Son of a Sinner

by Lynn Shurr

  Mati pushed forward to rub noses. Lil lay down to accommodate his short stature and give him a good sniff. “Could you let her out?”

  “Sure, but get ready. She’s got lots of energy.” Diamond Lil plunged and jumped and fawned and licked on the end of a tight leash. Mati danced with her. “I admit she needs training,” Maude confessed.

  Stacy opened her purse and took out two dog treats. “Sit, Lil,” she said meeting the dog’s large black eyes. Mati sat at once and waited in anticipation of a snack. Lil hesitated, then plunked down beside him, her butt still wiggling. Both got their reward. “We’ll take her. I have a little time to work on training before I leave.”

  As the pleased volunteer led Lil to the office to complete her paperwork, Tom said, “Why leave now when you and Dean are back together?”

  “I honestly can’t stand the thought of being here when another woman has Dean’s child. I’m giving Mati to Edie because I can’t take him with me. Anyhow, I can’t give Edie a dog and not get one for T-Rex. Besides, she’ll be company for Mati. I don’t want him to be lonely.”

  Tom scrunched his freckled forehead. “So you’re giving Dean to Ilsa? Sure sounds that way to me.”

  “No! I’m shattered over leaving him and Mati. Don’t you dare tell your brother that. He has enough problems. Let’s go. Dean must be waiting.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Dean was waiting, parked in the cul-de-sac deserted by paparazzi since he failed to come here any more. Instead of “Merry Christmas, Princess” or greeting Stacy with a kiss, he said, “Another dog?” as Lil bounded at his feet wearing a new red studded collar around her black neck.

  “For T-Rex. I’ll explain later.”

  “Tom, is the dog riding with you?” Dean asked.

  “Heck, no. I already got the three sisters and Teddy to pick up. Diamond Lil is all yours to transport.”

  Dean eyed the leather seats of his Mustang GT. “Got a blanket we can put down, Stacy?”

  “I have one in the back of the SUV.” Tom handed over an old army blanket.

  “What would I do without you, bro?”

  “Pretty bad. We both know that.”

  Xochi appeared with her overnight bag in-hand. Tom stowed it and her in the SUV. “One down, three to go. See you in Chapelle.” They started home for Christmas.

  Dean retraced his Thanksgiving trip with Ilsa, the landscape being bleaker now with most of the cypress trees bare except for an occasional holdout still bearing leaves of rusty orange as they crossed the swamps. The small towns along the way made up for this with crèches in front of their churches and brightly lit wreaths, bells, and Santas on their lampposts. Finally, they arrived in Chapelle, passing the live oaks on the square, which hosted a frenzy of angel figures in their boughs. The gates at Lorena Ranch wore two large evergreen wreaths with red bows, and the oaks bore white lights strung along their branches lighting the way to the house.

  The barking of two excited dogs brought the youngest Billodeauxs to the kitchen doorway. “Mati!” Edie screamed and held out her arms for the Bichon Frise to launch himself into her embrace.

  “T-Rex, I brought the other dog for you,” Stacy said as the rest of the family spilled out onto the lawn.

  Dean’s smallest brother took a good look at Lil quivering with good will. He’d lived on a ranch his whole short life. “It’s a girl,” he said with disgust.

  “Would you rather have a dog like Mati?” Stacy asked him.

  “Jeez, no. I want a big one.” T-Rex held his arms wide to give a measure. Lil took that as an invitation and jumped against him, knocking the boy to the ground and licking his face until he laughed. Sitting up, he said, “I guess she’s all right.”

  “Her name is Diamond Lil, and she’s more than all right. Someone get me a tennis ball. She’s supposed to have Labrador retriever in her.”

  Trin raided the sports closet and returned with the ball. T-Rex threw it hard as he could, not a bad arm for a seven-year-old. Lil raced off after her quarry leaving poor, short-legged Mati way behind in the chase. She returned eagerly to T-Rex but engaged in a tug of war for her prize. Stacy took the ever-handy dog treat from her purse and commanded, “Drop!” while holding out the morsel. Lil cocked her head debating whether to keep the ball or go for the treat. When Mati sat on his haunches to beg, she gave in and deposited the slobbery orb at T-Rex’s feet.

  “Oh, cool! I’ll keep her.” He pitched the ball again and sent Lil racing.

  “Might have been nice if someone asked before getting him a dog,” Nell said.

  “She’s a rescue dog, Aunt Nell. Should I take her back?” Stacy said, knowing the answer in advance.

  “Right. Hit me in my soft spot. She’s here to stay.”

  Stacy turned over the snacks to Dean’s little brother. “Here, she isn’t allowed one until she gives you the ball. Keep practicing. Someone see if we have another ball for Mati so he has a chance, too.”

  Dean stood there watching Stacy persuade people to do what she wanted them to do in a subtle sort of way, not bossy like she’d been in childhood. He studied her technique—the special object, the tender plea—and thought he could pull it off without getting into an argument. Moving to where his parents stood, Joe with his arm around Nell, he asked, “Could you keep the horde out here for a little while? I want to talk to Stacy in the den.”

  “Good to see you must have made up if she rode here with you,” his mom said.

  “That’s right, son. Go talk it out. Do it better this time,” his dad directed as if coaching him in handing off a football.

  “I’ll try.” Dean hefted Stacy’s shopping bags full of presents. His offerings ran more to generous gift cards. “Stacy, let’s go have a look at the Christmas tree.”

  “Isn’t it the same as always?”

  “Maybe not. We should put the presents under it.”

  “Okay.” She followed him into the den where a fire burned brightly shining on Joe’s football trophies and awards. A towering tree scraped the high ceiling in one corner making the angel on top hunch over a bit. Covered with the usual gleaming balls, garlands, and strings of lights, its boughs harbored every homely Christmas ornament ever made by the Billodeaux children. A cascade of gifts sat under it because last year T-Rex and Edie had declared they knew Santa wasn’t real. Dean left the sacks beneath its boughs without unloading them.

  “Looks the same to me,” Stacy said, standing back a little.”

  “Sit. Look harder.”

  While she did, he got down on one knee, not groveling but more like a player waiting to be called into the game, and took out the ring. Her eyes turned back to his. “Stacy Polasky, will you wear this ring as a symbol that you will marry me?”

  She took the ring and held it up to the light. “It’s breathtaking—as if it holds crushed ice and fire inside at the same time.”

  “That’s called a fancy yellow princess cut,” he said showing off his newly acquired knowledge. “Is it honking enough?”

  “Absolutely. But I can’t accept this now. I’d get mugged in Schwabing with this on my finger—which doesn’t mean I don’t love it.”

  “If you think you’re going abroad without an engagement ring on your finger, you are completely mistaken. The world is full of Dr. Riveras.”

  “Dean, since I’ve been in New Orleans, there has been no one but you. If it would make you feel better maybe we could go to LeClerc’s in town and get a little promise ring.”

  Dean shook his head. “Like the one Heather McAvoy wanted from me? No way.” He got off his knees and sat beside her on the big brown leather sofa battered by children and dogs over the years. “Stacy, don’t go to Germany. Stand by me.” He put the ring on her finger.

  “My plans are all in place, I—”

  “You need to make a halftime adjustment. I want you to come to the next game and see if I can make it a perfect season. I want you sitting in the stands at the Super Bowl because I’m taking the Sinners there this year.”<
br />
  “Won’t it be crowded with both Ilsa and me in the family box? Dean, do you remember when you said you wished you’d been my first lover? Well, I wish I was the one carrying your child. I don’t believe I can bear to stay around and watch her grow big with your baby.”

  Dean grinned with soupcon of his father’s old wickedness. “I can be a good Catholic. We’ll start a family as soon as we get married.”

  “Not what I had in mind. Think of the scandal if we rush this and you have a fiancée and a pregnant girlfriend at the same time.”

  “Okay, I can handle it, but if Princess Anastasia Marya Polasky can’t, give the ring back.” Oh, he did know her weaknesses and played upon them.

  Stacy clenched her fingers into a fist when he tried to take the ring. “I was thinking of you and the family. Of course, I can handle it. My classes don’t actually begin until April, and I must be here for Kent Gonsoulin’s trial, whenever that takes place. I only wanted to get away from your being with Ilsa.”

  “So you’d be willing to stay until after the Super Bowl and see how it goes?” Dean negotiated.

  “Maybe, I guess. But, I was going to give Mati to Edie for Christmas because I couldn’t take him with me. That’s why I got a dog for T-Rex, too, so he wouldn’t be jealous.”

  “I’ll buy her another from the same breeder. Print out a picture of a Bichon Frise, put it in a box with a note that says she’s getting Mati’s brother. Problem solved. If you must go in April, Mati can visit here at the ranch until you return.”

  Stacy cupped his face in her hands and used a forefinger to push back that wayward curl on his forehead, a gesture becoming a habit now that she’d touched him so often. “I’ll stay.”

  “Finally.” He went in for the big, dramatic kiss, but the first of the horde of Billodeauxs swung into the room searching for provisions.

  “Hey, you done in here? All the snacks are on the coffee table. A man could starve waiting on you guys to move,” Mack complained, expressing the outsized appetite of a seventeen-year-old boy.

  “By all means, gorge yourself. We’re done here.” Dean took Stacy’s hand to help her from the sofa.

  As they left his corn chip-crunching, salsa-dipping brother who’d flopped next to them, she stared at the Christmas tree again. “I still don’t see what’s so special about the tree.”

  “I just gave you a honking big engagement ring in front of it, Stace. That’s what’s special about it. Must I do all the work?”

  “Yes. I think you must.”

  ****

  At seven with the entire family in attendance, the Billodeauxs sat down for a formal Christmas Eve dinner, one of the few times a year when the silver and good china made it out of the closet. Brinsley moved around the table ladling seafood gumbo into each gold-rimmed soup bowl already containing a mound of rice.

  No one dipped a spoon until Nell offered a simple grace. “We thank God for another year of health and prosperity, but most of all for the family gathered around us. Amen. Would anyone like to add anything?”

  Dean stood up and got moans from the teenaged boys poised to eat. “I have some news. Stacy and I are engaged, and Ilsa is having my baby.” Spoons fell into the gumbo splattering the Irish linen tablecloth Brinsley had personally ironed. The clink of the heavy silver ladle dropping against the tureen sounded like the tolling of a bell in the stunned silence.

  Mama Nell got it together first. “We are so happy for you and Stacy. Our first grandchild, wonderful.”

  Daddy Joe chimed in with the practical advice. “Use my attorneys. Back in the day, they kept my DNA profile available and had a template for a paternity agreement. Lots of experience fighting off these suits. Dean, you were the only one proven to be my son, but look how well that worked out. It couldn’t be anyone else’s kid?”

  “Maybe Tom’s, but Ilsa is fairly certain.”

  The triplet teens suddenly took more interest in dinner conversation than they had in years. Tom turned the brilliant color reserved for embarrassed redheads. “Not mine. I listened to Dad. Mack, you’d better, too.”

  Trin pushed his heavy, black-framed glasses back to the bridge of his nose and said, “Why do you assume I can’t get a girl?”

  “Because you’re a geek.” Mack, sitting beside him, messed up the dark curls hanging in his brother’s eyes.

  “Aw, leave him alone or I’ll run you down with my chair,” Teddy said. He had plenty of claims to geekdom, too, plus being in a wheelchair much of the time.

  “I don’t understand. If Dean is marrying Stacy, how can Ilsa have his baby?” Edie asked, her big, brown eyes perplexed in her elfin face.

  “Because people are just like dogs and horses. You don’t have to be married to have babies,” T-Rex said, happy to share his knowledge.

  “That’s not what Mawmaw Nadine says. I’m going to ask her again at the hymn service,” Edie answered. The much older and wiser Lorena snickered.

  “Don’t do that! We’ll talk later, Edie,” Mama Nell exclaimed. “We are celebrating the birth of Christ and a very special engagement that will make Stacy an official Billodeaux. Next year, we will welcome a new child to the family. Now eat your gumbo before it gets cold.”

  “Ahem,” Jude said, not afraid to defy her mother, which she did far too often. “We haven’t seen the ring yet. The way Stacy has been walking around with her hand in her pocket all evening, I thought she had a contagious rash.”

  Stacy, who had remained silent, finally revealed the ring and passed it around the long table. “You know I might want to keep my own name.”

  “No way,” Dean replied.

  Gentle Annie attempted a suggestion. “You could hyphenate, except Polasky-Billodeaux sounds terrible and no little kid could print it on a form.”

  “They will settle that later.” Nell admired the engagement ring, then passed it to her daughters.

  Jude studied the diamond and held it up to the light of the candelabra. “Who would have thought my big brother had good taste.”

  “I don’t, but someone named Leslie does.”

  “Figures.”

  She passed it to Lorena who said dreamily, “I want one just like this,” and tried it on her finger.

  Xochi nodded her approval. “Beautiful, but an amethyst might have been better.”

  With hardly a glance, the guys passed it back to Stacy. Brinsley offered to re-heat the soup.

  “No, they’ll eat it as is or not at all. Please bring out the turkey, or we’ll never get to church,” Nell said.

  They ate a wonderful dinner beautifully served right down to a plum pudding Brinsley had imported from England and flamed with brandy in the darkened dining room for special effect. Leftovers tomorrow so that he and Corazon could be with their families.

  Adjourning to the den, each person picked out one gift to open, a custom that had stopped a lot of wheedling and whining over the years. The rest would be saved until morning.

  Stacy insisted Dean open her gift first. He held up a gold foil-wrapped object suspiciously shaped like a football and shook it next to his ear as if the contents would rattle, making Edie laugh. “I have no idea what this could be. Maybe it’s made of chocolate.”

  “That would be so cool,” T-Rex agreed enthusiastically. “You’ll share, right?”

  Dean peeled off the paper. “Sorry, kiddo. It’s a real football. I really needed one of these. Looks like a used one, and somebody’s dog gnawed it. Give a diamond to a person and this is what you get in return.”

  “It’s priceless, you big lout! That’s your game ball, the one you used to score the touchdown. I wouldn’t let Angel keep it, and yes, Mati did get at it since it was under my bed. Sorry.” Mati raised his weary head bedecked with a stick-on red bow by Edie at the mention of his name and lolled happily at Dean.

  “Best gift ever even with the teeth marks.”

  Edie squealed and held up a tiny photo drawn from a large box. “It says I’m going to get Mati’s brother as soon as he is
born.”

  “I already got a dog,” T-Rex countered. “She’s big.”

  “She’s undisciplined. That’s why she’s staying in the kitchen tonight,” Nell said.

  “Can’t she sleep in my bedroom?” her youngest son begged.

  “Fine. That’s your gift. Everyone go spruce up for church. No Cajun casual this evening. And not a word to Mawmaw about the news when we see her tonight. Dean and Stacy will visit her tomorrow.” Dean and Stacy gave Nell a not too thrilled with that idea look, but they would obey.

  Though Nell held to her Protestant beliefs and raised all her daughters Episcopalian except Xochi whose deceased mother had begun raising her Catholic, she kept to a Billodeaux family tradition of attending the eleven p.m. hymn service at Ste. Jeanne d’Arc. At midnight, each person lit a candle and sang Silent Night with the lights low and the scent of the pine boughs around the poinsettias on the windowsills perfuming the air. A sense of serenity prevailed as they filed from the church after the service under a cold night sky filled with stars and past live oak trees bearing glowing angels. Edie nodded in Nell’s arms. Joe hauled T-Rex, much heavier than his twin sister, back to the van.

  “Peace in Chapelle—at least for tonight,” Nell said as she led her brood home.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Knowing the sportscasters up in their booth were probably comparing him to his daddy right this minute, Dean Billodeaux paced the sidelines in the fourth quarter of the Atlanta game, the last of the regular season. Coach had taken him out at the half after he’d scored two touchdowns and suffered an equal number of sacks. Atlanta put one TD on the board, not much safety in those numbers. Dean wanted the perfect season more than he did a Super Bowl ring because the great Joe Billodeaux had never accomplished that—and for exactly the same reason.

  “We already sewed up the best playoff spot, got home field advantage, and a week off while the wildcards duke it out. You need to be healthy and ready to go then. Nothing more the Falcons want to do than ruin your perfect season, and they are out for blood today. You’re benched, son,” Marty Buck decreed.