Page 57 of Broken Bayou
Night has finally fallen on this day. Cicadas and crickets and bullfrogs create a symphony around the house. The porch creaks under the rocker as I rock slowly back and forth, sipping on tea this time instead of wine and feeling the memories of Broken Bayou wrapping around my neck like a noose. Has it only been hours since Rita Meade showed up on this porch?
I stare at my cell. Travis hasn’t called. The avalanche that’s been coming for me feels like it’s finally landed. Another sip, and I close my eyes. I allow myself to go back in time again, away from the present. To my last birthday here. That day started and ended so differently. Mama’s mood shifting from light to dark like an eclipse. It started with cake and laughter and ended with her asking me to cover up a crime. A crime that, thank God, didn’t happen.
The day after, the Aunts dragged Mabry and me out of bed early. Said we had to go to the bayou to meet the reverend. Like they knew a sin had been committed and needed atoning. We wore handsewn white dresses, mine way too short because Pearl forgot I was seventeen, not seven. Reverend Beaumont Delaroche waited for us in the hot muddy water with his bulbous nose and tattered Bible, promising he’d save our souls as we waded out to him. He held our arms a little too tightly as he muttered some strange words, then shoved us below the surface. I thought on the walk home I’d feel different. I only felt confused. Then I delivered Mabry back to Mama’s room like she requested. The televisionblaring drama and scandal. Mabry climbed into her bed still dripping bayou water and curled into Mama’s side.
Mama turned her almond eyes to me. “I told those crazy aunts of yours baptizing y’all was a bad idea. It’s all a bunch of hogwash. They’re trying to make y’all something you ain’t. No saving you two. Y’all got my blood in your veins.” Mabry whimpered, and Mama pulled her closer and went back to staring at the television, a plume of smoke snaking from her lips. “Get cleaned up, Willamena. Pack y’all’s things. When preachers get involved, it’s time to get the hell out of Dodge.”
I open my eyes, set my cup down, and cover my face. A lump lodges in my throat, and I breathe in hot night air in order to dislodge it. After several breaths, I open my phone and punch Mabry’s number. Her laugh. Her voicemail. I hang up and say out loud to the darkness in front of me, “You did nothing wrong, Mabry. I know the truth now.”
I hang up. Happy birthday to me.
November 2014
Mary Duncan searched the crowd at the Louisiana Renaissance Festival for her husband. He’d told her coming to Hammond would be fun. Big fun, he’d said. So far, she’d ruined her new sneakers in a huge mud puddle, been briefly trapped in a horrendous Port-O-Let, and accosted by a court jester juggling flaming sticks. She’d seen enough feathered hats, jingling scarves, and Irish wolfhounds for one day. This was not her idea of fun. It was time to go home.
A large crowd filed through the sloppy makeshift street toward the back of the expansive property. Mary joined them, opening the pamphlet in her hand. The joust started in ten minutes. Of course. That’s where Harold would be. She fought her way through the bottleneck of people at the crystal tent, then came to a complete stop by the food court. Turkey legs and odd selections of meat were being advertised from every booth. Gross.
Mary searched for a way around the crowd.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” a man beside her said. “There’s a way through just over here.”
She looked where he was pointing and saw a gap between the sides of the tents.
“Thank you,” Mary said, relieved.
“Follow me,” he said.
But when she followed him, she found herself on the outside of the festival.
He stopped and faced her. “Say cheese.”
He took her picture with a Polaroid camera. “What are you doing?”
He leaned in like he was going to tell her a secret, and that’s when she felt something sting the side of her neck. She yelped and rubbed the spot. A wasp sting was exactly what she didn’t need right now. Her head swam; her legs started to shake.
“Here, let me help you.”
Mary leaned into his shoulder. Her vision blurred. And right before she passed out, she managed to say, “Thank you, Officer.”
Chapter Seventeen
I start the coffee and check my phone. 6:00 a.m. My back aches from the small bed upstairs, and I wonder how many more nights I’ll be in it. The investigator asked me to stick around. But he didn’t say for how long. Still no calls or messages from Travis. But there is a voicemail from Bordelon. He needs the tape. I release a slow breath. Even though I know there’s nothing incriminating on it, actually the opposite, I still feel the need to keep it safe from others. But that’s the animal-instinct part of my brain. The part that still believes I’m protecting something. Today I let it go.
Back upstairs, I slide the video into the slot, rewind it, and press play. At the same time, I aim my cell phone at the screen and start recording. I sit through it all again, thankful I know how it ends. When it’s over, I eject the tape and slip it into my tote. Then I return to the kitchen, to my coffee.
I push my tangled hair off my face and wind it into a messy knot and check my other messages. Amy’s called and left a text message. I need to call her, fill her in. But the thought of trying to explain all this to her makes me even more tired than I already am. I open her text and exhale a loud breath.
Christopher’s ex isn’t pushing it any further. Especially after this was posted. Take a look. When are you coming home!
At least something good has happened. I click the link and watch an amateur video of a woman and a screaming child in a grocery store. The Sack and Save. Charlie. The stock boys who’d been videoing. Charles LaSalle had reposted their reel, tagged my podcast’s account, and captioned it:This is the real Dr. Willa. Something shifts inside of me. The knot of anxiety around my career loosens slightly.
I pour another cup of coffee and turn to the sketchbook I snagged on my way downstairs. I woke up thinking about it, about Mabry’s sketches. My subconscious at work while I slept.
I pull the cover open and thumb through the drawings, stopping at the last picture. The one I saw when I first opened this book. The little girl with a finger over her mouth, like she has a secret. The boy with her. Looking at it now, with less anxiety to cloud my view, it hits me. The eyes, narrow, set far apart. The jawline. This little girl is not little at all. She’s frail, sick. And she’s an Arceneaux. I run a finger over the sketch. Emily.
The image is so lifelike that it feels like something Mabry saw. A moment captured. But what moment? From the looks of the drawing, a secret one. Maybe, like me, Emily snuck out to see a boy, more than once. And on this occasion, Mabry was there as well, watching them. A little mouse in the shadows. It seems she was out of my sight more than I remember. I wasn’t as in control of her as I thought.
Ermine mentioned Emily’s illnesses and rumors of Liv Arceneaux feeding poison to Eddie. Just rumors, but that type of thing is not unheard of. MSBP. Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Caregivers who create illness in the one they are caring for. Sometimes they go too far. I look at the sketch again, and goose bumps cover my arms.
