Whispers of the Bayou (11 page)

“That was the lucky one,” Charles said, nodding, then he pointed to the other side of the driveway. “That’s the one that didn’t make it.”

I looked to where he pointed on our left. All that remained now was a giant stump, the last remaining trace of what had been the other oak, the twin.

“That’s so sad. Kind of throws the whole place out of balance.”

“Not to mention, the name ‘Twin Oaks’ no longer applies.”

“We can plant another,” I said, surprised by my feeling of possession, of protectiveness. Somehow, I wanted to make things right.

“Sure,” Charles replied. “It’ll only take ’bout a hundred years ’fore it’s as big as the one that was lost. Imagine that, a hundred years of history snapped clean by one single mighty act of God. I guess worse things could’ve happened. At least the main house is still standing, and no one here got hurt.”

Charles pressed the button to lower the opaque glass separating us from our driver.

“Emmett, pull on around to the garage. We’ll go in the back way.”

My eyes were wide as we continued along the driveway, going straight rather than curving left to pull in front of the house. From a distance, the house had been huge and imposing and beautiful, but the closer we got the more I could tell that it was in a terrible state of disrepair. Paint was peeling from under the eaves, the banister along the front porches were missing half of their ornate spindles, and the surrounding shrubbery was nearly overtaken with vines and weeds. Within the curve of the front
driveway sat a crumbling, cement circle, which I had to assume was a dormant fountain.

“I’m afraid Willy hasn’t been keeping up with things very well since he got sick. He was diagnosed with a lung disorder just a few months before Katrina, and by the time the storm had passed he was having a lot of complications and in no condition to make the kinds of fixes that were needed. At least you had good insurance, so my office took care of the most important things, like the section of the roof that got ripped off and the windows that were blown out. But the dock’s never been repaired, and a couple of the outbuildings were either completely destroyed or damaged so badly that they could no longer be used. That’s when Willy and Deena moved into the house proper, after the caretaker’s cottage was torn up so bad in the storm.”

I just shook my head, dismayed that the damage had been left to sit like this for so long.

“Why were they living in a little side cottage when this big house was completely at their disposal?” I asked, thinking of the terms of the life estate. My understanding was that once my grandparents were both dead, Willy had been given free reign of the entire property for the rest of his life.

“Willy’s tightwad wife,” Charles said with a wink. “Shoot, Deena rubs those nickels so hard, the Indian rides the buffalo.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s just an expression. She’s cheap,
cher,
so tight with the pennies that when they finally moved into the house she only let them live in a little part of it in the back. Except for Willy’s room, she keeps the air conditioner at ’bout ninety. Otherwise, she’s got the house completely sealed off. Like I said, she’ll be happy when she’s done with this place and can get out of here.”

I could only shake my head in wonder. How could she want to leave such a magnificent place? How could anyone?

My heart full of an emotion I could not name, I looked down at my daughter, touching my hand to her hair. She was sleeping soundly, her chest gently rising and falling with each even breath. I may not be the
best mother in the world, not even close, but I knew that I loved her, that I would do anything to keep her safe, to make her happy. AJ had been acting out of love for me when she swept me away from here and kept me away, of that I had no doubt. But seeing the beautiful house and grounds and understanding now what we had left behind was simply heartbreaking to me. This would have been a perfect place for a little girl to grow up.

Had AJ really taken me away from here out of love?

We pulled around the side and came to a stop between the house and a long row of garages. Craning my neck to take it all in, I could see that the house was even bigger than it had looked from the front. Dotted around the back of the property were other, smaller buildings, though most were in various states of disrepair.

“The bayou’s that way,” Charles said, noting the direction of my gaze, “though it’s so overgrown right now you can barely see the water from here. You can take a look at it later.”

I nodded, my heart in my throat. Did I remember this place? Was the sight of this looming house burned somewhere deep in my memory, not gone but merely tucked away in some hidden fold of my brain?

I didn’t know. I didn’t feel as though I was home. I just felt…I wasn’t sure what I felt.

“Miranda, if you want to let your daughter keep sleeping, Emmett can stay here with her while we go inside.”

I didn’t want to insult either Emmett or Charles, but I wasn’t about to leave my baby with someone I didn’t know and hadn’t even met until today. After all that had happened in the last few days, I felt safer keeping her as close to me as possible.

“That’s okay. She needs to wake up anyway,” I said, reaching down to give Tess a gentle shake. “Otherwise she’ll never be able to get to sleep tonight.”

Tess wasn’t happy about being awakened, but at least she stopped whining as soon as we got out of the car and I picked her up. She was petite for a five-year-old, and though I couldn’t carry her around all the time, I didn’t mind doing so for now.

Tess rested her head on my shoulder as we followed Charles to the
house. He raised a hand to knock, but before his fist struck the wood, the door swung open and we were face-to-face with a woman in her late sixties or early seventies, with short choppy hair, deep frown lines, and dark circles under her eyes.

“Deena,” Charles said. “How is he?”

“Still dying. This her?”

Ignoring her rudeness, Charles graciously swept his hand toward me.

“Deena Pedreaux, this is Miranda Miller. And this is her daughter, Tess.”

The woman looked me up and down, sizing me up, taking in my crisp slacks, my tailored blazer and top, my pulled-back hair. Apparently unimpressed, she focused her pair of brown beady eyes on my face.

“ ’Bout time you got here,” she snapped, and then she turned on her heel and walked away, leaving the door open behind her.

Charles gave me an apologetic look and gestured for me to follow.

Coming through the back door into a dark and stuffy kitchen was a rather unceremonious way to enter the house of my youth and get a look at my inheritance. As we walked, I decided not to pay much attention to our surroundings but to keep a sort of tunnel vision instead. I decided I would focus on the task at hand for now. There would be time and opportunity later for looking around and forming a true first impression.

We walked from the kitchen down a long narrow hallway that ended in a cramped living room. It was even stuffier in there, with no windows and protective covers on the upholstered furniture. I felt a surge of pity for the dying Willy, and I was glad Charles had told me that his bedroom had its own air conditioner.

“I’ll wake him up and tell him you’re here,” Deena said, motioning for us to wait. She walked to the end of the hallway and softly knocked on a door. Opening it, she slipped through and closed it behind her.

“I don’t like that lady, Mommy,” Tess said in a loud whisper. “She’s mean.”

“She’s just tired, honey. You know how people get cranky when they’re tired.”

Tess didn’t reply, but for the second time today she slipped a thumb
into her mouth, an old habit that Rosita had assured me had been broken. I started to pull Tess’s hand away from her mouth, but then I thought better of it and pretended not to notice. With everything else going on, the last thing I needed right now was for her to throw a tantrum.

The door opened again, but this time another woman appeared and waved for us to come up the hallway. She looked to be just a little older than I was, quite petite and exotically pretty with almond shaped eyes and light coffee-colored skin. Her black hair was woven into an intricate set of braids which were pulled back from her face by a wide headband. She wore a nurse’s uniform, and though she also didn’t smile or give us a warm greeting, she didn’t seem mean or angry, just solemn.

“You’re Miranda?” she asked as we reached her, her black eyes locking in on mine. I nodded. “You came in time. I’m so glad, for his sake. Maybe now he can speak his mind. Then he’ll be able to die in peace.”

And in the flickering light beheld the face of the old man,
Haggard and hollow and wan, and without either thought or emotion,
E’en as the face of a clock from which the hands have been taken.

“Is somebody gonna die, Mommy?” Tess asked, popping her thumb out of her mouth and lifting her head from my shoulder. “Who?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer, but Charles saved me by interrupting.

“That’s just an expression,
cher,
” he assured her. “Miranda, do you mind if I come in with you? I’d like to speak to Willy myself.”

“Please,” I replied, suddenly feeling claustrophobic. I had come a long way to be here, but at that moment I wanted to be anywhere
but
here.

The young nurse stepped back and held the door open, and we had no choice but to move inside. At least it was blessedly cool in there, a large air-conditioning unit humming from a window nearby. It was also bright, with no drapes to block the afternoon sunlight pouring in through numerous windows as well as a pair of French doors at the far end. Looking through those doors, I could see a small brick patio with a grill just outside. A stone walkway meandered away from that patio alongside a tall hedge.

The room was large and beautiful, with a stone fireplace to our left flanked by a grouping of furniture. Judging from the books and plants that lined the walls, I decided that before it had been converted into a
bedroom for the dying man, it must have been a solarium or a library. At the far end, blocking a window, was a single hospital bed, surrounded by adaptive devices and other medical equipment. At an angle to the bed were two chairs with a low table between them, the surface cluttered with magazines, needlework, and a few paperback books, obviously diversions for the passing of time as the man’s wife and his nurse attended to him in his final hours.

“Come on in. He don’t bite,” Deena snapped at me.

I stepped forward at her command, and it wasn’t until then that I allowed myself to focus in on the patient himself, a slight figure covered almost entirely by a white sheet, his face and hands nearly as pale as the linens.

Tess wiggled to get down, but I resisted, keeping her captive in my arms lest she bump into a piece of medical equipment or step into hazardous body waste or something.

“Willy, how are you?” Charles asked, approaching the bedside. Slowly, Tess and I followed suit.

“De' pouille,”
quaked a weak voice from the bed.

“Aw, o-ye-yi,”
Charles replied sympathetically in what I had to assume was Cajun, the two of them sounding as though they were from another planet.

“Thanks so much for…bringin’…Miz Fairmont here,” Willy said to Charles, switching to English, his deeply accented words punctuated by ragged breaths. “I can’t tell you…how much…I ’preciate it, me.”

The poor thing, he seemed very much near the end of his life, weak and small and still. Despite the trouble he had breathing, he was quite calm, and as he looked at me I could see that there was a sparkle of life yet in his eyes. He attempted to give me a smile, but it came out as more of a wince.

“Little Miranda Fairmont,” he rasped. “Long time no see.”

I don’t know what I had expected, but this wasn’t it. This man didn’t seem hysterical or agitated at all. Instead, the wife standing next to him was the agitated one, wringing her hands and looking at me with a mixture of suspicion and irritation.

“Her name ain’t Fairmont no more, you idiot,” Deena barked to her husband. “Accordin’ to Mr. Benochet, she’s married now.”