Rising Tides (8 page)

“Did Ben tell you about the letters?”

“Yeah.” Phillip tossed another volley of crumbs to the
sparrows. As he did, a gold band on his left hand glinted in the sunlight.

“I didn’t realize you were married,” she said.

“And I’ll be a father any day now. Belinda’s waiting back in New Orleans. So I have my own reasons to get this over with. That’s why I’m sitting here right now.”

“What was your connection to my grandmother, Phillip?”

There was a pause before he spoke. “The same as yours.”

She tried to figure out what he meant. She had had many connections to her grandmother. Aurore had been her teacher, her friend, her champion. Dawn looked sideways to ask him to clarify. He was gazing at her, and waiting…. Then she understood. “She was—”

He nodded. “My grandmother, too.”

Seconds passed. “I don’t believe it,” she said at last.

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“What are you trying to say, Phillip? That your mother…” She paused and tried again. “That Nicky—?”

“Nicky is Aurore’s daughter. But Nicky doesn’t know.” Phillip rubbed the back of his neck. “She will soon enough, though. And I’m going to have to be the one to tell her. Our grandmother was a great one for get ting other people to do the things she didn’t want to do herself.”

“How in the hell do you know all of this?”

“Aurore took her time dying. She had plenty of time to prepare. And telling me who I am was part of it. The truth came out a little at a time. She said she was hiring me to write her life story. I thought it was an old lady’s whimsy, and I humored her because I needed an excuse to stay in the city. Then I realized it was my story she was telling, too.”

Dawn thought about the letters she’d read. “But I don’t
understand. She left me letters from my great-grandfather to a priest, but they don’t have anything to do with you.”

“Don’t they?”

“I don’t see what. They’re about a hurricane, way back at the turn of the century—”

“Did you understand what you read?”

“Some, but not why it’s so important.”

His gaze passed over her face, as if he were searching for something that until now he had found lacking. “Do you want to know more?”

Dawn was still trying to deal with what she’d just learned. Her grandmother had had a daughter. One she had never acknowledged. One of a different race. And that daughter was here now, waiting to be told the truth. Dawn chanted a long string of words she hadn’t learned from her mother.

“Well, we agree on that much,” Phillip said.

“Are you going to elaborate?”

“When Lucien Le Danois married your great-grand mother, he got more than a wife. He was from a good family with no money, and Claire Friloux was the heiress to Gulf Coast Steamship. When they married, Lucien moved up in the world considerably.”

Phillip certainly had her full attention now. And so far the story sounded familiar. “Go on.”

“The marriage wasn’t happy. Claire was pregnant for most of it, but your grandmother was the only child who survived infancy. And Aurore wasn’t expected to live into adulthood. The family came here in the summers, to get away from the heat and disease in the city. Lucien would leave Aurore and her mother on the island and come back and visit when he could. But they weren’t the only ones he visited. He found a lady friend in a nearby fishing village, someone without Claire’s
delicate constitution. She was an Acadian woman named Marcelite Cantrelle, and when Lucien first met her, she already had a son. Raphael.”

“I don’t understand what this has to do with any thing.”

“You will.” Phillip leaned back so that he could see her better. “What else did you learn from the letters?”

“The storm hit Grand Isle in 1893. Lucien and his family were here at the time. He was out sailing when the storm blew up, and he went somewhere nearby—”

“Chénière Caminada.”

“That’s right. To wait. The storm worsened, and he waited in someone’s house for it to end. Then, during the eye, he took a boatload of strangers to the church, because he was afraid that the house wouldn’t withstand the rest of the storm.” Dawn told Phillip everything else she’d pieced together. The church had already been destroyed, but the presbytery had still been standing. Just yards from the door, Lucien’s boat had gotten snagged on wreckage, and he had jumped in the water to free it. Lucien had become caught up himself. In a panic, as the winds and waves began again, he had cut the rope tying him to the boat and sent it swirling into the Gulf. Some how he had made it into the presbytery and safety, but everyone on board the boat had perished.”

“The people in the boat weren’t strangers,” Phillip said, when she had finished. “There were three passengers. Marcelite Cantrelle, her son Raphael, and her daughter Angelle. Angelle was Lucien’s child.”

Dawn stared at him. “No…”

“And he didn’t cut the rope to free himself, not the way you meant, anyway. He cut the rope and sent them to their death because he had to get rid of them. His father-in-law had found out about his affair and was making threats.”

The last part barely registered. “He killed them?”

“Call it what you like.”

Dawn wanted to argue Phillip’s version of the story, but she couldn’t. She hadn’t understood why her great-grandfather had felt so deeply guilty. Over and over again he had defended his actions, even though the re plies from Father Grimaud absolved him. And she had noticed inconsistencies. She had wondered whether her French was at fault.

“Father Grimaud was the chénière priest. That’s why Lucien wrote him those letters,” Phillip said.

“What does this story have to do with you?”

“Raphael was my grandfather.”

“But you said that he died.”

“Everyone thought so, including Lucien. After the hurricane, Lucien buried Marcelite and Angelle and a child who looked like Raphael. But Raphael was found days later, clinging to wreckage from the boat. When he regained consciousness, he discovered that he had be come someone else. A man from the chénière had identified him as a boy named Étienne Lafont whose entire family had perished. A family from Bayou Lafourche took him in, and that’s where he grew up. But Raphael knew who he was and what Lucien had done, and he swore that someday he would find Lucien and make him pay.”

Dawn repressed a shudder. “Did he?”

“Once he was grown, Raphael found his way to New Orleans and took a job at Gulf Coast Steamship. He worked his way up into a position of confidence quickly. He was bright, motivated—” Phillip stopped. “He was also of mixed blood, but no one knew. Or at least no one could be sure.”

“How can that be?”

“Raphael’s father had been born into slavery, the son of a house slave and her master. But remember, after the hurricane,
people on Bayou Lafourche were told that Raphael was a boy named Étienne, and the people of the chénière were dark-haired and swarthy, a true mixture of nationalities. Raphael suspected what his real heritage was, but the only thing that mattered to him was to get revenge against Lucien. And to do that, he would have lied about anything.”

“Go on.”

“He discovered a foolproof way to destroy Lucien financially and bring Gulf Coast Steamship to its knees. But he didn’t count on one thing. As part of his plan, he was determined to make Aurore fall in love with him. But despite himself, he fell in love with her, too. She be came pregnant, and they planned to run away together. For one instant, Raphael thought he had it all. Lucien’s downfall. Marriage to Aurore. But it all fell apart. She discovered what he’d done. Not why, but what. Lucien died, and Aurore disappeared to have the baby.”

“Disappeared?”

“By then, Aurore knew who Raphael really was. She knew that his father was a mulatto, and that her child would have mixed blood, too. She hid so she could have the baby and give it up. But Raphael found her and took their daughter to raise himself. That daughter was Nicky.”

“
Grandmère
let him take her?”

“She thought she had little choice.”

“But that’s impossible to believe. She was a devoted mother. She would have given up her life at a moment’s notice for her children.”

“She gave Nicky to Raphael, then she set about re storing the fortunes of Gulf Coast Steamship. Only there were no steamships by the time the creditors had finished with them. Raphael had done his work well. So the company became simply Gulf Coast Shipping. And when she couldn’t find any
other way to get it back on firm financial footing, she married Henry Gerritsen, a man who could help her do it.”

Dawn was silent, trying to drink in the entire story. Part of her wanted to tell Phillip he was crazy. But a bigger part, a much bigger part, knew he was telling the truth. Everything added up. His presence here. Nicky’s presence here. And the bits and pieces of history that she’d always known. “Did
Grandmère
ever see Nicky again? Did she know anything about her when she was growing up?” she asked at last.

“There’s a lot more to this than I’ve told you. And that’s why your grandmother had me write it all down. Aurore initialed every page.” He smiled, with no humor. “She knew there would be some here who wouldn’t believe it.”

“You mean you have this manuscript here with you?”

“No. Spencer has copies to give everyone, but apparently not until this little beach party is completed.”

“Does Spencer—”

“Spencer can verify everything I’ve told you. He’s known the entire story for many years. And so has Pelichere.”

The sun had risen higher before she spoke again. “I’m going to have to tell my parents, Phillip. How are you going to tell Nicky?”

“Maybe I should have told her months ago. Aurore left it up to me to decide when.”

“Why didn’t you tell her before
Grandmère
died? They might have had a chance at a reunion.”

“That’s why I didn’t. I was afraid that nothing good could come of a meeting. I couldn’t bear to see either of them hurt more.” He slid off the car and stood. “There’s more than I’ve told you. Don’t judge my decision until you know it all.”

She joined him on the ground and took his arm when it seemed as if he was going to walk away. “Thanks. I guess.”

“For what? For telling family secrets you’d probably rather not have heard?”

She tried to think of a way to explain her own con fused feelings. “I’ve spent the last year of my life trying not to be a part of this family.”

He moved away. “Well, now there’s even more family that you can try not to be a part of. And not the kind you’re probably dying to have.”

She let that go. “Listen, have you ever stood on the Mississippi River bank when the fog was rolling in?”

He frowned.

“Try it sometime,” she said. “I did it a lot as a little girl, and I still remember. At first the fog is appealing, soft and cool and deliciously mysterious. Then you begin to realize there are people nearby, and boats on the river. You hear snatches of conversation, whistles and bells, and sometimes you even hear laughter. But nothing is clear, and you can’t find anyone or anything without falling into the river and drowning.”

“So?”

“Well, that’s what it’s been like growing up as a Gerritsen,” she said. “And even though I don’t like what I’ve heard about my grandmother, I guess I’m grateful you’re here to chase off the fog.”

His eyes searched hers, as if he expected to see some thing there to contradict her words. Then he shrugged. “There won’t be any fog at all by the time we’ve finished here, Dawn. Our grandmother’s going to see to that. I really hope you’re ready to see the whole picture. But I can tell you this. By the time these four days have ended, you may wish for fog again with all your heart.”

“L
ies.” Ferris slashed his hand through empty air. “What kind of game are you playing, Dawn?”

Dawn had waited until her parents were awake and dressed; then she had invited them both for a walk down the driveway, where she quietly related what she’d learned from Phillip. No one else was in sight.

“No games,” she assured Ferris. “I’m just telling you what I know.”

“You’re telling me what Phillip Benedict told you.”

“That’s part of it. But I’ve read the letters, and Phillip’s story fits.”

“You believe it?” Ferris demanded. “You’re that gullible?”

“
Grandmère
dictated the story to him, and Phillip says that Spencer and Pelichere can verify everything he told me. You can ask them.” Dawn didn’t step back as her father moved in on her, but she felt as threatened as she had on the rare occasions in her childhood when Ferris had been angry at her.

“I told you Nicky Valentine was a liar. Apparently she’s passed it on to her son. Don’t you know she’ll jump at the chance to turn this into a scandal?”

Dawn was beginning to get angry right along with him. “Don’t kid yourself, Daddy. Nicky doesn’t want to be related to you any more than you want to be related to her. Her reputation will suffer.”

“I think the two of you have said enough for now.” Cappy stepped between them. “Dawn, Pelichere made French toast this morning. Why don’t you go inside and get some before Spencer calls us all together?”

“When does this family reach the point where any two of us can have a conversation without a referee?” Dawn watched something—acknowledgment, perhaps, or possibly even sadness—pass over her mother’s face. Then, before she could identify it for certain and be disappointed, she turned back up the driveway and left them behind her.

“It’s a lie,” Ferris said when Dawn was gone. “An insidious lie. I won’t have my mother’s name destroyed this way.”

“Your mother’s name?” Cappy gave a humorless laugh. “Nobody’s out here except you and me, Ferris, and both of us know whose name you’re worried about.”

“Don’t you start on me. You’ll be tarred with the same brush if these lies are spread around.”

Cappy made a show of looking at her watch. “We’ve got forty minutes before we’re all supposed to get together again. I’m going for a walk along the beach. I’d suggest you use the time left to figure out how you’re going to come to terms with the fact that Nicky Valentine is your sister.”

“I don’t know what these Gerritsens are trying to do, but I don’t see why I have to stay here and play along.” Nicky glimpsed Phillip and Jake exchanging looks as she stalked to the closet. She had been so quiet as Phillip related the story
of her birth that she guessed neither man had expected this response.

As she began to pull clothes off hangers, Phillip stepped toward her, but Jake put his hand on his step son’s arm and nodded toward the door. Phillip stood poised between what he thought he should do and what he obviously preferred. Finally he settled for the latter. The door closed softly behind him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Jake asked.

“I’m going home.”

“You gonna drive all the way back by yourself in this rain?”

She faced him. “You’re not planning to stay?”

“I’m not leaving. You don’t stay to find out what’s going on, I have to.” Jake sat down on the bed. “The way I see it, someone’s lying, or someone’s telling the truth. Either way, we got to ask ourselves why. We can’t pre tend it doesn’t matter.”

“Aurore Gerritsen was not my mother.” The bed was soft against Nicky’s legs. She felt Jake’s hand on her knee and realized she was sitting beside him.

“What do you remember about your daddy?” Jake asked.

“Little things. He was a good man.”

“And what did he tell you about your mother?”

“Nothing. He never said anything.”

“Could she have been a white woman?”

“How would I know what color she was?”

“Because you can put two and two together same as any reasonably well-educated person.”

“We’re talking shades? I’m supposed to guess my mother’s race by my father’s color? By mine? We’re not mixing a pitcher of chocolate milk here. Add a little more Hershey’s syrup, make it a little darker. People aren’t that simple, and you know it.”

“Your daddy didn’t tell you anything about your mama? Did anybody else?”

She was silent for a long time, wrestling with the things she couldn’t forget, wrestling with something too terrible to remember. “The place where I grew up was full of women as light or lighter than me, and all of them had colored blood. I always thought my mother had been one of them. Someone told me she’d died giving birth to me.”

“But it’s possible she could have been white?”

“No! Aurore Gerritsen was not my mother. There’s something wrong here.”

“Then stay and find out what it is.”

She stood and walked to the window. Dawn had been right. Nicky could see the Gulf. Now the waves were angry, and the water was a dark seaweed green. She thought of Phillip’s story, of a small boy and girl caught up in the water’s fury, of a woman screaming as her lover cut the thin tether that anchored her to the future.

She covered her ears. “I hate this place! How can you even think about staying? We weren’t welcome yester day, and we’ll be less so now. Once Ferris Gerritsen finds out what Phillip is saying, he’ll come after us with everything he’s got.”

“I’ll be looking forward to that.”

She faced him. “You think anybody in this state would take your side in a fight with the almighty senator?”

“I spent the first part of my life running from who I was, and the second part making peace with it. I plan to spend the last part standing up for what’s mine. You going to stand with me?”

“You’re not my conscience, Jake. If I stay, I stay be cause it’s right for me. For
me!
”

“I know. I’m just asking you to take a little time to let it all settle.”

“Give me some time alone before I have to face everybody again.”

He left quietly. He had been gone for a long time be fore Nicky was calm enough to think about her surroundings. The room was airy and feminine, decorated in a casual beach-house style with which she felt completely comfortable. Aurore Gerritsen no longer seemed a stranger. She had left her personal stamp everywhere. Nicky stood in the bedroom of the woman who had reached from the grave, claiming to be her mother, and she cursed Aurore for ever having been born.

Nicky didn’t look right or left. She held out her hand as Spencer stepped in front of her. Spencer’s wasn’t quite steady as he rested a jeweler’s box in her palm. “Aurore hoped that this might, in some small way, explain a great injustice.”

Nicky didn’t speak, and neither did anyone else.

Ben and Phillip exchanged glances. Phillip had told Ben the truth about Nicky and Aurore, and Ben knew that he had told Dawn, as well. Now, judging from the rigid set of her head, Nicky knew, too.

Nicky’s fingers closed around the box. She stood and left the morning room without a word. Jake followed.

“There’s nothing Aurore could have put in that box or anywhere else that’s going to make this any easier.” Phillip rose from his seat beside Ben and left the room, too.

“Just so you’ll know, we’re finished for the day,” Spencer told the rest of them. “We’ll meet tomorrow at the same time.”

Since he awakened that morning, Ben had wanted to talk to Dawn. He had wanted to talk to her even more after Phillip recounted what had passed between them that morning. But
Dawn had eluded him. Now she stood between her parents and Spencer, a willowy guard dog of an old man.

As Ben watched, Cappy took Ferris by the arm and steered him toward the door. Ben was surprised that there hadn’t been another outburst from the senator, but he suspected Ferris was just biding his time. Cappy glanced back at Dawn, but Dawn, who was busy murmuring something to Spencer, didn’t notice. Dawn linked her arm through the old man’s and pointed outside. They walked to the window together, deep in conversation.

Ben knew better than to push her. They would talk when she was ready. She had already made that plain to him. Whatever happened between them now was on Dawn’s terms. He decided to settle for more reading. Perhaps, by the time they did talk, there would be even more to discuss.

Early in the afternoon, Nicky heard the door open and close. She didn’t turn away from the window. Strong arms enveloped her, and she leaned back, into her husband’s strength. “Where’d you go?”

“Pelichere told me about a bar down the road where I’d be welcome.”

She didn’t ask why he’d had to get a recommendation. She doubted it would ever be any different on the island.

He didn’t say anything else. He just tightened his arms and stood quietly looking out the window.

“I’m sorry I asked you to leave,” Nicky said.

“I had some thinking to do.”

“You’re not even curious what was in the box?” she asked.

“Never said I wasn’t curious.”

“You’re a good man, Jake Reynolds.” She bent for ward
and lifted something from the nape of her neck and slipped it over her head. “Here.”

He kept her against him with one arm and dangled the necklace with his free hand. “This is it?”

The locket was old gold, mellowed by age and con tact with human skin. Diamond-studded roses were en twined on the front, etched skillfully by a long-dead craftsman. “There’s a picture inside.”

The catch was difficult to open; she could feel him struggling. She took it from him and pressed the edges until it spread into two identical golden hearts.

“Who is it?” Jake asked.

“You tell me.”

“Then it doesn’t mean anything to you?”

“I didn’t say that.” She stared at the picture. It was dearly familiar, although she hadn’t seen it in more than thirty years. “This was mine when I was a little girl,” she said.

“What?”

“Mine, Jake. The locket was given to me by a friend of my mother’s when I still lived in New Orleans, and she put her own picture inside.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I.”

“If it was yours, why did Aurore Gerritsen have it when she died?”

“That’s another story.”

He didn’t ask her to tell it. He fell silent, but both arms crept around her again.

Nicky felt tears welling up, although she hadn’t cried since opening the box. She snapped the locket shut and slipped it back around her neck. “I need some answers. Will you find Dawn and send her in here?”

“You think she’s going to tell you anything?”

“I’m going on instinct. What else can I do?”

He hugged her hard enough to force the air from her lungs. He always resorted to strength when he was most vulnerable.

She felt the absence of his arms once he’d gone, but she steeled herself for what was to come. She didn’t have to wait long. There was a knock, and Dawn opened the door. “Nicky?”

“Come on in.”

“Jake said—”

“I want you to look at a picture and tell me if you know who it is.”

“Of course.” Dawn approached slowly. “Are you all right?”

“No. Are you?”

“No.”

“Well, we’ve all got that much in common.” Nicky slid her fingers over the locket. She hesitated and looked back up at Dawn. “Have you ever seen this before?”

“I don’t think so.”

Nicky opened the locket. “And this woman?”

Dawn gazed at the photograph for a moment, then at Nicky. “My grandmother when she was young.”

Nicky snapped the locket shut. She turned away.

“Would you like me to leave?” Dawn asked softly.

“She never told me she was my mother. When I was a little girl, your grandmother held me on her lap and brought me presents. She told me she had known my mother, but she never told me who she really was.”

“Oh, God.” Dawn sat down on the bed beside her.

“I saw her twice, I think, although I’m not sure, be cause it
was so long ago. I know I saw her right before my father and I left for Chicago, and she gave me this locket.”

“How old were you?”

“Twelve, I think. And that was the last time I ever saw her. Because I didn’t come back to New Orleans until a few years ago. My father was killed in Chicago. An old man named Clarence Valentine saw the whole thing. He was like a grandfather to me, and afterwards he was afraid for my life. He was a jazz pianist, and he was on his way to Paris, to play in a club in Montmartre. So he smuggled me out of the city and took me with him.”

“How was your father killed, or don’t you want to talk about it?”

“There was a riot, black against white. He was gunned down. I got a good look at the face of the man who did it. And Clarence was afraid that because I had, the man might come after me, too. So we left the country, and I started a new life.”

“Clarence Valentine. That’s where the Valentine comes from.”

“What did Phillip tell you about my father?”

Dawn was silent, as if she would rather not say what conclusions she’d drawn.

“Did he tell you that after everything, after my father had ruined Aurore’s family and taken me from her arms, and even after she had married Henry Gerritsen, they still couldn’t forget each other?”

“Raphael and my grandmother?”

“Not Raphael. He called himself Rafe by then. That’s how I remember him. Phillip says that years later Aurore discovered why my father had done the things he had. She found the letters that you read last night, and she figured out the truth.
And when she confronted my father, he told her everything. For the first time, she understood it all. And she understood something even more frightening. Despite their years apart, despite everything they had done to hurt each other, he still loved her, and she still loved him.”

Nicky looked up. “Both of them knew how impossible it was. Everything in the world stood between them. But they loved each other anyway. Against all the odds. And that’s why my father took me and left the city. Be cause their love would have doomed them both.”

“I don’t even know what to say,” Dawn said at last.

“Phillip tells me that Aurore believed I died in the riot, along with my father. She was told that I had, and all her investigations seemed to prove that I hadn’t survived. By then I was in Paris, but she didn’t know.”