena released his uncle and turned toward where he was sitting on the far side of the room. She approached his chair with an air of melancholy that twisted his gut.
“And please forgive me, Jack, for refusing to talk to you all these weeks. I can only imagine how tough it must have been for you to learn that your uncle was among those who signed those documents to build the same walls that ultimately failed in Lakeview.”
“It was,” he admitted hoarsely.
“And that as the honest reporter that you are, you couldn’t avoid revealing the role the U.S. Army Corps and your uncle had played in the anniversary story—whatever would happen afterward—even if it eventually meant that I’d blame you and your uncle for the death of four members of my family... which I did.”
Jack could only stare into the pools of her dark brown eyes that had so captured his heart the first time he’d held her gaze. He stood up from his chair and reached for her hands, but before he could touch her, she swiftly stepped back.
“Your uncle’s mistakes aren’t yours, Jack, and I ask your forgiveness for the way I’ve behaved about a lot of things lately. You, more than anyone in this room, know that I have apologies to make to some other people as well.”
Her expression told him that number one on her list was Mrs. Marco Leone, though whether she’d do so in person or find other ways in which to make her amends was anybody’s guess.
Jack pulled a resisting Serena into his arms and held her trembling body against his chest. His chin on the top of her head, he could feel her finally relax against him. He sighed with relief when she raised her arms and wrapped them around his waist.
To his amazement, the rest of her family—except for Cosimo Antonelli—rose from their seats and moved toward the forlorn figure standing near the fireplace. Over Serena’s shoulder Jack watched them, one by one embrace his uncle.
After a few moments, Jack released Serena from the bear hold he had her in and led her back to join the family circle. Cosimo, however, had remained seated, his head bowed. Dylan stood beside the patriarch of the Antonelli clan and placed a hand lightly on his shoulder.
“Peace be with you all,” he said in quiet benediction.
And still Cosimo said nothing, but at least he didn’t storm out of the room, Jack thought with a hopeful glance at Serena. In response, she turned a tearful face inches from his and then kissed him on both cheeks.
“Peace be with you, Jack,” she whispered. “Peace... and love... but we still have a few hurdles to get over, don’t you agree?”
“We do?” he replied, his heart taking a nosedive once again.
“We do,” she repeated firmly. “And it scares me that you don’t seem to know what they are. Let’s take a walk by the river, okay?”
“I have to drive my uncle home first.”
“Meet you down by the aquarium in half an hour?” Serena suggested.
“Not at my place?” he asked.
“Not a chance.”
Serena was the first to leave the Duvallon house on Dauphine and swiftly walked down Ursulines Street past Royal, and turned right on Decatur. She stopped at Café du Monde for a café au lait-to-go and sat on a bench that overlooked Jackson Square, a wide expanse of parkland that was dominated at the other end by the three spires of St. Louis Cathedral. After a few minutes mulling over the things she still had to say to Jack, she crossed the trolley tracks to the Riverwalk paralleling the sharp curve in the Mississippi that had given early New Orleans its name as the Crescent City.
By the time she reached the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, as it was advertised to the tourists, she spotted Jack already sitting on a bench that faced the river. A paddleboat was tied up nearby that doubled as a floating casino, its patrons already streaming up the gangway for a night of wagering. The sun was low in the sky and yet the autumn heat was only now starting to diminish a few degrees as dusk was coming on.
Gazing at the slow moving water near the shore, Serena suddenly thought of the canals of Venice and wondered what the weather was like there now? Probably still hot, too, she mused, but most likely not as humid. She could feel the stickiness starting to gather on her back, but the warm surroundings would prompt her to make what she had to say to Jack short and... well... maybe not so sweet.
Before she could begin, Jack spoke first.
“Hey... hi. I saved a spot for you,” he said, patting the seat beside him. He paused and awkwardness lay thick between them like the high humidity reflected at the water’s edge. “First of all,” he said finally, “I’m really grateful that Corlis found that Dylan guy to help us with all this.”
“Apparently she and King had some major blow up that he guided them through before they got married.”
“Hmmm... King never told me that Dylan was involved.”
“Well,” Serena said, “it’s been my experience that men tend to keep a lot of secrets to themselves about important stuff and how they... really feel. And that’s what I want to talk about.”
Jack’s gaze searched hers, but she could see there was a wary look in his eye.
“I thought—after what happened this afternoon—”
“Look, Jack,” she cut him off, “I was very moved by what happened at the Duvallons earlier, but as far as you and I are concerned, I have to tell you that I just can’t be with a guy who keeps a lot of secrets that relate directly to me and doesn’t let me in on what’s really going on with him. With you, I mean. Like you did in Venice and again, when the Katrina story was published.”
“But I thought you understood, now, that the paper insisted—”
“I do understand, but at some point—when it involves us—you have to trust the woman you say you love,” she retorted heatedly. “You’re not in the C.I.A., for God’s sake, you’re a journalist at a newspaper that only publishes three days a week! You have to trust I have both our best interests at heart and would never do or say anything to others that would harm either one of us. If you can’t tell me who your sources are, okay. But on absolutely everything else, you have to be straight with me, Jack. Straight with me!”
Her last words had become close to an anguished cry and Serena turned away on the bench, willing herself not to get teary. After a few moments’ silence, Jack spoke first.
“I will after this,” he said, reaching over to lay a hand on her shoulder. “Whatever you ask me from here on out, Serena, I swear to you, I’ll tell you the truth.”
“How do I know that?” she demanded, looking over her shoulder. She shifted her weight with a shrug that caused Jack’s hand to slip to his side. “In two important instances, when I asked you multiple times to tell me straight out what was going on with you, you avoided coming clean. Then you disappeared into the swamp for a week with absolutely no word when you had to know how tough it would be for me to read your stories! How can I trust that you won’t do that again when the going gets rough?”
Jack looked at her for a long moment and then said quietly, “You’ll just have to because I’m not the same guy anymore. I should have told you I was going to King’s place to crash, and I’ll never go into radio silence like that again. You’ll just have to take a big ole’ leap of faith, screw up your courage, and trust me—Jack Durand—that I’ve finally learned my lesson. It’s simple as that.”
“It’s not simple with you!” she retorted.
“Well, we’re getting there, don’t you think? You’ve shown me in so many ways that I can trust you... so it feels... different from the ten years before I met you. I have to get used to that, I gue
ss.”
Despite her resolve, her eyes filled and she stared at him mutely.
“Serena,” he said gently, “it’s like what Dylan said. We both probably have some raw nerves, given everything that’s happened to us individually in the last decade. We have these automatic reactions that can probably be chalked up to the fight-or-flight thing he explained to us. We two just have to begin laying down new experiences with each other to erase the bad ones. Rewire our brains, I guess you could say. We have to remind each other that you’re not Lauren and I’m not Marco and keep the truth clearly in mind that we love each very much, remembering that we only have good intentions toward one another.”
“I don’t know,” she replied doubtfully. “I’m just exhausted from it all. I think I’ll just go back to the shop and sleep on the couch at Gus and Nick’s. I don’t want to talk to anybody for a while. Even you.”
Jack cast her an odd look.
“That’s exactly how I felt when I finally filed my stories at the paper and took off for King’s cabin in Covington. I didn’t even want to talk to you, and look how that turned out. So I think... you should come home with me.”
Silenced by this, Serena stood up from the bench and stared at the slow moving river. Then she turned to him and murmured, “Touché.”
The squeals of children punctuated the silence that grew between them as a gaggle of youngsters emerged from a side door of the aquarium, their tour of the underwater world concluded. Jack rose from the bench to stand beside her. He reached for her hand.
“How about some gumbo, Signorina Antonelli? I’ve got some in the fridge. I could steam some rice and spoon-feed you while you’re taking a little rest and we won’t talk at all. We’re much closer to Julia Street than Antonelli’s Costumes, way up there on Lafayette,” he added, his look beseeching.
Serena turned to meet his gaze, her melancholy expression transformed by the faintest of smiles.
“And if I’m too tired to go home after the gumbo, do you promise to sleep on top of the covers like we did the first night we were together at Ca’Arco Antico?”
“I’ll try, darling, but let me be real straight with you,” he said, his words gently mocking her earlier ones, “I can’t promise.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Hey, look at it this way,” Jack said, “I’m telling you how I really feel.”
“Well, Giovanni...” she drawled, her smile broadening, “that sounds like a very good start to a wonderful friendship.”
“And if, tomorrow, I ask my mother to get my grandmother’s ring out of the bank vault? What do you say?”
Serena’s eyes widened and her lips parted in surprise. Then, without answering, she stood on tiptoe, slipped her arms around his waist, and kissed him in a slow, languid fashion that signaled she’d be sleeping in Jack’s quarters on Julia Street this night—and most likely for many nights to come.
Under the covers, of course.
EPILOGUE
Venice, Italy
“I checked the tide chart,” Jack said, waving his cellphone in one hand. The wind whipping around their water taxi prompted him to lean closer to the other three passengers in order to be heard. “No acqua alta expected the entire time we’re in Venice, thank you, Jesus!”
The waters of the Grand Canal splashing against the hull of their boat threw off diamonds into the clear, bright sunshine of early May. Mardi Gras and Carnival were mere memories both in New Orleans and La Serenissima, and spring had clearly come to northern Italy.
“Oooooh, and it’s warm but no humidity!” exclaimed Corlis excitedly, stretching her arms out as if to embrace both sides of the canal and the sun pouring down on the travelers, late of Louisiana.
King Duvallon reached over and bestowed a bear hug and then a kiss on his wife’s neck.
“Aren’t you glad we were invited on the honeymoon?” he said, chucking her under her chin and then kissing her again properly.
“And aren’t you glad the wedding is behind us?” Serena added, her arms around the waist of her husband of less than two weeks.
The foursome laughed, mostly with relief.
The nuptials joining the Durand and Antonelli families had been held at St. Louis Cathedral some eight months after the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The traditional Catholic ceremony was followed by a reception upstairs in the Gold Room at Arnaud’s, the tin-ceilinged Grand Dame of Creole dining in New Orleans since 1918. Wedding preparations had required feats of navigation that rivaled any regatta ever held on the Venetian Lagoon. This included persuading Arnaud’s French-centric chef to create papardelle con scampi as part of the menu, one of the late Serena d’Este Antonelli’s most famous family dishes.
In the end, Serena’s father Cosimo IV walked his eldest daughter down the aisle toward the groom waiting expectantly beside the altar. In Jack’s view, this was a minor miracle, given the fact that Coz Antonelli had barely exchanged two words with his prospective son-in-law since Jack’s story had been published and the couple’s engagement announced at Thanksgiving.
The composition of the wedding party, alone, gave Serena’s father “heartburn,” he’d declared. It had numbered the firebrand preservationist, Kingsbury Duvallon, as Jack’s best man. The elder Antonelli was none too pleased, either, that his gay son’s partner Gus LeMoyne, along with Nick himself, and that “whacky real estate agent, Dylan Fouché,” all served as ushers.
To Coz’s utter disbelief, even Jack’s whistleblower uncle, Jacques Durand, handed out the order-of-service pamphlets at the back of the cathedral, and later escorted Jack’s sister, “that animal nut, Marielle Claiborne,” down the aisle as a bridesmaid.
To the wedding planners’ relief, Coz appeared mollified somewhat when his reclusive daughter Flavia was also asked to be a bridesmaid, even if it was alongside of Jack’s other sister Sylvia—whom the senior Antonelli had heard “had been a druggie.” It had been his wife, Sarah, who pointed out that the young woman was “currently sober, just like I am, you’ll be happy to know,” she remarked with some asperity.
And damned if Sarah K. Antonelli didn’t wax over the moon that her Kingsbury cousin’s daughter-in-law—“that hell-raiser newswoman, Corlis McCullough”—was given the role of Serena’s Matron-of-Honor.
Adding to Cosimo’s shock and consternation, however, the wedding received much more media attention than even WJAZ’s anchorwoman expected.
Unbeknownst to any attendees, including the reporters Jack and Corlis themselves, the April 20th nuptials coincided with an announcement that was leaked earlier that day on the Internet. The three-part Katrina anniversary series in the Times-Picayune by Jack Durand had garnered the environmental journalist his second Pulitzer Prize.
Every TV station and radio outlet, plus a multitude of correspondents from area print media clustered outside the church waiting to shove microphones into Jack’s face minutes after he and Serena had been declared husband-and-wife.
For their part, both were well aware that the joy of that day had been dampened when Jack’s other uncle, Vincent Durand, and his wife had not even deigned to reply to the heartfelt invitation to bear witness to the two families having mostly healed their breach.
“Look at it this way,” Serena had said a week before the wedding, trying to cheer up her fiancé, “The group that committed to our team is pretty darn great! Let’s be grateful for progress, if not perfection...”
Listed on the “Grateful Ledger,” as Serena dubbed it, Vincent’s grown children—Jack’s cousins Michael and Mary Lou—came in force to the wedding and the reception, a decision that helped salve the wounds, especially for Jack’s father and mother.
In fact, the tentative feelings between the two families seemed to evaporate in the wake of the obvious joy shining in the eyes of the bride and groom when they’d turned to face the congregation at the end of the nuptial mass. Among the wedding party and their guests that April afternoon, a feeling began to percolate that all the pain of reliving
the events of Katrina that Jack had chronicled in his newspaper series had been somewhat assuaged by a city’s citizens finally understanding a great deal more about what had happened in August of 2005.
This sunny day in May, all the drama of Serena and Jack’s wedding seemed as distant as Venice was from New Orleans. The recent bride lifted her face and reveled in the warmth and the freshness in the Adriatic Sea air. She gazed off the bow of the boat and soaked in the beauty of the buildings on either side of the canal and the gondolas gliding by. Then, Serena had a sudden, sobering thought: how many generations beyond her own would be able to exult in the magnificence of the city—to say nothing of delighting in the charms of New Orleans, for that matter—before the water pushed landward one day, never to recede? Would people on Planet Earth ever be willing to grapple with the undiminished threat of rising waters in both cities, come hurricane season and the annual acqua alta?
With pure force of will, she banished the awful images of Venice and the Crescent City languishing below sea level by turning to absorb the sight of her dearest friends, their arms around each other, gazing, awestruck as she was, at their stunning surroundings. Serena and Jack couldn’t imagine a return to Venice without Corlis and King. The bridal couple had surprised them at the end of the wedding reception at Arnaud’s with a note saying there would be two round-trip tickets to the Marco Polo Airport in their names, funded with Jack’s ten thousand dollars in Pulitzer prize money.
“Without you two... and a little of Dylan Fouché’s woo-woo, or voodoo, or whatever we want to call it,” Serena had declared, raising the last glass of champagne left in the last bottle that joyous evening, “... we’d never have made it to this happy day.”
And so, the foursome had arrived in the most romantic city in the world on a lovely spring afternoon, heading for a secret destination that only Jack knew.