Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball
Page 35
“Bring on the Depends, then, but I want to go outside again and wait for Pierre.”
Nurse Duhon did his duty, checking for bedsores and chafed areas along the way. He made sure she took her pills, checked her heart and blood pressure, and then suggested Miz Roz might want to stretch on the chaise lounge. He could put it in the shade and bring her a pillow and light blanket.
“You’re just hoping I’ll doze off and not keep talking. Well, fine. Sit with me for a while though. I hate being alone. All my old friends are gone. Faye and Bernie Toomey—they raised a nice family over in Crowley. Edna, my teacher friend, taught for forty-five years, never married, but she didn’t die a virgin. Leonard Spivey, that tricky old goat, married Judith Strictland, one of the Red Cross nurses, and didn’t pass on until the age of eighty-five. They had a lovely daughter, too, a second family for him. Claimed he had a bad heart—my ass!”
Chad Duhon laughed. He didn’t know a single one of these people, but he could listen to this lady go on all day.
“My Pierre died at the age of seventy-two. He’s the one who had the heart attack. He was always so lean and active. No one suspected. He went too suddenly, too soon. People used to ask him if he couldn’t control his wife when I’d go out crusading for one of my causes. He’d just smile and say his life would be too dull if he did. His only causes were fighting disease and poverty, and he did it every day of the week. He was one of the last doctors still doing house calls, and he never got rich like they do today. Still, we had a good life working together, raising our children. We built this fine house on the part of the Landry farm he inherited. Split up among so many children, we only got a few acres going down to the bayou. That was enough.”
“It’s a beautiful place, Miz Roz.”
“Yes, old but beautiful.”
“Like its owner.”
“You flatter me, boy, but thank you. I want the place to go to Perry. I’ll make it up to the rest with money. I did inherit a bundle from my parents despite the stock market crash, the one in ’29. My papa’s bank didn’t go under, and bankers always thrive. Of course, I was disinherited for a while for marrying beneath myself, but after Roxie ran off with Artie, my parents realized they could accept our lives or die alone. I was expecting Junior that year. Grandchildren have a way of making things right.”
Miz Roz caught her breath for a moment, then continued. “Forgiveness is important, Chad. Remember that. Junior forgave his own son everything once he had a grandson in Pete to take fishing and hunting. When Pete left a career in Wildlife and Fisheries to be a Cajun comedian, Junior wept, but he got over it. They were still close at the end. I believe I do feel tired. You may go inside. I’ll rest now.”
Chad tucked in her covers and adjusted her pillows. “Nurse Robertson will soon be back. I just want to say, it’s been a privilege to know you, Miz Roz, even for one day. I won’t let my grandfather put me down anymore.”
“Good. That’s good.”
Nurse Duhon went indoors and cleaned up the bathroom. On his way back to the kitchen, he heard the crunch of shells in the driveway and the thump of the afternoon newspaper hitting the front door. He brought the paper in and sat down with a cup of coffee in the kitchen. Through the open door, he could hear Miz Roz talking to herself. Maybe she wasn’t as clear of mind as Nurse Robertson claimed.
“Yes, it’s a beautiful day to go walking, mon amour. You’ve made me wait for you again—far too long—Pierre, but I knew you would come.”
Chad shook his head. Old people did strange things. She was talking to her dead husband. He got up and looked at the lounge and saw Miz Roz slept now, her frail chest barely lifting under the pink, quilted robe. When she woke, he’d take her vital signs again and note them on the chart for Nurse Robertson, along with a report on how much lunch the patient had eaten—most of her soup and half the sandwich, a glass of tea, saving the applesauce for later.
Chad read the sports page. Baseball, one of the few things he could talk to his grandfather about without getting into an argument and the World Series was in full swing. Another car pulled into the shell drive and stopped.
Doretha Robertson bustled in declaring, “A miracle of God just happened. The doctor ran on time today, so here I am back earlier than expected. How’s our lady doing?”
“She ate a fairly good lunch and chatted all day.”
“Nothing new about that.”
“I didn’t mind, but, well, she was talking to Pierre a little while ago.”
“Usually, she tells him what their children and grandchildren are up to.”
“Not today. They were going walking. I thought she might try to get up on her own and checked on her, but she had closed her eyes and gone to sleep.”
Doretha Robertson knew. She knew without going out to the porch and lifting that small, lifeless hand to check for a pulse. Pierre Landry had come for his beloved Roz.
Other books in the Mardi Gras Series
MARDI GRAS MADNESS—Anything can happen on Mardi Gras day in a small town.
Seeking to escape the memory of her husband’s tragic death, Laura Dickinson leaves the North and takes a job as a librarian in the small town of Chapelle, Louisiana. She soon finds herself embroiled with the family of Robert LeBlanc. Owner of Chateau Camille and single father to a little girl badly in need of a mother, Robert sees everything through the lens of the past and local custom. Strongly attracted to him, Laura scoffs at the old tales. In tiny Chapelle, however, history is very much alive, but mad women and disturbed children are no longer locked in attics.
Forced to face her feelings for Robert on Mardi Gras day, Laura unwittingly unleashes a series of terrible events. Some will not survive as one person seeks to destroy the past with fire and bloodshed.
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COURIR DE MARDI GRAS—Anything can happen on Mardi Gras day in the countryside.
Fleeing an obsessive boyfriend, Suzanne Hudson arrives in tiny Port Jefferson, Louisiana, to inventory the antiques of an antebellum home. Full of moonlight and magnolia dreams, she soon finds her job boring and the master of the manor, George St. Julien, dull.
Everything changes during the Mardi Gras ride when Suzanne is playfully abducted by a masked man on a white horse and the famous Magnolia Hill silver disappears shortly thereafter. Determined to discover the rider’s identity and solve the mystery of the lost silver, Suzanne unearths small town secrets that might be better left alone and finds her life in jeopardy.
A word about the author…
Once a librarian, now a writer of romance, Lynn Shurr grew up in Pennsylvania Dutch country. She attended a state college and earned a very impractical B.A. in English Literature. Her first job out of school really was working as a cashier in a burger joint. Moving from one humble job to another, she traveled to North Carolina, Germany, then California where she buckled down and studied for an M.A. in Librarianship.
New degree in hand, she found her first reference job in the Heart of Cajun Country, Lafayette, Louisiana. For her, the old saying, “Once you’ve tasted bayou water, you will always stay here” came true. She raised three children not far from the Bayou Teche and lives there still with her astronomer husband.
When not writing, Lynn likes to paint, cheer for the New Orleans Saints and LSU Tigers, and take long road trips nearly anywhere. Her love of the bayou country, its history and customs, often shows in the background for her books.
You may contact Lynn at www.lynnshurr.com, lynn.shurr@yahoo.com, or visit her blog—lynnshurr.blogspot.com
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Other Lynn Shurr titles
available from The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
Goals for a Sinner, Wish for a Sinner, Kicks for a Sinner, Paradise for a Sinner, Love Letter for a Sinner (The Sinners sports romances), The Convent Rose, A Wild Red Rose, Always Yellow Roses (The Roses series), Mardi Gras Madness, Courir de Mardi Gras (Mardi Gras series), and A Trashy Affair
Thank you for purchasing
this publication of The Wild Rose P
ress, Inc.