I put on my robe and followed. At first I didn’t see her. Then I caught her silhouette in the garden shadows. “Mommy,” I whispered, “why are you out here?”
She didn’t hear me, so I drew closer and asked again.
“Oh, Pearl,” she replied in a voice drawn from a well of sadness. “I was hoping Nina would speak to me in the darkness. Don’t tell Daddy I came out here,” she pleaded. I took her hand. Her skin felt clammy and cold.
“You better go back to bed, Mommy, and stop this worrying.”
“I can’t. Something’s going to happen because of some bad luck my past actions have brought into our home. Nina wanted to warn me, I’m sure.”
“That’s silly, Mommy, and you know it is. Things happen for logical, natural reasons only.”
She sighed deeply. “I don’t know,” she muttered. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I do,” I said firmly. “Now come back in and go to bed or I will tell Daddy.”
She started back to the house with me and then stopped and seized my hand in a desperate grip. “Did you hear that?” she asked, softly.
I listened, but heard nothing unusual. “Hear what, Mommy?”
“The sound of someone sobbing. I heard it before, too,” she said.
“Wasn’t that you?” I asked.
Her eyes widened. “Then you heard it too!” she said quickly.
“Stop it, Mommy. You’re scaring me.”
We both listened a moment longer.
“I don’t hear anything,” I declared.
She shook her head and walked back to the house with me. We both returned to our bedrooms, but I didn’t fall asleep until nearly morning.
Mommy didn’t come down to breakfast the next morning before I left for work. Daddy said she had spent a restless night and was still sound asleep. In fact, despite the wonderful reception her new works had received, Mommy remained in a melancholy state for days. The twins were usually there at the door complaining when I returned from work.
“Mommy’s losing her hearing,” Pierre concluded.
Jean, nodded worriedly. “She should go to an ear doctor.”
“Maybe you can test her hearing, Pearl,” Jean said.
“Why do you say she’s losing her hearing?” I asked with a smile.
“If we ask her a question, we have to ask her twice, maybe three times,” Pierre explained.
“Sometimes we have to shout!” Jean added.
“She’s a bit distracted these days,” I told them. “It’s not her hearing. Just be patient.”
They shook their heads skeptically and went back to their games. But the mood of despair that had laid itself over our home depressed them. They had no enthusiasm for their pranks. Daddy began to worry about Mommy, too. She wasn’t working; she didn’t visit with her friends or have any visitors, and she wasn’t eating well. Finally, one night at dinner, my father thought he had a solution.
“Pearl has Monday and Tuesday off this next week and I’m due for a holiday. What say we go to the château, this weekend, Ruby? The change of scenery will do you good. You can get some ideas for your work, and the boys and I can go fishing.”
“Yeah!” Jean cried.
“I don’t know,” Mommy said. Daddy looked to me for help.
“I’d love a change of scenery, Mommy, and we haven’t been to the château for quite a while,” I said. “I can get some of my college preparatory reading done, too.”
She looked at me and nodded. “I suppose we could go,” she said.
The boys were cheered, and the packing and planning did add some brightness to what had otherwise been a dark time. Despite her initial reluctance, Mommy dived into the preparations. No one had to wake the boys the next morning. They were already dressed and ready by the time Mommy, Daddy, and I went downstairs for breakfast. They had packed their own suitcases, but when Mommy inspected them, she discovered they had included slingshots, baseballs, shedded snakeskins, marbles, and jackknives.
“You’ll have plenty with which to occupy yourselves at the château,” Mommy told them. “No need to bring all this junk.”
Daddy packed the car immediately after breakfast. I think he was even more excited than the twins about taking the holiday. As usual the twins talked a blue streak during the drive, asking questions about practically everything in sight. What were people selling on the sides of the highway? How did they make those baskets and palmetto hats? Why were the shacks built on stilts? Mommy had little time to dwell on her dark thoughts, so even though Daddy normally would have asked the twins to take a break, he simply smiled at me, winked, and let the questions go on and on.
It was a beautiful summer day. Bringing Mommy out to the rural world appeared to be the panacea Daddy and I were hoping for. The sight of her beloved Spanish moss draped from old cypress trees, the glistening goldenrod, the willows and cottonwoods, and here and there a pond covered with lilies and hyacinths filled her with pleasure and restored the glow to her eyes and cheeks. The twins loved to test her knowledge of birds, and she was more than eager to identify a grosbeak heron or a scarlet cardinal. They were fascinated by her description of a butcher bird and how it stored its food on thorns so it could eat the cured flesh during the winter. Everything about nature fascinated them. I decided they were the ones who had really inherited our grandmother’s affinity for wild things.
“I hope we see snakes and alligators,” Jean said as we drew closer to what had been the Dumas family’s country home.
“Never mind about them,” Mommy warned. “You two mustn’t wander off exploring on your own. I want you close to the house except when Daddy takes you, hear?”
Reluctantly, they promised.
“There she blows,” Daddy cried as we came around a turn and our country house came into view.
The building that my grandfather Dumas used to refer to as his ranch actually resembled a château. It had a steeply pitched hipped roof with spires, pinnacles, turrets, gables, and two oddly shaped chimneys. The metal cresting along the roof’s ridges was elaborately ornamented. The windows and the doorway were arched. To the right were two small cottages for the servants and caretakers, and to the right, some thousand yards or so away, were the stables with the riding horses and a barn. The property had rambling fields with patches of wooded areas and a stream cutting across its north end.
Like some of the châteaux in the French countryside, it had beautiful gardens, and two gazebos stood on the front lawn, as did benches and chairs and stone fountains. When we arrived, the caretakers were busily trimming hedges and weeding.
“Can we go horseback riding right away, Daddy?” Jean cried.
“Let’s settle in first, unpack, and get organized. Then we’ll see about the recreational schedule,” he said.
The twins put a cork in their overflowing bottle of excitement, but both looked as if they would burst as they feasted their eyes on our beautiful grounds, the ponds, the fields, and the stream that wove its way deep into the woods and promised adventures forever. They started to rush away as soon as Daddy stopped the car, but he hauled them back with a cry.
“You two help unload. Carry your own suitcases to your room. Come on. You’re both big enough to take care of yourselves,” he said.
They returned to the car and took their things, Jean proudly heaving his suitcase over his shoulder and helping Pierre unload his.
Mommy stood for a moment gazing around. Then she lifted her eyes to look at an upstairs window. Some memory brought shadows to her face. Daddy sensed her concern and moved quickly to her side.
“Let’s have an enjoyable few days and let the past remain buried, Ruby. Please,” he pleaded. She nodded, took a deep breath, and started for the front door.
Except for the inclusion of some of Mommy’s paintings, my parents had done little to change the decor. The château had a short foyer decorated with drapes and large landscape paintings. The furnishings were a mixture of modern and the same French Provincial found in our New
Orleans house.
After we all settled in, Daddy took the twins fishing, and Mommy and I went into the garden, where I read and Mommy set up her easel. Although we didn’t converse much, we sensed and drew from each other’s presence. Both reading and working on artistic projects required concentration and solitude. Mommy soon became lost in her project and I in my reading. Before either of us realized it, the afternoon had turned to dusk and we had to go in to prepare for dinner.
Daddy and the twins returned with their catch. The twins were so excited about the turtles and the other wildlife that they jabbered continuously through dinner. No one else had a chance to get in a word, but their excitement was infectious. All of us felt rejuvenated—Mommy especially. I took charge of getting the twins to bed and left Mommy and Daddy alone to enjoy the warm, starblazing bayou evening. The twins reluctantly surrendered to sleep only when Daddy promised they could go horseback riding in the morning.
I enjoyed riding too, so the next morning Mommy went back to her painting while Daddy and I and the twins rode for nearly two hours. After lunch Daddy went up to his room to take a nap, and Mommy and I returned to the garden where she continued to paint and I continued to catch up on my college reading.
Toward the later part of the afternoon, a wave of dark clouds crept in from the east. The breeze kicked up, and Mommy decided to go inside. The wind played havoc with our hair, my pages, and Mommy’s easel and canvas. We both laughed at our struggle to keep control of our possessions. As we packed up Mommy’s brushes and paints, canvas, and easel, she suddenly paused, a half smile of confusion on her face. “What’s that?” she asked.
I shook my head. “What’s what, Mommy?”
“Didn’t you hear it? It sounded like someone screaming.” She turned slowly. Daddy had just stepped out of the house and was moving toward us when I heard the screams, too.
“Pierre,” I whispered. I saw him flailing about as he struggled to run through the tall grass. He fell once, and Mommy cried out. Daddy started to run toward him.
“Pearl,” Mommy moaned.
“It’s probably nothing, Mommy,” I said and started toward Pierre. But where was Jean? I wondered and felt my heart turn to cold stone when I heard Pierre cry out Jean’s name and point to the wooded swamp area behind him. “Snakebite!”
His words were carried to us on the wind and reached Mommy who had followed behind me. She brought her hands to her cheeks and screamed at the fast-approaching storm clouds.
“Nina!”
I stepped back to embrace her just as her legs gave out.
The thunder seemed to come from both our hearts.
6
The Curse Strikes
The water moccasin is a large poisonous olive-brown viper. Folks in the South often call it a cottonmouth. It coils itself on the lower limbs of willow trees and when it lies in the water, it can look like a broken branch floating.
Jean had waded into a pond to catch a turtle sleeping between the lily pads. Pierre had warned him not to, but Jean was fascinated. I knew that when Jean fixed his mind on something, he was sometimes like someone hypnotized. He would turn off everything around him and concentrate on what he wanted to do or see or touch. Pierre had remained on the shore screaming at him, but Jean had ignored him.
When he got too close to the snake, it struck.
“I thought it was a branch, Daddy,” Pierre moaned. It would be something lie would chant in his own mind, for a long time: “I thought it was just a branch.”
Jean was floating face down when Daddy lunged into the water to get to him. He scooped him up, lifting him over his head. I had just arrived at the clearing and saw him rushing from the water as if it were boiling around him. There is nothing more frightening to me than the sound and the sight of a grown man screaming. Daddies aren’t supposed to cry. There was no sight more heartrending and terrifying to me at the same time as the sight of my father, petrified at the prospect of losing his son, my brother. Daddy looked as if he had lost all sense of direction; he had lost his wits.
Daddy flooded Jean’s face with kisses I knew he prayed would be magical; but the stitches that had drawn Jean’s eyelids shut appeared unbreakable, and his beautiful little face, a face always animated, those blue eyes sweeping a room or a place to find something interesting, was already growing as pale as a faded water lily.
Daddy turned to me with eyes I shall never put to sleep in my memory, frantic eyes.
I hurried to his side.
“He’s not breathing!” he said.
I had him put Jean on a patch of soft moss.
“Make him better, Pearl. Make him better,” Pierre pleaded.
Jean had been bitten on the left wrist. It had swollen into a large lump, so I knew an adult viper had bitten him and he had taken a big dose of venom. The shock of the bite and its effect on his nervous system must have put him into a panic. He obviously fell into the water, but instead of heading for shore, he had floundered into deeper water. His wrist was surely burning; his heart pounding.
From a first aid course given by the fire department last year, I knew that when a person panics at the surface of water, his thrashing movements are incapable of keeping his body afloat. If they sink and begin to swallow water, initially, an automatic contraction of the muscle in the windpipe prevents water from entering the lungs and instead it enters the esophagus and stomach. However, the laryngeal reflex impairs breathing, which can quickly lead to the loss of consciousness even without the injection of lethal viper venom. This was surely what had happened to Jean.
Jean’s lips had turned blue-gray. I couldn’t hear his heartbeat or feel a pulse in his wrist, so I began CPR, never having dreamed when I learned it last year, that I would be practicing it for real on my own little brother. I kept reciting the instructions in my mind, shutting out Daddy’s moans and Pierre’s cajoling to make Jean better. Instead, I heard my instructor saying the rate of compression should be eighty per minute with two breaths given after every fifteen compressions. After what seemed like hours, but was really only two minutes, I looked up at Daddy.
“We’ve got to get him to the hospital.”
He nodded and lifted Jean in his arms. Pierre and I followed him out of the woods and across the field. Mommy was seated on a bench, her face drained and white, her tears flowing, her lips quivering.
“We’ve got to rush to the hospital,” Daddy shouted and headed for the car. Mommy shook her head violently, as if to drive off mosquitoes. I took Pierre’s hand and we both helped her to her feet.
We all piled into the car. Mommy and I remained in the back with Jean. She kept his head on her lap and stroked his hair, her tears now falling on his face as well.
I don’t remember the ride. Daddy had the car on two wheels around turns, his horn blaring at anything and anyone in our way, driving them off the road. We pulled into the hospital emergency lane, and Daddy scooped up Jean again. Mommy rose slowly to follow. All hope was gone from her. She was a shell of herself, drifting along with us.
A team of doctors and nurses worked on Jean. I sat with Mommy in the lobby, holding her limp hand. Pierre sat beside me, stunned, his head against my shoulder, his hands clutching my other hand as if he hoped I could pull him up from the tragedy unfolding around us.
Mommy had been sitting there staring blankly at the wall, when suddenly she spoke: “If only I had left the party … if only I had spoken to Nina before she died.”
“Stop that, Mommy. Nina had nothing to do with this.”
She shook her head and sighed so deeply I thought I heard her chest shatter. She continued to stare ahead with vacant eyes, waiting.
In my mind I envisioned what they were trying to do with Jean. They were injecting the antivenom; they were defibrillating his heart; they were drawing the water from his lungs. Daddy was beside them watching, praying, a man turned to stone.
Time had no meaning, so I didn’t know how long we actually waited before Daddy emerged, followed by some of the m
edical staff. There was no need for words. Everything was said in their faces.
Pierre, who had drawn even closer to me and put his arms around my waist, still clung desperately. The analytical part of me, incredibly detached emotionally, wondered when we as children first understood the finality of death. We are told that people who die go away forever to a place that is nicer, and that eases our confusion and the pain because we can imagine them even happier. It helps us to put them aside, to forget, to turn back to those who are still with us.
But later, at some fragile age, we suddenly realize that death is more than just a ticket on a train or a plane, and we understand the temporal nature of our own lives. Sometime, somewhere, somehow, we, too, will take that inevitable journey. But nothing is more unfair and unreasonable than when a child is made to go.
Maybe Jean wouldn’t have become a doctor or a lawyer, but maybe he would have become a great athlete or a good businessman. He would have had his own family and his own children. He was still at the well of “maybes,” there to draw from the dreams and possibilities. He was curious and alive and full to the brim with a desire to live every moment, to taste every cookie, drink every soda, laugh every laugh, run until his heart felt as if it would burst, climb trees and have a dog at his feet or a cat in his lap. He was Everyboy, our own Huckleberry Finn, more comfortable in a pair of torn jeans than in suit and tie, never annoyed by strands of hair over his forehead, eager to poke his finger into the pie or the cake icing.
And now he was no more.
“He’s gone,” Daddy said, and the stone face crumbled under the flow of his own cold tears.
Mommy raised her eyes toward the ceiling and screamed just before she collapsed into Daddy’s arms. I was so shattered by her reaction that I never noticed Pierre had toppled back. But when I looked at him, I felt a second stab of ice through my heart. I realized he had fallen into a catatonic state, his eyes wide open.
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