Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans (16 page)

The old man would have loved to play consoling confidant with mother-wit advice; often he had surprised Julian with his country brand of wisdom plumbed from some deep store of life lessons. But Julian, hard-headed, reticent, embarrassed, had put up a wall that even a father’s love could not pierce. One night after Simon grew weary of his son’s silent moping, he put away the supper dishes and turned to Julian with a frustrated sigh. “Why you ain’t out finding you another somebody is beyond me.” The words stuck in Julian’s throat: he didn’t want “another somebody.”

Simon shook his head and went back to rolling dough for his crawfish pies, while Julian took out his trumpet and poured his blues into it.

Outside, the leaves of the sprawling oaks and the eaves and gutters of the cabin continued to echo the random dripping rhythms of the just-ended rain. Julian went back to the divan and arranged himself between the lumps in the cushion and pulled the sheet back over himself and thought about the heaped-on hurts in his father’s life; Ladeena, the flooded, drowned city he loved, and now, Silver Creek. The Treme house had been in his family for generations, but the Silver Creek land, his great-grandfather Moses’ legacy, was Simon’s life. Julian’s stomach knotted once more at the thought of having to tell his father, if ever he saw him again, that it was gone.

Find me, or find what’s left of me. Put me down beside your mama.

Dread stole into his mind as it had so often over the last couple of days; and as he had done each time before, he pushed it back.
Daddy is not gone. Daddy is alive somewhere,
he told himself, as if the words alone had the power of miracles
.
It wasn’t easy; he felt like a small boy floating a flimsy kite on a dying wind. But he had to keep that thought aloft.

Julian closed his eyes and eased himself back inside the refuge of Velmyra’s rhythmic snore, pulling it around him like a favorite childhood blanket, its familiar sputters and groans offering the only comfort there was now. Later, when the morning sun arced over the cabin between the branches of the oaks and spread long rods of light across the cypress floors, Julian woke again to the pungent aromas of frying bacon and French-roasted cinnamon coffee.

V
elmyra handed him a cup of coffee as he stood in the doorway of the kitchen. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.”

“I didn’t want to wake you up. Figured you had a hard enough time sleeping on that little couch.”

He took a sip from the smooth, strong brew that tasted like heaven, not bothering to ask her how she’d remembered the little touch of cinnamon he liked, and where she had found it. Velmyra was nothing if not resourceful. It was exactly the way he had drank it for the last twelve years, with just enough sugar to round the edges.

“Thanks. This is just what I need.”

He rubbed sleep from his eyes. “I must’ve been unconscious. With these thin walls, I can’t believe I didn’t hear you in the kitchen.”

Standing at the stove, she had an eyes-wide freshness that he envied, her nutmeg skin glowing. The tufts of tight curls rising from the red bandana crown she’d arranged made her look like some kind of fashionable, New Age Jemima. She wore a clean white T-shirt emblazoned with the picture of a black woman blues singer and the words “Mardi Gras ’96” in red letters, and crisply pressed red shorts. It was like her to prepare for a situation like this, tucking a change of clothes inside her bag, just in case.

He looked at the gateleg table by the window set with places for two.

“Vel, you didn’t have to do all this. We could have gone out somewhere.”

Velmyra took the spatula she was holding and pressed bacon into the small iron skillet. Her eyebrows lifted above her smile, her laughing eyes, as she pointed the spatula toward him. “You’re kidding, right? From here, we’d have to drive for miles just to arrive at the world’s smallest town. By the time we got to…wherever you had in mind, I would have passed out. Blood sugar, you know.”

Right
. He felt a twinge of embarrassment; she’d remembered how he liked his coffee, but he couldn’t remember how her blood sugar dipped now and then, and she would climb the walls until there was food in front of her.

She was bustling around the kitchen as if it were her own, opening drawers, finding silverware and glasses.

“I went outside early this morning.” She turned over a slice of bacon. “I took my sketchpad and sat under a tree. This place is a paradise for painters. The light! The sun, when it comes up from the trees, it’s amazing.”

This was the first day, she explained, that she’d been able to draw—really draw—anything since the storm. She went on about the light, the lush green of the trees, the grasses and wildflowers, and as if she hadn’t said it before, the magnificent sun.

Velmyra nodded toward the door in the back of the kitchen leading to the yard, where the morning sun blazed into the house.

‘I explored around and went for a little walk. God, the sunrise! The sky is so…I can’t even describe it…primordial, you know? The pines in the back go on forever. And the birds, amazing. And her garden! Everything you could imagine. Beets, turnips, snap peas, and three kinds of greens! There’s even a blackberry bush still going crazy out there, and there must be a zillion tomatoes, some on the vine, and a whole bunch on the ground. So plump and red and ripe! I got us a couple for breakfast.”

Velmyra pulled a pan of grilled tomatoes from the oven’s broiler and set them on the top of the stove.

“We can have this bacon and tomatoes and then I found some good crusty bread that looked homemade way back in the freezer. I sliced some and spread some butter on it and put it under the broiler, and then I improvised some hot syrup with the really ripe blackberries and some honey I found. That should hold us for a while.”

Her energy, he’d forgotten. When it came to morning habits, the two of them had been a study in opposites. She would eject from bed at first light like timed toast, her mind at full throttle, while he played the snooze button like it was his trumpet. Useless, until that first cup of caffeine.

He rubbed his hands together. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Nope. I’ve got it together. This bacon is the best—thick cut. Not that skimpy stuff they sell in town. This is the real deal.”

“Smells great.” He took a seat at the table with his coffee while Velmyra dished bacon and tomatoes on his plate, and poured hot blackberry syrup into a white plastic bowl.

Velmyra sat and poured hot coffee into her cup. “So what’s the name of that little town close by?”

Julian broke a piece of bread from the large hunk on the plate, dunked it into the hot blueberries, and drank again from the white porcelain coffee cup with butterflies on the border. He took a bite from the bacon, and smiled to himself. It was the best bacon he’d had since the last time he was here.

The food theory, again, at work. He remembered how Simon would roll up his sleeves and haul out his pots and stuff Julian with everything from jambalaya to bread pudding when he was feeling down. It always worked, even now. He felt better just looking at the food.

Simon. It was the first time this morning that the thought of him entered his head.

“Local,” he said, his tone laconic as he gazed out the window. “It’s not that far. A few miles away. It’s the only town of any size around.”

“What do you mean, Local?”

“Local. It’s the name of the town.”

“Local what? Local Hero? Local Talent? Or maybe Local Flavor?” She smiled at her lame joke, then ate a bite of the bacon and rolled her eyes in appreciation. “Wow. This is amazing. There’s nothing like country bacon, don’t you think? So, anyway, you think your aunt really…”

She was going on and on. But he could no longer hear her for the swelling pain near his eyes and across his temples. He cut her off and stood up, running a hand along the back of his head. He felt his nerves unravel and for a brief moment wanted to throw something against the wall.

“I’ve got to find my father. I’ve got to find Daddy.”

There was a bite in his voice; unintended, but the words shattered the air like bricks flung against glass. He sat back down and leaned forward, rocking, elbows on his knees, massaging his temples.

“Sorry,” he said.

She put her fork down slowly and sat back in the chair. She nodded, absorbing the sight of his grief, and spoke quietly.

“We’ll find him. We’ll keep looking until we find him.”

“I mean,” he sat up, his voice quieter, “if he’s alive, or if he’s not, whatever.” He got up from his chair again and walked to the window. The sun was arcing upward toward the center of the sky. Across the yard, the leaves of the giant magnolias and live oaks shimmied in the soft southward breezes floating up from the creek.

He put both hands in his pockets and turned to Velmyra. “And I can’t just let them take Daddy’s land. If he’s not already dead, it would kill him.”

Velmyra was quiet for a moment. “Maybe Kevin really can help with the land.”

“Maybe.” He took deep breaths, trying to settle himself. He looked at his watch. “Didn’t he say he was coming by this morning? Like, right about now?”

“Well, he had quite a bit to drink last night.”

“So did we.”

“Yeah, but he
really
did.”

Velmyra ate another bite of bacon and tomato, and pushed her plate aside. “You know, I think it’s cool that he’s so interested in all this. But I wonder if there’s more going on than he’s telling us.”

Julian sipped from his cup and gave her a cursory look. “What makes you say that?”

Lifting her face to the stream of sun coming into the window, she closed her eyes against the warming light. “I don’t know. It just seems a little unusual.”

“Why? Because he’s white?”

She shrugged. “Not so much that. He’s so young. And does he even practice law? He didn’t mention having a job or anything. And his wife—girlfriend, whatever. She’s seven months pregnant and he’s out trying to save the world from land swindlers?”

“Whatever his reasons, doesn’t matter.”

When they’d finished, Julian got up and stacked both plates and took them to the kitchen. In the bathroom just off the living room, he took off his shirt and splashed soap and water on his face and under his arms. He looked in the mirror. Matted hair, overnight stubble, and red eyes circled with bags stared back from the glass. “Wow,” he murmured aloud, amazed that he could look this bad, rubbing the rough fuzz beneath his chin with the back of his hand. He hadn’t thought to bring a comb or a razor. He’d always been particular about how he looked, but he was even more self-conscious now, and knew why. As soon as the thought was out, he banished it. Why should he care about what
s\he
thinks about how he looks?

OK, she was good company, but there wasn’t anything between them anymore, and there wasn’t going to be. So it didn’t matter, did it? She was not in his life now and would never be again. He put his shirt back on and breathed deeply, relieved. Problem solved.

By the time he came out of the bathroom, Kevin was standing on the porch, knocking on the screen door.

“Sorry I’m late. Raynelle was a little sick at her stomach this morning.”

Velmyra opened the door. Kevin stepped in, wearing a red and blue plaid shirt and jeans, his long blond hair wet and stringy, his eyes veiny and red.

“Want some breakfast? There’s a little bacon left, and some bread.”

Kevin flinched and shook his head. “No, ma’am. No food. Man, my head feels about to burst into pieces. Might take a sip of that white lightning if you’ve got any left, though. Hair of the dog, you know.”

Julian remembered from his boyhood days that Genevieve had always been devoutly loyal to Sunday morning church services, so the three of them piled into the Neon for the twenty minute drive into Local to find her church, or at least the name and location of it. With the Neon rambling along the uneven terrain, Julian navigated the narrowest of country roads past acres and acres of wild, wooded Silver Creek land lush with tall, straight pines, cypress, and oaks that stretched their long arms high above the road and laced their fingers together in a shading arbor. Thick, viney brush and tangles of kudzu and wildflowers crowded the gravelly shoulders, and damp air rushed past the open windows. When they edged along the creek, the sun cast metallic flecks of dancing light on the water, silver-tipping its waves. In the middle of the creek, an egret swooped down, perched on a floating log for a moment, and then flew away.

Velmyra pointed through her open window. “That,” she said, “is beautiful.”

Julian did not look. Suddenly, he could no longer stomach the feral beauty of this land. If he’d taken an active interest in it, the way Simon wanted, things might be different. If it was all slipping away now, he had himself to blame.

Kevin looked back at Velmyra. “Beautiful. Yeah, y’all are real fortunate. My daddy left me a little bit when he died. A little bit of money, a little bit of land. But nothing like this, nothing this pretty.”

He nodded, gazing out the open window. “Let’s hope it stays this way.”