His voice trailed off, but when he saw my confusion, he added, “Your mamere. Everything about you remind me of Ya Ya.”
“Ya Ya?”
“Sorry, I mean Miz Portia. Your grandmother. Ya Ya’s short for Portia. When you grow up like we done…crawfishing together in the canals… poling through the swamps…it’s hard to let go of the old nicknames. She were like a sister to me. Once she married your papere and became a lady…we all had to call her Miz Portia in public. But when it was just the two of us…it was always Ya Ya. She was a fine woman, her.”
I stared at Willy in wonder, realizing that was probably the most I had ever been told about my grandmother in one sitting! I knew I had Cajun blood in me and that it had come from my paternal grandmother, but in a million years I hadn’t pictured her crawfishing or poling or anything like that. Somehow, my image of her centered around fancy dresses and tea services and impeccable manners.
“If she grew up in the swamps, how did she end up here?” I asked, gesturing at the grandeur that surrounded us.
“Love. Beauty. Your papere caught sight o’ her one day…and that was it. He was gone…” Willy chuckled, cleared this throat, and then shook his head self-consciously. “But you don’t want to hear an old man reminisce.”
“Oh, please,” I urged. “Go on. If you feel up to it.”
It was probably more important to keep him pressing toward the ultimate goal. But as he relaxed against the pillow, his eyes retreating to some distant time, I couldn’t help but wish he would just talk to me forever, filling in all the blanks of my life.
“I was young…had just started working for…the Fairmonts when my mama she die…”
“I’m sorry.”
“Now Mister Xavier…he knew I didn’t have no time…to take the bus all de way home…and I didn’t have no car…So he droved me hisself all the way to Bayou Teche…so I could bury my mama. When we gots there, Ya Ya was on the swing…out in the yard waiting for me to get there…not a day more than eighteen…the mos’ beautiful woman in Iberia Parish, her. When I see her, all I see is a sister…but Mister Xavier, he took one look at her…and he say…‘Willy, I don’ know…who dat girl is…but if she taken…I gonna kill myself.’ ”
Willy laughed, which stirred up another cough, a deep one. I stood, wondering if I should go get Lisa, but he waved me back down and after a moment seemed to recover. Remembering her actions from before, I pulled some tissues from the table and held them out to him, glad when he took them from me and held them to his own mouth rather than make me do it for him.
“Please go on,” I said, knowing he needed to keep writing the oath but also wanting to hear more about my grandparents.
“The res’ is history…Mister Xavier, he decide to stick around…for the whole weekend…took him a room at a motel in town…and spent every minute…pretending to help with the funeral arrangements…but really he was jus’ trying to…charm Ya Ya.”
I leaned forward, listening to his labored breathing, willing him to keep talking, keep telling, like a thirsty man praying for a faucet to flow.
“He was older than her, and people talk…thought she married him for…for his money…but I knew de truf. I seen her fall…in love wit’ him too. She love him for real. She love him so much eventually she give up…everyting…her home…her fambly…her ways. She tell ‘Ya Ya’ goodbye to become ‘Miz Portia Saultier Fairmont’…lady of the manor. I tell you what…goin’ from the swamps to this big fancy house…she had a lot to learn, her.”
“How did she do it?” I asked. “Did she go to charm school or something?”
“Nah. The things that are harder to learn, she already had those inside a her…the grace…the posture. So Mister Xavier, he ask his mama to take his new bride…under her wing. Old Missus Fairmont, she the one teach Ya Ya…how to be a real lady. After while, if you didn’t know Ya Ya’s past…you would never guess she ain’t growed up dat way. Thas’ how much she become a proper lady.”
“Wow.”
“Only when they was alone…or when she was wit’ me or de kids…did she turn back into…who she really were. Sometime Mister Xavier, he ax me…to take them in the boat…down the bayou, out to the swamps…Them was the bes’ times, yeah…just relaxing on the water, the whole family and me…fishing…poling. Your daddy and his brother…they was jus’ boys…they loved them days…they adored their mama. Them times was when…she really let herself…smile…feel so happy…jus’ like when we…was growing up together.”
“I’m confused,” I said softly. “My grandmother was your sister?”
“By blood, jus’ cousins. Distant cousins at dat. But she was raised over to my mama and them…so in de heart…we was brother and sister…from day one.”
He smiled, his old eyes twinkling.
“I done cried at that wedding…almos’ as much as the mother of the bride. I was jus’ so happy…two of de best peoples I know…joining together in matrimony. Not to mention…now I wouldn’t feel so…far from home. ’Cause part of home…was now gonna be here with me.”
“That’s a lovely story,” I said, feeling suddenly guilty at the thought of Lisa returning to find that her uncle hadn’t written another word.
“That’s why there’s two swings out front…I give ’em the one on the gallery as my…wedding present. Then Mister Xavier, he say…put me a rope swing…up in the pecan tree. He used to watch Ya Ya…out the window…playing wit the boys on that swing…and remembering how they met.”
His eyes filled with tears. “I miss ’em both, so much…”
I had no comfort for this dying man, no words that I could say to make him feel better.
“At least I’ll be seeing ’em soon…” he added, trying to cheer himself up. “They both be waitin’ for me at the pearly gates, I jus’ bet. They probably got my fishin’ pole already done hooked and baited for me!”
He smiled at the thought of it, the happiest I had seen him since we met. But then the smiled faded from his lips and features, as if a shadow was passing over his face.
“What is it?” I asked.
“In heaven…all is revealed,” he said simply. “That means they already know…the whole truth…of what I done. I had a good reason.” He was quiet for a moment and then added, “But maybe…they won’ be waiting at them…pearly gates…after all.”
TWELVE
Moody and restless grown, and tried and troubled, his spirit
Could no longer endure the calm of this quiet existence.
As if sensing the urgency of the situation, Willy remembered the pen in his hand. Grabbing the pad without another word, he wrote furiously, pausing every minute or so to rest his hands and close his eyes.
After one particularly long break, I realized that he was asleep. Seizing the opportunity, I stood and peeked at the pad, to see that for all his efforts he had barely made it halfway through the second paragraph.
I was leaning over him like that when the door swung open and his wife strode in.
“What are you doing to him?” she demanded. “N-nothing,” I replied. “He’s writing me a note, and I was just looking to see if he was finished.”
She came over to grab the pad from his hands before I could stop her. “Do you speak French?” I asked, my heart pounding, wondering if I should grab it back. After all, if Willy wanted his wife to have this information, he wouldn’t have sent her out of the room in the first place.
“Speak it some,” she replied. “Don’t know how to read or write it, though.”
She tossed the pad back onto her husband’s chest, which woke him up.
“What’s going on?” he slurred, a tight grimace coming over his face at the sight of his wife.
“Time to empty your bag,” Deena snapped. “‘Less you want it to spill all over the floor.”
“It can wait,” he told her.
“The kid says it stinks like a bathroom in here. That means it’s full.”
I was mortified, knowing by “the kid” that
she meant my daughter. Quickly, I moved out of the way.
“I’ll come back,” I said even as Deena was already fooling with the bag of urine that had collected near the floor.
Neither of them replied, so I strode toward the inner door and let myself through, pausing as the door closed behind me so that my eyes could adjust to the dark hallway.
I worked my way down the winding hall in the reverse direction that we had come in, then the sound of laughter drawing me toward the kitchen. There, I found Lisa, Charles, and Tess sitting around the table, enjoying chips, sandwiches, and lemonade.
“Oh, no,” Lisa cried when she saw me, bursting into fresh laughter, wiping tears from her eyes. “Did she really go back to dump his bag?”
“Yes. Why? What did Tess say to her?”
“She said, ‘That man’s room smells like the bathroom in the train station!’ ”
She and Charles both howled while Tess sat between them looking proud of herself though not quite sure why.
“Tess, that wasn’t nice,” I said, stifling a smile. “You don’t say things like that to people. Where are your manners?”
“Don’t fuss at her,” Charles scolded me in return. “She was just being honest. Just being a kid.”
“I’m sorry to encourage her,” Lisa added, again wiping at her eyes. “But I get a quiet satisfaction whenever anybody gets Deena’s goat.”
Moving to join them, I sat in the fourth chair and joined their conversation. Though I was glad to get to know these people better, I couldn’t help wishing Deena would hurry up. Here at the end of Willy’s life, we didn’t have a minute to spare!
“Boy, it’s warm in here,” Charles said, sweating even more than the glass of lemonade on the table in front him. He reached around to the suit jacket which hung from the back of his chair and pulled out a folded handkerchief, which he dabbed along his forehead.
“It’s a good thing poor Willy has an air conditioner,” I said.
Lisa and Charles gave each other pointed looks, and then they obviously decided to share what they were thinking with me.
“Last fall,” Lisa said to me, lowering her voice, “Willy was a little more mobile than he is now, but he collapsed on his way to the bathroom. Deena found him unconscious and had to call nine one one to get him to the hospital.”
“No, wait,” Charles interjected, also in a whisper, holding up a finger to pause her tale, “she called her insurance company first, to make sure the ambulance would be covered. Then she called nine one one.”
“That’s right. Anyway, it was a really hot day. When the EMTs got here, they were appalled at the temperature of Willy’s bedroom. Turns out, it was a hundred and ten degrees. He’d passed out from heat stroke.”
“Oh, my.”
“At the hospital, the doctor was going to report Deena to protective services, but she bargained with him and promised to put in an air conditioner and bring in hospice care. Ever since, Willy insists on keeping that room at about sixty degrees, just out of spite. It makes her nuts, but there’s not really anything she can do about it without getting in trouble again.”
Lisa and Charles both chuckled conspiratorially, but I merely smiled to be polite. I didn’t think the story was funny at all, just sad. Maybe because of the problems in my own marriage, I was feeling particularly sensitive to the cruel games unhappy husbands and wives could play with each other.
Deena finally emerged from the back of the house just as Tess was asking to go back outside. I washed her plate at the sink, thanked them for the food, and then Charles led Tess out the back door to play while Lisa and I returned to Willy’s bedside.
As we came back into the room and pulled the door shut, I felt an urgency to the situation again, a desperate need to focus on the task at hand and get some answers. Willy was writing when we got there, so Lisa and I took our seats and waited quietly. He stopped every minute or two to close his eyes and rest, but finally he stopped and held out both pen and paper toward Lisa.
“I give up,” he said wearily. “It’s too hard…too slow…we gotta go back to speaking instead of writing.”
Lisa and I huddled together looking at the papers while she went through and translated it for me line by line. On the bed, Willy closed his eyes, but he was listening intently just the same. Essentially, this part of the oath dealt with our responsibility in choosing the next gardien when the time would come that we could no longer serve. Apparently, a gardien had to be someone of good character, discrete and trustworthy, who had descended from Colline d’Or. Once chosen, they had to recite this oath “and remember it always.”
I took a deep breath and let it out. So not only was I going to have to say this thing in French, I was going to have to memorize it too? I just hoped Willy wouldn’t insist on waiting for it to be memorized before he moved on to the next step, which was to tell us exactly what the angelus was and where it was hidden.
“You sure that’s not the whole thing, Uncle Willy?” Lisa asked, looking up. “It sounds complete to me.”
“No, Boo,” he replied, shaking his head. “There’s more, but we can start with this. You gots to make your oath.”
He told us to raise our right hands, but as I did I realized that I wasn’t taking this oath thing seriously at all. I was only paying it lip service for his sake, not to mention for the sake of learning more about the symbol on my head. Maybe I’d feel differently once I learned what this was all about, but in my heart I really wasn’t going to swear an oath until I knew exactly what it was that we were protecting. As if he could read my mind, Willy hesitated and told us to lower our hands.
“Lisa, Boo…you gots to run get something first…from the parlor.”
“What?”
“Bring the picture that hangs…over the piano.”
“Right now?”
“Yes, but go quick, and be quiet. You don’ want Deena to start yellin’.”
“Can I come too?” I asked her, jumping up. I would have like’d to stay there with Willy and talk, but suddenly I couldn’t resist the opportunity to glimpse the rest of this house.
“Yeah, sure,” Lisa replied, opening the door to the hallway to peek out. “Uncle Willy, you hang tight. We’ll be right back.”
The coast was clear, so she waved me along and together we tiptoed halfway up the hall. She stopped and turned to the right, silently opening a door I hadn’t even realized was there. Together we slipped through and shut it behind us, and then I followed her as she moved through the shadows of the front half of the house, weaving from room to room in and among dark lumps of furniture. My heart was pounding in my throat, and I was feeling like a thief in my own home. Finally, Lisa reached her destination and reached for a framed photo hanging on the wall above a sheet-covered piece of furniture, next to a window that had been boarded shut from the inside. Carefully, in the light that peeked from a gap along the bottom of the wood, she pulled the frame from the wall and tucked it under her arm.
“Why would Deena get mad if she knew we were up here?” I whispered as we began to make our way back.
“Nobody’s allowed to come up here,” Lisa replied. “She says it’s so she doesn’t ever have to clean, plus she’s afraid someone might leave a light on by mistake.”
“Makes sense.”
Lisa grunted as she bumped into a large chair. She sidestepped it and kept going.
“But I think the truth is she’s scared of it. I think she thinks it’s haunted.”
At that, she held a finger to her lips, and we went the rest of the way in silence. When we reached the hall it was again empty, and we were able to slip through and back to Willy’s room, our mission accomplished without being spotted.
He was asleep when we got there, but this time Lisa didn’t wait for him to wake up on his own. Instead, she put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a gentle shake.
“What?” he said, pulling out of sleep.
“We have it,” she announced. “What’s next?”
W
illy ran a bony hand over his face, obviously trying to gather his faculties.
“Give it to Miranda.”
Lisa handed me the framed photo, and as I took it from her, I was surprised to see that it was an old black-and-white image of a couple standing between two saplings, each young tree not much taller than they were. The picture was very old, the faces blurred but everything else clear, their clothing in the style of the turn of the century.
“That’s your great-great-grandparents on the Fairmont side…standing between the Twin Oaks.”
I was stunned, the frame suddenly heavy in my hands, as if I was holding the weight of generations. In the background, I could see only a wide, grassy expanse where this house would soon be built.
“It would be three generations before a Saultier…would come to live here,” he continued. “But the good Lord He know…what He was doin’. He was preparing the way…the opportunity…the location…”
Willy’s voice trailed off and I looked at him, even more confused.
“This oath…she’s serious business, Miranda. She is the weight…of all that come before…of all that will come after. You mus’ understand that…if nothing else.”
I still didn’t understand, not at all, but at least somehow I now grasped the gravity of this moment. Without a word, I set down the picture on the table, returned to Willy’s bedside, and raised my right hand. After a moment, Lisa moved closer beside me and raised hers as well. Together, we promised to protect the angelus—whatever that was—with our lives, care for it against harm, and hide it from evildoers until we could take one of two steps. In periods of safety, when we could no longer serve, we would choose another guardian for the angelus, a man of good character, discrete, and worthy of confidence, descending from the village of Colline d’Or. We would pass along the responsibility to him, and in turn, he would have to memorize the oath and swear it as well.
“Perfect,” Willy said when we were done.
He opened his eyes and smiled.
“We almost there,” he said softly. “Now you jus’ have to repeat after me…for the second half.”
Whispers of the Bayou Page 11