Whispers of the Bayou

by Mindy Starns Clark

  I could only shake my head in wonder. How could she want to leave such a magnificent place? How could anyone?

  My heart full of an emotion I could not name, I looked down at my daughter, touching my hand to her hair. She was sleeping soundly, her chest gently rising and falling with each even breath. I may not be the best mother in the world, not even close, but I knew that I loved her, that I would do anything to keep her safe, to make her happy. AJ had been acting out of love for me when she swept me away from here and kept me away, of that I had no doubt. But seeing the beautiful house and grounds and understanding now what we had left behind was simply heartbreaking to me. This would have been a perfect place for a little girl to grow up.

  Had AJ really taken me away from here out of love?

  We pulled around the side and came to a stop between the house and a long row of garages. Craning my neck to take it all in, I could see that the house was even bigger than it had looked from the front. Dotted around the back of the property were other, smaller buildings, though most were in various states of disrepair.

  “The bayou’s that way,” Charles said, noting the direction of my gaze, “though it’s so overgrown right now you can barely see the water from here. You can take a look at it later.”

  I nodded, my heart in my throat. Did I remember this place? Was the sight of this looming house burned somewhere deep in my memory, not gone but merely tucked away in some hidden fold of my brain?

  I didn’t know. I didn’t feel as though I was home. I just felt…I wasn’t sure what I felt.

  “Miranda, if you want to let your daughter keep sleeping, Emmett can stay here with her while we go inside.”

  I didn’t want to insult either Emmett or Charles, but I wasn’t about to leave my baby with someone I didn’t know and hadn’t even met until today. After all that had happened in the last few days, I felt safer keeping her as close to me as possible.

  “That’s okay. She needs to wake up anyway,” I said, reaching down to give Tess a gentle shake. “Otherwise she’ll never be able to get to sleep tonight.”

  Tess wasn’t happy about being awakened, but at least she stopped whining as soon as we got out of the car and I picked her up. She was petite for a five-year-old, and though I couldn’t carry her around all the time, I didn’t mind doing so for now.

  Tess rested her head on my shoulder as we followed Charles to the house. He raised a hand to knock, but before his fist struck the wood, the door swung open and we were face-to-face with a woman in her late sixties or early seventies, with short choppy hair, deep frown lines, and dark circles under her eyes.

  “Deena,” Charles said. “How is he?”

  “Still dying. This her?”

  Ignoring her rudeness, Charles graciously swept his hand toward me.

  “Deena Pedreaux, this is Miranda Miller. And this is her daughter, Tess.”

  The woman looked me up and down, sizing me up, taking in my crisp slacks, my tailored blazer and top, my pulled-back hair. Apparently unimpressed, she focused her pair of brown beady eyes on my face.

  “ ’Bout time you got here,” she snapped, and then she turned on her heel and walked away, leaving the door open behind her.

  Charles gave me an apologetic look and gestured for me to follow.

  Coming through the back door into a dark and stuffy kitchen was a rather unceremonious way to enter the house of my youth and get a look at my inheritance. As we walked, I decided not to pay much attention to our surroundings but to keep a sort of tunnel vision instead. I decided I would focus on the task at hand for now. There would be time and opportunity later for looking around and forming a true first impression.

  We walked from the kitchen down a long narrow hallway that ended in a cramped living room. It was even stuffier in there, with no windows and protective covers on the upholstered furniture. I felt a surge of pity for the dying Willy, and I was glad Charles had told me that his bedroom had its own air conditioner.

  “I’ll wake him up and tell him you’re here,” Deena said, motioning for us to wait. She walked to the end of the hallway and softly knocked on a door. Opening it, she slipped through and closed it behind her.

  “I don’t like that lady, Mommy,” Tess said in a loud whisper. “She’s mean.”

  “She’s just tired, honey. You know how people get cranky when they’re tired.”

  Tess didn’t reply, but for the second time today she slipped a thumb into her mouth, an old habit that Rosita had assured me had been broken. I started to pull Tess’s hand away from her mouth, but then I thought better of it and pretended not to notice. With everything else going on, the last thing I needed right now was for her to throw a tantrum.

  The door opened again, but this time another woman appeared and waved for us to come up the hallway. She looked to be just a little older than I was, quite petite and exotically pretty with almond shaped eyes and light coffee-colored skin. Her black hair was woven into an intricate set of braids which were pulled back from her face by a wide headband. She wore a nurse’s uniform, and though she also didn’t smile or give us a warm greeting, she didn’t seem mean or angry, just solemn.

  “You’re Miranda?” she asked as we reached her, her black eyes locking in on mine. I nodded. “You came in time. I’m so glad, for his sake. Maybe now he can speak his mind. Then he’ll be able to die in peace.”

  NINE

  And in the flickering light beheld the face of the old man,

  Haggard and hollow and wan, and without either thought or emotion,

  E’en as the face of a clock from which the hands have been taken.

  “Is somebody gonna die, Mommy?” Tess asked, popping her thumb out of her mouth and lifting her head from my shoulder. “Who?”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer, but Charles saved me by interrupting.

  “That’s just an expression, cher,” he assured her. “Miranda, do you mind if I come in with you? I’d like to speak to Willy myself.”

  “Please,” I replied, suddenly feeling claustrophobic. I had come a long way to be here, but at that moment I wanted to be anywhere but here.

  The young nurse stepped back and held the door open, and we had no choice but to move inside. At least it was blessedly cool in there, a large air-conditioning unit humming from a window nearby. It was also bright, with no drapes to block the afternoon sunlight pouring in through numerous windows as well as a pair of French doors at the far end. Looking through those doors, I could see a small brick patio with a grill just outside. A stone walkway meandered away from that patio alongside a tall hedge.

  The room was large and beautiful, with a stone fireplace to our left flanked by a grouping of furniture. Judging from the books and plants that lined the walls, I decided that before it had been converted into a bedroom for the dying man, it must have been a solarium or a library. At the far end, blocking a window, was a single hospital bed, surrounded by adaptive devices and other medical equipment. At an angle to the bed were two chairs with a low table between them, the surface cluttered with magazines, needlework, and a few paperback books, obviously diversions for the passing of time as the man’s wife and his nurse attended to him in his final hours.

  “Come on in. He don’t bite,” Deena snapped at me.

  I stepped forward at her command, and it wasn’t until then that I allowed myself to focus in on the patient himself, a slight figure covered almost entirely by a white sheet, his face and hands nearly as pale as the linens.

  Tess wiggled to get down, but I resisted, keeping her captive in my arms lest she bump into a piece of medical equipment or step into hazardous body waste or something.

  “Willy, how are you?” Charles asked, approaching the bedside. Slowly, Tess and I followed suit.

  “De' pouille,” quaked a weak voice from the bed.

  “Aw, o-ye-yi,” Charles replied sympathetically in what I had to assume was Cajun, the two of them sounding as though they were from another planet.

  “Thanks so much f
or…bringin’…Miz Fairmont here,” Willy said to Charles, switching to English, his deeply accented words punctuated by ragged breaths. “I can’t tell you…how much…I ’preciate it, me.”

  The poor thing, he seemed very much near the end of his life, weak and small and still. Despite the trouble he had breathing, he was quite calm, and as he looked at me I could see that there was a sparkle of life yet in his eyes. He attempted to give me a smile, but it came out as more of a wince.

  “Little Miranda Fairmont,” he rasped. “Long time no see.”

  I don’t know what I had expected, but this wasn’t it. This man didn’t seem hysterical or agitated at all. Instead, the wife standing next to him was the agitated one, wringing her hands and looking at me with a mixture of suspicion and irritation.

  “Her name ain’t Fairmont no more, you idiot,” Deena barked to her husband. “Accordin’ to Mr. Benochet, she’s married now.”

  “Fairmont’s fine,” I said to Willy, ignoring her. “Or, um, Miller. Miranda Miller.”

  “Whatever her name is, she’s here now,” Deena said. “Go ahead and tell us whatever it is you need to say to her.”

  As if in great pain, the man turned his head and looked at his wife with a withering glare, one that must have sucked up every speck of energy he possessed just to manage.

  “When I’m…good and ready…Deena…not a minute…sooner.”

  Blinking, the woman matched his hateful glare with one of her own.

  “Well, considering that you’re going to be dead soon,” she hissed, “you’d better hurry it up.”

  She had trumped him, apparently, winning the duel. He visibly withered, taking his eyes away from her face and sinking further into the covers. After a moment he coughed wearily and closed his eyes.

  Whether this was their usual dynamic or not, I was extremely uncomfortable having Tess witness such a brutal exchange. Nathan and I had certainly been known to argue, but rarely with such venom and never in front of our child.

  “If you people will excuse me,” I said, summoning up my nerve, “I’m going to have to find someone to take care of Tess so that I can come back here by myself. This really isn’t appropriate…”

  “I don’t want a babysitter, Mommy,” Tess whined, clutching my hips with her legs in a death grip. She always went to others easily, but I knew right now she was in unfamiliar territory and feeling on edge, as was I.

  “Mr. Benochet, you’re good with kids,” Deena said in a voice that had suddenly switched from vinegar to sugar. “Why don’t you take the child out front where she can take a set on the swang?”

  “Tha’s good idea,” Willy added weakly from the bed, his eyes closed. “Y’all go…play a lil’…pain pee po.”

  “I’d be happy to, Willy,” Charles replied. “But I’d like to hear what you have to say first. We’ve all gone to a lot of trouble to get Miranda here so that you can talk to her.”

  Willy opened his eyes and looked around at those who were surrounding his death bed, ending with me.

  “What I gots to say…is ’tween me and her. I wants all y’all out.”

  Charles looked quite disappointed that he wasn’t going to be able to stay and hear the words that I had been brought here for, whatever they were, but he recovered quickly, rubbing a hand across his face and then flashing Tess a warm smile.

  “Well, how ’bout it then, Boo?” he said to Tess. “You wanna come wit’ me for a little pain pee po?”

  “I don’t need to go potty,” Tess objected, which brought a laugh from Charles and Willy.

  “No, cher.” Charles explained with a grin. “Playing the pain pee po jus’ means going out and doing something useless but fun. Like hanging out.”

  “You want to play with me?” Tess asked him. “I have some dollies in the car.”

  “Either that or we could go try out the swing. They got two swings, actually. One is a rope swing in the front yard, hanging from a big ol’ tree, and the other is a bench swing on the gallery, hanging by chains from the rafters. From what I recall, they’re both pretty dandy.”

  Tess peeked at me, warming up to the idea once I gave her an encouraging nod, and she wiggled her way down to the floor. I wasn’t in the habit of sending my child off with a man I had just met, but Charles wasn’t exactly a stranger. After all, he’d been a trusted advisor and friend to my Louisiana relatives for more than forty years—not to mention that I instinctively felt that he was a good guy.

  “Please keep a very close eye on her,” I said.

  “Not to worry. I won’t let her out of my sight for a moment.”

  Charles took my daughter’s hand and led her through the French doors that led to the patio area, joking easily with her as she giggled in return. Once he closed the doors behind them, I watched through the glass as they moved past the grill and around the high hedge until they disappeared from view.

  “Deena…go on,” Willy rasped to his wife. “We need to be alone.”

  Deena hesitated, pointing a crooked finger toward the nurse.

  “What about her?”

  “Lisa can stay.”

  Ouch. Visibly shamed, Deena harrumphed, speechless, and then finally turned on her heel and marched from the room, going out through the door where we had entered and slamming it loudly behind her.

  As soon as she was gone, tension seemed to melt from the room. Willy exhaled a ragged breath and apologized for his wife’s behavior, pausing for another breath every few words.

  “It ain’t been…easy for her here,” he whispered. “She never wanted…to live in…Louisiana…and I was never…willing to leave.”

  I reserved comment, afraid that I might say something terribly rude about the woman’s cruelty.

  “Can I get you anything?” the nurse asked, reaching for a pitcher of water on a table by the wall. I thought she was speaking to me and I was about to decline when I realized that she was addressing Willy.

  “Jus’ a…coupla sips,” he replied, letting her slip a bendy straw between his lips and then put a hand under the back of his head to raise it slightly.

  As he drank, I took a deep breath to try and relax, but that was a mistake. My nostrils filled with the piercing stench of antiseptic and sweat, along with a faint trace of urine. I blew the air back out through my nose and after that made a point of inhaling only through my mouth.

  Willy continued to slurp through the straw for a few more moments, finally pushing it out from his mouth and closing his eyes. Again he spoke, squeezing out words between labored breaths.

  “Forget…whatever you’ve heard…on the…subject, ladies, dying ain’t… no fun at all.”

  Lisa smiled at me, and with a soft motion of her hand waved me forward.

  “Come closer,” Willy added, opening his eyes in time to see her gesture and second it. “Lisa, Boo…raise the bed…a little…would you?”

  The nurse pressed a button on the bedrail and with a grinding sound the whole head of the bed slowly raised up at an angle, inching upward until Willy told her to stop. She helped him shift his body a bit, fussing with the pillows until they were both satisfied.

  “I don’t know…what I’d do…without this girl,” he said, patting the nurse’s arm fondly. “She takes…such good…care of me, her.”

  “Just doing my job,” she replied modestly, but then a look passed between them, a gaze of deep affection I couldn’t begin to decipher or understand.

  “So…Miranda,” he said, turning his attention to me, passing a papery dry hand across his pale lips. “Last time…I seen you…you was ’bout…the size…your pischouette is…now.”

  “Pee-schwet?”

  “Your little girl.”

  I swallowed hard, nodding.

  “Yes, I was five, same age as my daughter.”

  He closed his eyes, as if remembering.

  “Your grandparents…they ’bout died…of grief…from missing you after you…lef’ here,” he wheezed. “I don’t…think they…never got over it.”
/>
  He coughed, a hacking mess that sounded disgustingly productive. As Lisa helped with a tissue, I turned my head and considered what he had just said.

  They missed me after I was gone?

  This was news to me. To hear AJ tell it, my grandparents hadn’t been able to get rid of me fast enough once my mother died. I grew up assuming that they hadn’t missed me for a moment, nor given me another thought ever again.

  “Mr. Pedreaux, is that what you brought me here for?” I asked, my voice strained. “To tell me that?”

  He grunted no and shook his head, the action causing him to cough again, which then led to full-out choking. Lisa quickly propped him up and whacked him squarely on the back between the shoulder blades until he had recovered.

  “You okay now, Uncle Willy?” Lisa asked.

  “Uncle Willy?” I blurted without thinking.

  “Lisa’s my Boo, my sweet niece,” Willy cooed.

  “My mom is Creole, married to his brother,” she added, which explained their mutual affection—not to mention the difference in skin color.

  “Anyway, Deena’s…right. I best…get down to…business, ’cause I ain’t got much…time lef’, me.”

  I hated to say that I agreed with him, but it was obviously true. Wanting to get on with things as well, I reached for a nearby chair, scooted it close to the bed, and sat.

  “Thank you for…coming, Miranda. It do my heart good…to see you… again. You know, you the…spittin’ image…of your pauve defante mamere, your poor sainted grandmother.”

  So he and Charles both thought I looked like my grandmother. Having never seen of picture of her, I didn’t know if that was true or not. Willy was looking me over with his rheumy eyes, as though he was seeking out evidence of the generations of forebears that lent their various features to my appearance. I resisted the urge to look away and instead met his gaze with my own.

  “What did you need to tell me that was important enough for me to fly down here, Mr. Pedreaux?”