Enigma of the Heart

by Wynette Davis

  Chapter 4

  Monice was kneeling down in the grass as she sobbed openly. Clara walked up to her mother, but she didn’t embrace her. She didn’t console her. She stayed standing behind her.

  “Thirty years, Mama,” said Clara sniffing loudly. “For thirty years you told us Wilma was dead to us. And now she is,” she said softly.

  “Leave me be, Clara,” Monice said sternly through her tears.

  “No!” Clara walked closer to her mother. “I begged you in the beginning to give up this stupid hatred you have for the Thibodeauxs. I told you to let Wilma marry that man and be happy. But you wouldn’t let her. You told me that if I agreed with her so bad, that I could follow her. You threatened to take my house. You threatened to put us out on the street, Mama! So I hardened my heart against her. Her and her baby. And now Wilma is gone! I never said I’m sorry to her! I didn’t say good-bye!” Clara fell into the grass next to Monice.

  Monice composed herself, standing up from where she had been kneeling. She slowly smoothed out the front of her pants, and then wiped her tears from her face with both of her hands.

  “What’s done is done,” said Monice.

  Clara whipped her head around to stare at her mother. “What?”

  Monice started to walk back into the house. “I said, what’s done is done. I stand by what I said.”

  “You can’t be serious, Mama?” Clara stood and walked over to stand in front of her mother. “You’re still going to turn your back on that girl? For what reason?”

  Monice stared defiantly at Clara with her head held high. “For my reasons. That’s all you need to know.” She started to walk toward the house again, but then turned to face Clara. “And I’ll say it again, just in case you forgot. I hold the second lien on your husband’s salvage yard,” she said with a knowing stare. “You want him to keep it? You do as I say.”

  Clara watched her mother walk rigidly back into the house. She squared her shoulders and followed her in.

  “You wrong, Monice.” Clara’s Uncle Ray said still sitting at the table.

  He was the oldest of the Rischarde children still alive. There had been fifteen of them in all. Seven boys and eight girls. Terrence and Janelle had died at a young age from sickness. Leroy, Gordon, and Hathaway died in Vietnam. Monice’s older sister Doreesa was shot dead by her drunk husband. Beulah Mae died giving birth at home to her sixth baby. Nollie died in a car accident five years before. That left, Raymond, Monice, Virginia, Wanda, Dupree, Gaylord, and Frankie Jean. And even though Raymond was the patriarch, he’d never been very strong willed. Until now.

  “That girl came here looking for her family,” Raymond said, frowning over at his sister. “She came here to know her people, and you all but spit on her. You wrong!”

  Monice walked over to the table and took a cigarette from her pack, lighting it, she blew out a plume of smoke and stared around at her siblings. “I’m gonna tell you all right now, like I’ve been telling y’all for years. I run this family! Y’all wouldn’t have nothing if it weren’t for me”—she pointed to her chest—“and Wayne!”

  Several pairs of eyes averted her glare to look elsewhere. “You want to take control of this family, Raymond? Go ahead, but you better put the bottle down first. You want your liquor? I’m the one you come to for that money ain’t I? I’m the one that kept your lights on when you were too drunk to pay your bills! Me and Wayne. Y’all always coming to me for a bailout, cuz you too stupid and lazy to do for yourself! So, hear me now. You want to do for yourself? Go ahead. Just know that you’ll do it without my help.”

  No one seemed to want to move lest they anger Monice again. That is until Clara turned to face her mother. “You know.” Monice was shocked to hear someone speak up. She whirled around to face Clara. “Me and James have been thinking,” Clara continued, nodding, “about leaving Mandeville.” Clara smiled over at her mother. “James has been talking to some people about selling the business. He says it’s time for him to retire, so… Yeah, Mama. I don’t give a shit what you say. Taffy is my niece. I’m not wasting any more time on this misplaced hatred you have for her, or my d–dead sister, or even for Andre. Hopefully, the Good Lord will give me some more years on this Earth, and I’m not about to live them bitter and angry toward that baby. You drove Berneatha away. Paul and Daniel moved out of the damn state to be away from you. Me and James are going to Charleston, Mama. I love you, but I can’t live like this any longer.”

  “Well, look who grew a backbone,” Monice said snidely.

  “I’m going to live with my daughter in Atlanta,” said Frankie Jean. She smiled around at her brothers and sisters at the table. “She’s wanted me there for a while.” Frankie Jean stared at her sister. “You can have the house, Monice, since you seem to want it so bad. It’s what you’ve been holding over my head for so long. Have it.”

  The rest of them started to get up from the table and leave. “And where the hell do y’all think you’re going?”

  Monice’s sister Wanda looked over at her. “I’m going home to mourn my niece the way I want to mourn her. After that…I don’t know. I just know I don’t want to be here anymore. Tangela was right. The air is stale in here.”

  Monice watched her siblings walk out of the kitchen. Tangela came back into the room just as everyone was leaving. Clara stood in the corner against the counter with her head hanging down.

  “I guess no one was in the mood for cards anymore, huh?” said Tangela.

  Clara smiled over at Tangela. “Baby, I’m going to move to Charleston like your mama has been asking me to. Me and your Uncle James. You want to come home with me and help me pack up some things?”

  Tangela smiled at her aunt. “You’re finally going to do it, Auntie? Good.”

  Monice stared over at her daughter, watching her walk out the room with Tangela. She sat down in one of the chairs, but stared straight ahead. She was too ornery to cry.

  * * * *

  Taffy parked behind the trucks congregated in the driveway of the house. She had to start thinking about it as her home. It was her home. She was going to be living in it after it was finished. She had first thought she would renovate it and maybe sell it. But every time she saw it, or drove by it on her way to see Nina in Charleston, she felt something akin to ownership. Now each time she saw it, she felt excitement at what could be possible with her home.

  The sounds of hammers, saws buzzing, the clanging of metal, and thumping of wood surrounded her once she got out of her car. The place was alive with men busy with one thing or the other. There were several men on the roof, removing the worn and beaten shingles. An RV was parked toward the back of the driveway close to the garage with men milling about it. It was happening.

  She was smiling as she walked into the house, excusing herself, as men were coming and going. Work horses stood in the entry and the hallway. The old staircase was gone. It had been moved to the far right, and replaced with a new as-yet unstained staircase. It opened up the hallway to the back of the house, which at the time was only a hole with bare framing.

  “’Ello,” Jean-Michel said to her from the top of the stairs.

  Taffy looked up to see him standing in all of his deliciousness. For a second she forgot how to speak. “Hi,” she said to him finally.

  “I didn’t expect to see you. Come,” he said to her. “I have something to show you.”

  Taffy walked up the stairs, unable to keep the smile from her lips. “I didn’t expect so much to be done so soon.”

  “I have good workers.” His gaze penetrated hers. “You look beautiful,” he said as she stood in front of him.

  She smiled uneasily at him, as she fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. “Thanks for saying so. If a pair of jean shorts and a cotton shirt is beautiful?”

  “It’s okay,” he said, standing close, and speaking inside that personal bubble that was supposed to surround her. “You can’t help looking beautiful. It’s what you do.”

  He made her feel so…
Giddy? Was that the word she was looking for? She didn’t want to admit it, but it was true. Each time she was around him, her belly became filled with butterflies. She did everything but smile up at him with a goofy girl grin plastered on her face.

  She didn’t pull away when he took her by the hand and led her down the hallway with him. Once in the master bedroom, he let go of her hand, as she looked around.

  “Oh my god, Jean-Michel,” she said spinning around in the space. “I didn’t think you would have done so much. This is amazing.”

  He had enlarged the bedroom, putting in a walk-in closet she discovered in the corner. Jean-Michel and his men were now in the process of framing in the space that would become the new master bathroom.

  “You said that you wanted a large bathroom, so we had to take some space from the hallway linen closet,” he said leaning against the far wall. “Not too much,” he said with his thumb and index put together.

  “No,” she said turning to face him. “I love it.”

  “I meant to ask you a question,” he said staying in his position on the wall. “What kind of wine do you like?”

  Taffy stared at him frowning. “Huh?”

  He smiled in that way that he had. Making her insides feel like a warm slushy. He closed the distance between them. “Wine? You like to drink wine, yes?”

  “Yes. Who doesn’t?”

  “You left that morning. You left without giving me the opportunity to cook for you,” he said with a small smile. “I was going to make breakfast for you. So, now you owe me that opportunity. I didn’t think you would allow me to cook you breakfast, but…Dinner, perhaps?”

  She stepped back from him so he wouldn’t hear her gulp the lump down in her throat. “A date? You want to cook me dinner?” He answered with a nod and continued to stare at her. “Oh,” she said. “Uh, at your place?”

  “I could cook for you anywhere. But I thought it would be best to cook someplace where there was a kitchen.” He laughed softly to her.

  She hadn’t been on a date in a very long time. Her last so-called relationship had ended almost six months before. But he was asking her on a date-date. Not the kind of date where she woke up next to a stranger with her vagina hurting date. Her head seemed to be nodding without her knowledge, and then her mouth joined in, as she heard herself say yes to him. But the obvious had to be said.

  “I’m not sleeping with you,” she said to him with stiff sternness.

  Jean-Michel laughed aloud. “Oh, Taffy,” he said getting himself under control. “That was not my purpose for asking you. I want to get to know you. As I said to you that night. But you had other ideas.”

  “I did?” she said staring at him.

  “Yes. You said that you were going to drain me dry.”

  “Holy shit.” She covered her face with her hands.

  “You can be very determined,” he said.

  “That’s why my vagina hurt?” she whispered more to herself than to him.

  He closed the distance between them. “What? I hurt you?”

  Taffy shook her head trying to clear it and answer at the same time. “Um, I woke up with an aching…vagina,” she said staring shyly up at him. “I think you’re…endowed?”

  Jean-Michel started laughing again. “Oh, my sweet coquette. I can’t judge myself since I don’t go around looking and measuring other men’s penises. I am so sorry to hear about your…pussy,” he said with a wicked smile. “But it may have been because you insisted on making love five times that night.”

  “Five!”

  Jean-Michel nodded. “I tried to dissuade you, but like I said, you are a very determined woman.”

  “Well, that explains it.” She stood staring at the floor. “When I drink tequila, I seem totally sober, but I am definitely not. Dinner! Yes,” she said to him again. “When?”

  “Well, you are to meet my sister tomorrow night, yes?”

  “Yes, but that’s business, Jean-Michel.”

  He smiled sinfully at her again. “Of course. Dinner…Our date, can be this Saturday? I will come and pick you up?”

  “You can give me the directions to your house, and I’ll drive myself.”

  “Good. Now let me show you the rest of what we’ve done in the past four days.”

  * * * *

  Nina sat staring at her as they sat in Nina’s living room later that night. “You’re into him.”

  “It’s dinner, Nina. That’s all.” Taffy tried to convince Nina and herself.

  “Girl, if you don’t jump that Frenchman, give him to someone that’ll use that man right.” Nina poured more wine into her glass. “Me.”

  Taffy sipped from her glass. “Five times that night, Nina. I must have been the horniest woman in the world. And the way he talks! He’s like…Like—”

  “He oozes sex,” Nina finished for her.

  Taffy nodded in agreement. “The way he said pussy. It was like…Poo-see. Just real slow. Damn!”

  “Fuck him!” Nina said with a determined glare. “Fuck that man! Again!”

  Taffy sighed. “It’s dinner, and then that’s it. I’ll let him finish with the house, but me and him can never happen.”

  Nina looked as though Taffy had personally wounded her. “Why the hell not? Have you been secretly married in the past ten years that I’ve known you? Do you have some secret man stashed away somewhere? He’s interested, girl. And you would have to be stupid and blind not to be interested in that man.”

  “Nina, I’m just getting my life back together after—”

  “Stop it,” Nina said. “This isn’t about Seth. You need to stop thinking that everything will end up like him.”

  Taffy sat on the sofa like a statue. It always came back to Seth. “I’m not going to talk about that again, Nina.”

  Nina stared at Taffy with her lips pursed. “Oh, I see.” She glared over at Taffy. “You’re going to do that shit again?”

  “What shit again?”

  “The ignoring your pain shit. The trying to be devoid of any kind of feeling shit. That shit,” she said pointing an accusatory finger at Taffy, as she got up from the sofa. “You run from everything that might make you feel. That’s your MO. You did it when your parents died. You did it with Seth—.”

  “Stop saying—!”

  “Seth! Seth! Seth!” Nina looked around the room. “Nothing happened. The skies didn’t fall. The world didn’t explode, Taffy. Yet every time something gets intense, you run.”

  Taffy watched Nina stomp into the kitchen, getting up to follow her. She sat down at one of the stools at the breakfast bar, as Nina checked on their dinner in the oven. “You accused me once of trying to ignore life,” said Taffy. “Okay, I’m owning up to that. Yeah, I run and ignore what I don’t want to face. Who doesn’t run when they don’t want to face pain?”

  Nina leaned on the counter of the bar. “Me. And probably a whole lot of other people that would rather face the truth and then get on with their lives.”

  “I get on with my life, Nina. I didn’t become some kind of hermit after…After what happened.”

  “Can you say his name?”

  Taffy sat in the chair silently. “Seth,” she said quietly.

  “Good. That’s a first step. The second is for you to live your life and not give a fuck about what anyone thinks. I don’t care what anyone thinks about me or what I do. That includes my family. I’m living my life to make me happy. Not them!”

  “Yeah, but you have a family, Nina—”

  “No!” Nina interrupted. “Don’t you dare go back to that shit. Poor Taffy. Her parents died. Her relatives disowned her parents for being in love. Her fiancé killed himself. Don’t!”

  They were silent for a few minutes. Each of them trying to calm themselves before speaking again and saying something that would hurt the other. “I know I have the tendency to run away from things,” Taffy said quietly.

  Nina gave her a knowing look, as she leaned with her butt against the opposite counter. “Really?
”

  “I’m afraid, Nina,” Taffy said to her. “It just seems that everyone I love dies. My parents. Seth. See, I said his name. When I love someone, they die,” she said quietly.

  “Honey, people die. That’s life,” Nina said staring at her. “But you can’t put your life on hold because you’re afraid of what might happen. That’s not living.”

  “Monice and them…” Taffy said looking up at Nina. “I want to have a relationship with my relatives because it’s something my parents wanted, Nina. I just keep thinking about if they’d had that chance, if it would’ve happened. I just want to make sure that this one thing…This one wish that they wanted, to have me know the families, is something I can do. I’m afraid that if I don’t try, at least try, then they would have died…empty or something.”

  “But that’s not on you, Taffy,” Nina said to her. “You weren’t even born when all of this went down. This is on Monice and them. It’s on the Thibodeauxs. I just want you to stop trying to make them happy. Cuz, baby, I’ll tell you this, they don’t give a shit. They didn’t when they pushed your mama and daddy away, and they don’t now. Live your life for you. Go after that Frenchman,” Nina said with a laugh.

  Taffy sat thinking about what Nina was saying. She nodded slowly. “Maybe.”

  “I’ll take that,” Nina said walking over to pull Taffy into her arms. “That’s almost a yes coming from you. I’m hungry. Let’s eat.”

  Chapter 5

  DePaul could be heard coming down the small hallway. He walked into the living room, clomping like a horse with a bad leg as he always did, calling out as loud as he could. “Mama! Y’all in here?”

  Lou Pearl smiled at seeing him come in, as she continued to fan herself from her seat on the sofa. She was usually lounging around on most days. Because of the Thibodeaux money, work hadn’t entered the Thibodeaux vocabulary in many years. DePaul hurled his large body into the nearest chair, draping his leg to the side over the arm.