Whispers of the Bayou (16 page)

After one particularly long break, I realized that he was asleep. Seizing the opportunity, I stood and peeked at the pad, to see that for all his efforts he had barely made it halfway through the second paragraph.

I was leaning over him like that when the door swung open and his wife strode in.

“What are you doing to him?” she demanded. “N-nothing,” I replied. “He’s writing me a note, and I was just looking to see if he was finished.”

She came over to grab the pad from his hands before I could stop her. “Do you speak French?” I asked, my heart pounding, wondering if I should grab it back. After all, if Willy wanted his wife to have this information, he wouldn’t have sent her out of the room in the first place.

“Speak it some,” she replied. “Don’t know how to read or write it, though.”

She tossed the pad back onto her husband’s chest, which woke him up.

“What’s going on?” he slurred, a tight grimace coming over his face at the sight of his wife.

“Time to empty your bag,” Deena snapped. “‘Less you want it to spill all over the floor.”

“It can wait,” he told her.

“The kid says it stinks like a bathroom in here. That means it’s full.”

I was mortified, knowing by “the kid” that she meant my daughter. Quickly, I moved out of the way.

“I’ll come back,” I said even as Deena was already fooling with the bag of urine that had collected near the floor.

Neither of them replied, so I strode toward the inner door and let myself through, pausing as the door closed behind me so that my eyes could adjust to the dark hallway.

I worked my way down the winding hall in the reverse direction that we had come in, then the sound of laughter drawing me toward the kitchen. There, I found Lisa, Charles, and Tess sitting around the table, enjoying chips, sandwiches, and lemonade.

“Oh, no,” Lisa cried when she saw me, bursting into fresh laughter, wiping tears from her eyes. “Did she really go back to dump his bag?”

“Yes. Why? What did Tess say to her?”

“She said, ‘That man’s room smells like the bathroom in the train station!’ ”

She and Charles both howled while Tess sat between them looking proud of herself though not quite sure why.

“Tess, that wasn’t nice,” I said, stifling a smile. “You don’t say things like that to people. Where are your manners?”

“Don’t fuss at her,” Charles scolded me in return. “She was just being honest. Just being a kid.”

“I’m sorry to encourage her,” Lisa added, again wiping at her eyes. “But I get a quiet satisfaction whenever anybody gets Deena’s goat.”

Moving to join them, I sat in the fourth chair and joined their conversation. Though I was glad to get to know these people better, I couldn’t
help wishing Deena would hurry up. Here at the end of Willy’s life, we didn’t have a minute to spare!

“Boy, it’s warm in here,” Charles said, sweating even more than the glass of lemonade on the table in front him. He reached around to the suit jacket which hung from the back of his chair and pulled out a folded handkerchief, which he dabbed along his forehead.

“It’s a good thing poor Willy has an air conditioner,” I said.

Lisa and Charles gave each other pointed looks, and then they obviously decided to share what they were thinking with me.

“Last fall,” Lisa said to me, lowering her voice, “Willy was a little more mobile than he is now, but he collapsed on his way to the bathroom. Deena found him unconscious and had to call nine one one to get him to the hospital.”

“No, wait,” Charles interjected, also in a whisper, holding up a finger to pause her tale, “she called her insurance company first, to make sure the ambulance would be covered.
Then
she called nine one one.”

“That’s right. Anyway, it was a really hot day. When the EMTs got here, they were appalled at the temperature of Willy’s bedroom. Turns out, it was a hundred and ten degrees. He’d passed out from heat stroke.”

“Oh, my.”

“At the hospital, the doctor was going to report Deena to protective services, but she bargained with him and promised to put in an air conditioner and bring in hospice care. Ever since, Willy insists on keeping that room at about sixty degrees, just out of spite. It makes her nuts, but there’s not really anything she can do about it without getting in trouble again.”

Lisa and Charles both chuckled conspiratorially, but I merely smiled to be polite. I didn’t think the story was funny at all, just sad. Maybe because of the problems in my own marriage, I was feeling particularly sensitive to the cruel games unhappy husbands and wives could play with each other.

Deena finally emerged from the back of the house just as Tess was asking to go back outside. I washed her plate at the sink, thanked them for the food, and then Charles led Tess out the back door to play while Lisa and I returned to Willy’s bedside.

As we came back into the room and pulled the door shut, I felt an urgency to the situation again, a desperate need to focus on the task at hand and get some answers. Willy was writing when we got there, so Lisa and I took our seats and waited quietly. He stopped every minute or two to close his eyes and rest, but finally he stopped and held out both pen and paper toward Lisa.

“I give up,” he said wearily. “It’s too hard…too slow…we gotta go back to speaking instead of writing.”

Lisa and I huddled together looking at the papers while she went through and translated it for me line by line. On the bed, Willy closed his eyes, but he was listening intently just the same. Essentially, this part of the oath dealt with our responsibility in choosing the next
gardien
when the time would come that we could no longer serve. Apparently, a
gardien
had to be someone of good character, discrete and trustworthy, who had descended from Colline d’Or. Once chosen, they had to recite this oath “and remember it always.”

I took a deep breath and let it out. So not only was I going to have to say this thing in French, I was going to have to memorize it too? I just hoped Willy wouldn’t insist on waiting for it to be memorized before he moved on to the next step, which was to tell us exactly what the angelus was and where it was hidden.

“You sure that’s not the whole thing, Uncle Willy?” Lisa asked, looking up. “It sounds complete to me.”

“No,
Boo
,” he replied, shaking his head. “There’s more, but we can start with this. You gots to make your oath.”

He told us to raise our right hands, but as I did I realized that I wasn’t taking this oath thing seriously at all. I was only paying it lip service for his sake, not to mention for the sake of learning more about the symbol on my head. Maybe I’d feel differently once I learned what this was all about, but in my heart I really wasn’t going to swear an oath until I knew exactly what it was that we were protecting. As if he could read my mind, Willy hesitated and told us to lower our hands.

“Lisa,
Boo
…you gots to run get something first…from the parlor.”

“What?”

“Bring the picture that hangs…over the piano.”

“Right now?”

“Yes, but go quick, and be quiet. You don’ want Deena to start yellin’.”

“Can I come too?” I asked her, jumping up. I would have like’d to stay there with Willy and talk, but suddenly I couldn’t resist the opportunity to glimpse the rest of this house.

“Yeah, sure,” Lisa replied, opening the door to the hallway to peek out. “Uncle Willy, you hang tight. We’ll be right back.”

The coast was clear, so she waved me along and together we tiptoed halfway up the hall. She stopped and turned to the right, silently opening a door I hadn’t even realized was there. Together we slipped through and shut it behind us, and then I followed her as she moved through the shadows of the front half of the house, weaving from room to room in and among dark lumps of furniture. My heart was pounding in my throat, and I was feeling like a thief in my own home. Finally, Lisa reached her destination and reached for a framed photo hanging on the wall above a sheet-covered piece of furniture, next to a window that had been boarded shut from the inside. Carefully, in the light that peeked from a gap along the bottom of the wood, she pulled the frame from the wall and tucked it under her arm.

“Why would Deena get mad if she knew we were up here?” I whispered as we began to make our way back.

“Nobody’s allowed to come up here,” Lisa replied. “She says it’s so she doesn’t ever have to clean, plus she’s afraid someone might leave a light on by mistake.”

“Makes sense.”

Lisa grunted as she bumped into a large chair. She sidestepped it and kept going.

“But I think the truth is she’s scared of it. I think she thinks it’s haunted.”

At that, she held a finger to her lips, and we went the rest of the way in silence. When we reached the hall it was again empty, and we were able to slip through and back to Willy’s room, our mission accomplished without being spotted.

He was asleep when we got there, but this time Lisa didn’t wait for him to wake up on his own. Instead, she put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a gentle shake.

“What?” he said, pulling out of sleep.

“We have it,” she announced. “What’s next?”

Willy ran a bony hand over his face, obviously trying to gather his faculties.

“Give it to Miranda.”

Lisa handed me the framed photo, and as I took it from her, I was surprised to see that it was an old black-and-white image of a couple standing between two saplings, each young tree not much taller than they were. The picture was very old, the faces blurred but everything else clear, their clothing in the style of the turn of the century.

“That’s your great-great-grandparents on the Fairmont side…standing between the Twin Oaks.”

I was stunned, the frame suddenly heavy in my hands, as if I was holding the weight of generations. In the background, I could see only a wide, grassy expanse where this house would soon be built.

“It would be three generations before a Saultier…would come to live here,” he continued. “But the good Lord He know…what He was doin’. He was preparing the way…the opportunity…the location…”

Willy’s voice trailed off and I looked at him, even more confused.

“This oath…she’s serious business, Miranda. She is the weight…of all that come before…of all that will come after. You mus’ understand that…if nothing else.”

I still didn’t understand, not at all, but at least somehow I now grasped the gravity of this moment. Without a word, I set down the picture on the table, returned to Willy’s bedside, and raised my right hand. After a moment, Lisa moved closer beside me and raised hers as well. Together, we promised to protect the angelus—whatever that was—with our lives, care for it against harm, and hide it from evildoers until we could take one of two steps. In periods of safety, when we could no longer serve, we would choose another guardian for the angelus, a man of good character, discrete, and worthy of confidence, descending from the village of
Colline d’Or. We would pass along the responsibility to him, and in turn, he would have to memorize the oath and swear it as well.

“Perfect,” Willy said when we were done.

He opened his eyes and smiled.

“We almost there,” he said softly. “Now you jus’ have to repeat after me…for the second half.”

I didn’t press for a translation this time. I just heard the words and said them back to him, assuming that the second half of the oath ran along the same lines the first.

“
En temps de grand…danger,
” he said.

“
En temps de grand danger,
” we repeated.

“…je serai dans…l’obligation…”

“…
je serai dans l’obligation…”

He coughed once then continued.

“
…de reveler…le lieu…”

“
…de reveler le lieu…”

“
…où…se…trouve…”
he paused, coughing.

“
…où se trouve…”

His coughing didn’t stop, so finally Lisa broke her position so that she could move behind him and whack him on the back. She was able to get him through it, but the cough started up again as soon as he tried to speak.

“
…où se trouve l’angelus…et…le presenter…à
…”

He couldn’t get any more of it out without bursting into a furious coughing spasm. As he had done earlier, he had so much trouble catching his breath that finally Lisa had to reach again for the oxygen mask. I watched as she did so, feeling more confident this time as to the rhythms of his care. Next, his skin would turn from blue back to pink, then he would relax, then his breathing would return to a more normal rhythm, and then he would take a little rest.

At least that’s what was supposed to happen.

When she put the mask on his face, however, his skin didn’t turn pink at all. Instead, it grew more blue, then a very odd shade of purple. Lisa kept looking at the tank, twisting the dials, checking his vitals. Then all
of a sudden she ripped the mask from his face and lunged at his chest, slamming her hands against his diaphragm and pressing with all of her might.

“We need help!” she commanded. “Call an ambulance!”

Stunned, I just stood there, frozen.

Lisa put her hands to Willy’s mouth, pressed hers to it and exhaled loudly.

“Miranda! Now!”

At that, I jumped into action, running toward the door.

“Use my cell phone!” Lisa cried, and I looked back to see her gesturing toward the table with her head, counting loudly as she again pressed into Willy’s chest.

I threw open the door and yelled for Deena. Then I ran back to Lisa’s phone, picked it up, and with trembling hands tried to turn it on. Though it took mere seconds to come to life and prepare itself for dialing, by the time I was able to press in nine one one, it felt as though hours had passed.

“Willy’s in trouble!” I told Deena as she came rushing into the room. “I’m calling for an ambulance!”

Rather than heading for her husband, however, Deena ran toward me and ripped the phone from my hand, pressing the button to end my call before the connection even went through.

“No you’re not!” she cried. “He’s DNR! He’s under hospice care!”