Under the Bayou Moon

by Valerie Fraser Luesse

“Well, now, that is tempting. But the missus and I are headed back to New Orleans to shoot the engagement portrait of a well-to-do bride.”

  “Really? Oh, Heywood, that’s great news! By the time you get everybody’s lumber milled, you’ll be a famous photographer who won’t give us common folks the time of day.”

  Heywood put his hand over his heart. “Just be thankful for the time we had, Broussards. Be thankful for the time we had.”

  “Maybe now you can do what you always wanted to,” Raphe said.

  Heywood smiled at Gabby. “I give all the credit to the missus. She says the best way to become a successful photographer is to act like I already am one.”

  “Fo’ sure,” Gabby said. “You got the talent, so go on and say so.”

  “She’s got a cousin in New Orleans that helped her sniff out some rich debs lookin’ to wed, and the next thing I knew, she had three of ’em booked. All Gabby’s doing. One hundred percent. Any brides complain about the pictures, I’ll just say, ‘You need to take that up with management—let me put you through to my lovely wife. And by the way, I wouldn’t cross her if I were you.’”

  “I imagine you two won’t be in Bernadette long,” Ellie said.

  Heywood shrugged. “Another year at least. Gabby thinks it’ll take that long to make me world famous.”

  “You don’t know, cher, I might do it in six months,” she said. “Then I’m gon’ make him move me to New Orleans. It’s where the work is, and he’s always wanted to live there. We gon’ travel all over the place. I can keep him fed an’ outta trouble while he earns a good livin’, and I can make sure he’s got the free time to take his pretty bayou pictures. Somebody’s gotta keep all them mamas o’ the bride off him.”

  “I’ve seen her in action, Heywood,” Ellie said. “Those New Orleans mamas better fall in line if they expect an audience with the Heywood Thornberry.”

  “Well,” Heywood said to Gabby, “you booked it and now I’ve got to shoot it.” They stood up to go. “I have one more thing for you.” Heywood handed Ellie the yellow envelope he had been holding. “Wait till we’re gone and then open it together.”

  “Sounds very mysterious,” Ellie said.

  “Oh, it is,” he said. “Top secret.”

  Raphe and Ellie walked them to the dock, said their goodbyes, and waved as the Whirlygig pulled away.

  Ellie took Raphe’s arm as they walked back to their porch. “It’s funny—it used to make me so blue when Heywood left, but I don’t feel that way now. I always thought I was sad for me. But now I think I was sad for him because I knew how alone he was, no matter what big front he put on. He’s not alone anymore, Raphe.”

  “No, he’s not.” Raphe bent down to kiss her. “And neither am I.”

  She smiled. “And neither am I.”

  They sat down in the swing together, and Ellie opened the yellow envelope. It held three portraits Heywood had printed. The first was the picture Ellie had taken of him in New Orleans when he still wondered if he’d live past thirty. It was a tight profile with Heywood staring out at the Mississippi, his Panama hat shading his face but not hiding his expression. It brought a pang of sadness to Ellie’s heart even now, though she knew those days were past him. She turned the picture over and laughed. “Stop crying, Ellie, I’m fine now,” Heywood had written.

  Raphe put his arm around her and smiled. “He saw you coming.”

  Next came a portrait of Raphe, taken when he was completely unaware of the camera. He was leaning against a tree, holding his fiddle, looking at something in the distance. There was the slightest trace of a wistful smile on his handsome face.

  Ellie lightly ran her hand over the portrait. “Nobody else on earth has eyes like yours.”

  “I never saw that picture before,” Raphe said. “But I remember what I was doing. I was watching you walk away.”

  Ellie looked up at him and laid her hand against his face for just a moment before turning back to the pictures. She flipped over the portrait of her husband. “My boy Raphe’s in love,” Heywood had written, which made both of them laugh.

  Finally came the third picture, the portrait of Ellie that Heywood had taken by the river in New Orleans, right before she and Raphe finally found their way to each other. Raphe took the picture from her hands and stared at it. The sun was on her face, which was tilted toward the sky, the river breeze in her hair, her expression part love, part longing.

  Raphe couldn’t seem to stop staring at the portrait. “This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. When did this happen?”

  “Before we married, right before you got back from Morgan City and came to Doc’s cabin to be with me,” Ellie said. “Remember I told you Heywood took me to New Orleans for lunch?”

  “Yes.”

  “We stopped for lemonade by the river and he liked the afternoon light, so he asked me to close my eyes, tilt my head back, and think of the most incredible moment in my life. I thought of moonlight on the white alligator and your arms around me, how you were sharing it with me and protecting me from it all at the same time. I thought of your face against mine and how there would never be any such thing as enough time with you—on the bayou or anyplace else. That’s when Heywood took the picture. It’s a picture of how I feel about you, Raphe. It’s how I’ve felt from the beginning.”

  He silently turned the image over to read Heywood’s inscription, but the back of the picture was blank. “I guess he thought such a perfect thing needs no explanation.” Raphe turned the image faceup again and traced the line of Ellie’s face with his fingertips.

  She took the picture from him and slipped it back in the envelope with the others, then rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. Raphe held her and rocked the swing as they listened to a spring breeze stir the trees on the riverbank. A boat could go by. A bird could take flight. This day could unfold however it chose. Raphe and Ellie had found their way home.

  Epilogue

  Fall 2010

  “COULD THERE BE a more jolie brune in all of Louisiana?”

  “I know what Maman would say to that, Uncle Heywood—hush up and gimme a hug.”

  “You sound just like her—and a tad like my beloved wife, for whom your parents wisely named you.” Heywood put his arms around Gabby Broussard Cheramie and hugged her tight. “How are you, baby girl?”

  “Middle aged. You?”

  He shook his head sadly. “Ancient. Positively ancient. Allow me.” He offered Gabby his arm and escorted her into the front parlor of his Garden District home, with its thick tapestry rugs over heart-pine floors, crystal chandeliers, and elegant fireplaces. “May I get you anything?”

  “I’m fine,” she said as she took a seat in an armchair by the hearth.

  Heywood sat across from her. He was quite the dapper ninety-year-old with his finely tailored suit, a red rose on the lapel. His shoes were of fine leather the color of cognac. He walked with a wooden cane hand-carved in New Orleans.

  “And how are things at the best dining establishment on the entire Atchafalaya River?” he asked.

  Gabby shrugged. “Same as always. Remy’s in the kitchen, making Papa’s recipes, and will likely never retire as long as there’s one gumbo pot remaining in the state of Louisiana. Franklin just expanded the market for the third time.”

  “Franklin?” Heywood frowned and rubbed his brow. “Now why can’t I place him?”

  She smiled. “Would it help if I called him Footsie?”

  He clapped his hands together. “Oh, for heaven’s sake—Footsie. I guess I’ll never get used to his real name after calling him that for so many years.”

  “Don’t feel bad. Remy still slips up and calls him by his nickname. Would you believe the two of them still honor Papa’s rule and won’t sell anything to compete with Emmett’s boys at Chalmette’s? And Franklin’s family made so much off their oil rights that he doesn’t even have to work, but he’s there beside Remy every single day, just like always.”

  “Knowing
those two, I have no trouble believing that. And the Broussard sisters?”

  Gabby rolled her eyes. “The sisters are the sisters. All three of ’em still try to boss me around like I’m twelve.”

  Heywood crossed his long legs and folded his hands in his lap. “Ah, but my guess is you’ll have none of that.”

  Gabby laughed. “I guess I come by it honest, given who I’m named after.” But then her smile faded and she grew serious. “You sure you’re up to this long drive, Uncle Heywood? Because if you’re not, we all understand.”

  “I shall repeat myself: You are just like your mother and a tad like my beloved late wife. And I adore you for the aggravation you cause me, but I’ll be fine.”

  Gabby looked around the parlor, where the front-facing wall held soaring windows that flooded the room with sunlight. A fireplace sat opposite the cased entrance, while the rear wall held three large, framed prints of her uncle’s favorite images: one of his wife, taken at the dance hall when she was young; another of Gabby’s father, so handsome, leaning against a tree; and finally, the most beautiful shot of her mother, taken on the riverbank in New Orleans.

  “It’s worth the drive here just to see those hanging together like that again,” she said.

  Heywood gave her a wistful smile. “Never took a shot I liked better than ‘The Trio’—included it in every show I ever did.”

  “Your ‘shots,’ as you call them, are in highfalutin galleries all over the place.”

  He gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “That’s not so important, as it turns out. What matters are the people and places in those frames.” He pointed a finger at each of the images as he spoke. “My Gabby gave me the courage to aim my camera and believe in the results. And she was a fine companion for all my adventures. Your dear mother set me straight whenever I drifted and was always there with a place at her table. She did that for everybody. Freeman Richard just got featured in the New York Times, but he’d be the first to tell you he never would’ve gotten into art school without your mother fighting for his education in Bernadette. As for your daddy—well, there’s never been a better friend. Never been a better husband and father. Never been a soul on this earth I respected more.”

  “I have it on good authority that he felt the same way about you.”

  He adjusted the rose on his lapel and sighed. “Oh, baby girl. Life is short, even when you live a really long time.”

  “Do you miss the French Quarter, Uncle Heywood?”

  “I certainly do.” He stretched out one leg and slowly flexed his knee. “Alas, the ol’ boy can’t handle all those steps at the townhouse anymore. But I can’t complain.” He looked around the beautifully appointed room. “At least I got to spend some time here with my Gabby before she passed. Makes it feel more like home. I have a fine nurse and plenty of help, so I doubt I’ll end up in the street.”

  “You know we’d kill to have you move in with us.”

  Heywood smiled. “I love you for saying it. But you have your own life, just like I do, and we should both be about it.” He looked at his wristwatch. “Speaking of which, I guess we should get going before this old geezer turns into a sentimental puddle of mush.”

  Gabby stood and went to his side to help him up. “You’re my old geezer, and I’ll fight anybody who says otherwise.”

  That brought another smile. Heywood’s eyes twinkled with their old mischief as he put his arms around her and held her tight. “You were always my favorite.”

  Gabby looked up at him and grinned. “I know.”

  THE LAST OF THE GUESTS had gone from Gabby’s house on the river when she looked out a front window and saw her Uncle Heywood sitting in a rocker on the porch. Now and again he would hold up his palms, thumb to thumb, creating a square to frame an imaginary picture. She poured them both a small glass of his favorite port and joined him on the porch.

  He smiled up at her when she handed him the glass. “You were raised right.”

  They sat silently together, looking out at the Atchafalaya.

  “There’s not a more beautiful river in the whole world,” he said.

  Gabby took a sip of her wine. “If one more person had told me they wished we could be gathering under happier circumstances, I might’ve jumped right into that river.”

  Heywood threw his head back and laughed. “People say some mighty strange things when they’re at a loss for words, don’t they?”

  “They do indeed.”

  He slowly turned the glass in his hand. “Your mother always had considerable patience with that sort of thing.”

  “And Papa?”

  “Not so much.”

  They watched as a heron took off from its nest, flew in a wide circle, and then turned downriver.

  “I suppose,” Heywood said after a while, “I must face the inevitable.”

  “You sure you want to go back, Uncle Heywood?” Gabby reached out and laid her hand over his. “It’s been a pretty long day already.”

  He gave her a sad smile and then turned his gaze to the river. “I don’t want to, but I need to, baby girl.”

  After they finished their wine, Gabby brought him his hat and cane, then helped him down the steps and into the car. She followed a narrow, paved road that wound its way to a bluff overlooking the river, where the people of Bernadette buried their dead.

  Heavy rains were in the forecast, but for now only a damp mist was falling from the Louisiana sky. Gabby got out of the car and opened the passenger door, holding a large black umbrella above it as Heywood gingerly stepped out and slowly rose to his full height. These days, his aging body needed extra time to unfurl itself.

  “Feel pretty steady?” Gabby asked.

  “The veritable picture of balance,” he answered.

  She smiled. “I guess that means you want me to leave you alone?”

  “It sounds so antisocial when you put it that way. Let’s just say I see an opportunity for the both of us to enjoy a moment of solitude.”

  “I know when I’m not wanted. I’ll be right here. Want the umbrella?”

  “No, my hat will keep me dry. And the more I carry, the more likely I am to trip and wind up in the nursing home, eating oatmeal and dry toast instead of having breakfast at Brennan’s.”

  “D’accord.”

  He bent down and kissed her on the cheek. “It does my old heart good to hear my boy Raphe’s child speaking French. Bananas Foster on me when we return to New Orleans.”

  HEYWOOD TOOK HIS TIME, stepping carefully on the damp grass, as he made his way to a simple headstone facing the water. It marked two graves, one older and carpeted in green, the other brand-new, its freshly dug bayou earth covered with a mountain of funeral-home flowers.

  Standing beside the grave on the left, he read the dates aloud: “March 3, 1920–April 20, 2005.” He reached into his pocket, took out an oyster shell, and laid it on the granite. “Five years and I still miss you every day, mon ami.”

  He leaned on his cane as he carefully stepped around to the new grave and shook his head. “Those who supposedly know best tell me I can’t make this trip again, but I had to say a proper goodbye.” He removed the rose from his lapel and cradled it in his hand. “My Gabby never cared for roses. She used to say, ‘Who’d want a flower that means to make ’em bleed?’ But as I recall, you adored roses, thorns and all. I don’t think the missus would mind if I gave this one to you.” He carefully placed the delicate flower on the mist-covered stone, then took off his hat and laid it over his heart.

  “Goodbye for now, Miss Ellie Fields—for now but not forever.”

  ONE

  April 1947

  THOUGH HE COULDN’T HAVE KNOWN, nor ever guessed, Peyton Cabot had just witnessed a bittersweet kiss goodbye. There they stood, a man and a woman, in the center of his grandfather’s library, a mahogany-paneled sanctuary that always smelled of polished wood and old leather, parchment and pipe tobacco. It was empty now, with all the family outside for their annual picnic—empty but for t
hese two.

  As Peyton looked on, the couple shared an embrace so passionate that he knew he should turn away, for he realized in that moment that he had become the worst kind of intruder, spying on his own parents. Right now they didn’t look like parents—she a blonde all-American beauty, he a larger-than-life movie idol. They looked like two strangers whose past he didn’t share, whose present he couldn’t comprehend. More than the embrace itself, that’s what he found so arresting—the realization that his parents were more than a mother and father, that they did, in fact, have a life before him, apart from him entirely, one they would’ve shared even if he had never been born.

  The revelation took him by surprise, and he fled to the cover of his grandparents’ front porch, sinking into their boisterous Georgia clan as he longed to sink into a pool of water that could wash away his transgression, for he knew good and well that he was guilty of theft. He had stolen a private moment that his mother and father never meant to share.

  Peyton would spend this afternoon like so many others—swapping jokes with his boy cousins and listening to the uncles tell their stories (the same ones they told at every family picnic, but everybody laughed just the same). Still, the image of that kiss would be etched on his memory, not just for the rest of this sunny afternoon but for the rest of his life.

  FOR YEARS, the Cabots had been gathering for a spring picnic at the family estate on the Isle of Hope. It was a show of togetherness mandated by Peyton’s grandmother and held religiously, regardless of weather, on the Saturday before Easter. Attending the picnic was like performing a role in a play or a movie, the men costumed in their linen and seersucker, the ladies in tea-party dresses and wide-brimmed hats. All the children wore croquet whites, swinging their mallets in an orderly fashion until they got bored and started chasing each other all over the place, like a band of well-dressed jackrabbits.

  Picnic tables were covered in starched white linens and dotted with crystal pitchers filled with fresh flowers. Even the ice cream would be served on china with sterling silver spoons. Servants ferried food out of the kitchen and dirty dishes back in. Over the course of an afternoon, the Cabots would consume platters mounded with fried chicken, country ham, and homemade biscuits slathered with fresh-churned butter; sweet potato casserole, corn on the cob, green beans, and black-eyed peas; ambrosia, Grandmother Cabot’s coconut cake, Doxie’s chocolate cake (she had to make three to satisfy all the family), homemade ice cream with Georgia peaches; and enough sweet tea and lemonade to float a barge—this in addition to the steady flow of cocktails mixed by the uncles.