The Tangled Bridge (7 page)

 

eight

VACHERIE, 1927

PATRICE AND GIL RODE
their horses along the wet main road to Vacherie. In the same way they used kerosene lamps instead of electric lighting at Terrefleurs, the primary mode of transportation was still horses even though they had Papa's automobile. It required gasoline and upkeep. If Papa were still alive, though, they'd be using electric lights and the car. Despite his madness he'd managed to keep things running.

“You think we'll be late?” Gil asked.

“We might be,” Patrice said.

She watched as his gelding trotted along with its smooth gait. Sugar Pie, the mare Patrice had chosen to ride, had a more jaunty way; it made Patrice's legs a bit stiff. At least the drizzle had stopped before they'd set out.

She said, “We'll need to get serious about leaving Terrefleurs.”

“I know,” Gil said.

“If we're very careful, I think we can be ready in three months' time.”

“Three months? How do you figure?”

“We just need to come up with a plan.”

He seemed to think this over but said nothing. The horse hooves beat against the gravel in a rhythmic accompaniment to first light.

Patrice said, “The primary thing is money. We'll need to save up as much as we can. A hundred dollars, I think.”

He turned and looked at her, his blue eyes slanting. “We could take up horse wrangling.”

“Be serious!”

“I'm trying, honey, I just don't know where we'll find a hundred dollars. Mother still handles all the money even though she's off in New Orleans.”

“We could sell eggs.…”

She did a quick calculation. Even if they could sell a dozen eggs a day at 25 cents a dozen, that only added up to a dollar every four days. Which was about $7.50 a month. At that rate, it would take them over a year to save to a hundred dollars. And that was assuming the hens could actually produce a dozen eggs a day every single day, in excess of what went to the workers.

She shook her head. “Maybe six months. We'll just have to come up with a way. A hundred dollars in three months' time, that's $33.33 each month for two months, and $33.34 for the third month.”

“Might as well be a thousand.”

“Or … we can pull it off in six months if we only save $16.66 a month.”

“You really think we can hold mother off for another six months?”

“I … don't know. Maybe. Yes, we can probably hold her off that long.”

“Well, alright. But even so, even if we can save up all that money, what'll we do once we've got it?”

“We just have to make a plan.”

“What kind of plan?”

“You know, what to take with us. Where to go. What to do for shelter. Horses or car.”

“Car!”

“We'd have to get it running first and I'd be the only one who could drive.”

“You can't drive, you're a girl.”

“Hush up. At least I can see over the steering wheel.”

And Patrice thought, six months seemed like an eternity now. But six months ago Papa was still alive, and Mother presided over Terrefleurs. Over the children. Terrefleurs was now coasting along like a raft with no one to guide it. A lot could happen. They had to make that money in six months or they would be mother's slaves forever.

She secretly believed they'd find a way to do it in three.

*   *   *

PATRICE AND GIL SAT
in the back pew. They'd arrived late to church and had had to slip in after the service had already started. Reverend Turner looked smaller from this distance. Tatie Bernadette was sitting way up at the front. This was new. The children and Tatie usually sat together somewhere in the middle. Tatie was easy to pick out even from behind where not an inch of skin showed, because every Sunday she wore the same violet dress and the matching violet hat with the silk rose pinned at the base, and if there was a chill she used a shawl. No shawl today.

Patrice stared at that distant violet glow and thought of Rosie. From experience, Patrice knew that Marie-Rose would be fine. Trig would find her as promised. Just another wander. Rosie wasn't the only LeBlanc child to physically walk off when the briar closed around her, but she was the most frequent one to do it. Their mother had started in on Rosie when she was still so young.

Thank God their mother was gone for now. This thought did not take the Lord's name in vain. Truly: thank God.

At the other side of the church, on the pulpit, Reverend Turner was talking about King Solomon in the days before he came to glory. The wicked days.

Patrice stifled a yawn and stole a glance at Gil. He was looking toward the reverend, but in truth his gaze was leveled at the dust motes that glimmered like wood fairies in the morning light. Most buildings had the windows angled so they never took a direct ray of sun. A dead stare of sunlight could heat a room to the steam boil in under ten minutes. This was probably why most parishioners took the first Sunday service, when those rays still seemed more a miracle of God than a torment of Hell. Patrice hated to think what the ten o'clock service might feel like.

Something was out of place. She looked beyond the reverend, then realized the altar had been removed from the great basin. So there'd be a baptism. Reverend Turner wasn't one to take the flock down to the river the way some did. Patrice tried to scan the pews for the newborn who was to be baptized but found only her fellow parishioners' backs.

From the pulpit, the reverend spoke of how King Sol had taken to idolatry, turning against God, and in doing so had split his kingdom in two: Christians and idolaters.

And then he bade the flock rise and turn in their hymnals to page 662. The piano sounded off with the opening chords of “Holy, Holy, Holy!”, and Gil had the hymnal open to share between himself and Patrice just in time for queue.

Holy, holy, ho-ly!

Lord God almighty!

Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee

Patrice didn't need to read from the hymnal. She often sang this one to herself at home. Song was not a thing their mother had allowed them to engage in, either. Songs came from the radio and from the cadence the workers sang in the fields. Her mother had kept Terrefleurs openly practicing in river magic, while Christians like Tatie Bernadette had privately maintained their faith. Privately until now, when all was open, and river magic had become the faith that was frowned upon at Terrefleurs.

What would mother do if she heard Patrice singing a Christian song right now?

Patrice smiled.

Cherubim and Seraphim

Falling down before Thee

She tilted back her head and lifted her voice straight to God, somewhere up in heaven, where maybe poor lost Papa had finally found comfort.

Gil's voice rose alongside Patrice's. He set down the hymnal and took her white gloved hand as they sang together. She smiled at him, but then:

A dried spot of blood on the back of his collar. She angled her head to take a closer look. A scratch just below the base of his skull. She stopped singing.

He caught her examining him. Frowning, she turned to show him the same scratch at the back of her own neck. The one she'd woken up with. The one that was supposed to be a bug bite.

He stopped singing, too.

Patrice drew her gaze toward the front of the church where Tatie Bernadette stood short and round in that violet Sunday dress. But next to her, next to her …

Holy, holy, ho-ly! tho' the darkness hide Thee,

Tho' the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see

A spindly woman standing with Tatie. Not Tatie's sister. The hair was pulled snug up under a cloche hat. A dress that dipped low beneath the nape. And along that dark skin, a light trace, visible even from the back of the church. A scar. A snaking zipper of a scar—Patrice knew even though it was not fully visible—that traveled down below that collar line.

Mother.

*   *   *

PATRICE FELT A HAND
on her arm. Gilbert was trying to pull her down to the pew. She realized that she and Reverend Turner were now the only ones left standing. The song had ended and the reverend was segueing into the baptism.

Patrice balled her fist and funneled her gaze on the back of her mother's head.
You stand and leave—

But she clamped the thought in midstream.

Not here. Not here.

Not in God's house.

She couldn't bring herself to use devil's magic here.

She was still on her feet.

“It's blasphemy,” she murmured, feeling helpless.

Gil rose and took hold of her elbow, whispering, “Let's sit now, honey.”

She turned to look at him full in the face. He must not have realized it yet, that their mother was sitting up there with Tatie Bernadette.

There were ways in which Patrice could talk to him so that no one else could hear. Ways in which she could cast her mother out of God's house. To invoke such things as that, though, no matter how pious the intent, it was all still—

Gil had an arm around her waist but he was no longer trying to pull her down to the pew. Because he finally saw his mother, too. There, up at the pulpit, Reverend Turner was taking Maman by the hand. The reverend was speaking of baptism. Sin washed away.

Patrice shouted, her voice breaking across the pews:

“NO, SIR, DO NOT WASH THAT WOMAN!”

The entire congregation turned to look at Patrice. Paddle fans paused. Even Reverend Turner paused.

Patrice called out, “Reverend Turner, that woman is not clean. She must not touch that water.”

Mother lifted her gaze from the front row, then turned with her hand still in the reverend's and ascended the steps to the pulpit where the basin waited. The reverend looked bewildered but he followed her.

“Stop!” Patrice shouted.

“No, child. No, honey!” Tatie Bernadette called to Patrice from the front pew.

“She must not touch that water!”

“Quiet your mouth!” Tatie Bernadette was now pushing her way out of the pew.

The parishioners looked back and forth from Tatie Bernadette to Patrice as they argued across the church. No one but the reverend ever spoke during service.

“She is unclean!”

“She has repented!”

Reverend Turner was standing frozen on the pulpit. Mother was by the broad white basin, taking off her shoes. She'd grown smaller over these months.

Gil was pulling at Patrice again, but this time he was pulling her toward the aisle.

She moved with him, calling, “My mother, Chloe LeBlanc, is not repentant. This is blasphemy! THIS IS BLASPHEMY!”

“Quiet yourself!” Tatie Bernadette used fists and elbows to charge down the aisle.

The reverend had recovered himself and now was opening his arms in Patrice's direction. “The Lord welcomes all…”

Patrice shouted, “He welcomes those who accept Him as their Lord and savior! That woman has done no such thing. If she said she has, she is lying!”

“I accept Jesus Christ,” Mother said.

“No!”

“You hush now!” Tatie Bernadette grabbed Patrice's arms and whispered through jowls. “Your mother has found Jesus at last! Now that is the truth!”

“I will not tolerate this blasphemy!”

And, pop! Tatie Bernadette slapped her.

Patrice stepped back, addled, and then her fury regrouped and condensed itself into ball lightning.

She thrust her finger toward the reverend, her voice shrill. “You let her touch that water you will sully the Lord's house!”

Gil had his stick-thin arms around Patrice's waist and was urging her backward.

She fought him, searing her gaze across the gaping, gawking faces of the congregation. “If any of you, if any one person here lays hands of prayer on that woman, you are inviting devils! Into your hearts! Into your homes!”

Gil dragged her backward through the doors. Outside to white light. Clouds rolling overhead and sunlight drenching them from beneath with silver.

Gil let Patrice go, then. He shut the doors and turned to look at her, hands on hips. Nearby on the cracked shell drive, the horses nickered.

And then the church doors swung open again and Tatie Bernadette stormed out, letting them bang shut behind her. “What do you mean making a scene like that, girl? And in church!”

“It should be a spectacle! You can't permit her to work over the church like that, it's blasphemy!”

“You quiet your mouth. How dare you talk about blasphemy? You yourself took a baptism just a few months ago!”

Patrice stepped toward her
tatie.
“What does she want from you?”

“Want? She only wants salvation, girl, just like you did.”

“Why?”

Tatie softened just a touch. “Now that's a fine question, ‘why?'”

“Why now? Why after all these years? You know why
we
couldn't be baptized. Because
she
wouldn't let us. So what's changed for her?”

“Maybe it's a miracle.”

“Come now, Tatie, she must be asking something of you. Please tell me what that is.”

Tatie did not reply for a very long moment, her eyes solemn, and then: “She wants Jesus, petite Patrice. That's all. She just wants to be saved.”

Patrice shook her head, her cheek still burning from where Tatie had slapped her, and before she could stop herself, she pried. God forgive her. She pried right into Tatie Bernadette's heart. Because she knew her dear
tatie
was lying.

She saw it. The intention was there: Tatie Bernadette wished to bring Mother to God. But there was something else, too. She intended to act on Mother's behalf in some way.

“What are you doing, there, girl?” Tatie Bernadette whispered.

Patrice swallowed.

Tatie said, “You talk of blasphemy, but you workin those river devil ways. Ain't ya? Right here in front of God's house.”