Page 85 of Broken Bayou
Chief Wilson visited me while Eddie was hospitalized just down the hall. Told me Eddie’s older brothers were unsure what to do withhim, and he didn’t have many answers for them. Wondered if I could help. Eddie was as much a victim of Travis’s as I was. There’s no way he understood what his brother was doing, and besides that, in the end, he helped save my life. I wanted to return the favor. Eddie deserved a second chance. Once I got back to Fort Worth, I did my research and started making calls. It gave me something positive to focus on, someone to advocate for. I spoke with a woman from the OCDD, the Office for Citizens with Developmental Disabilities, about getting Eddie assigned a caseworker. Someone who would monitor his social situation for life. I navigated through the mounds of paperwork and even paid his oldest brother to take Eddie to the dozens of appointments he needed to attend. Whatever worked. And it did work. Eddie got a caseworker and his own room at a group home in Baton Rouge. Then I called VR, vocational rehab, and set up skill testing for him. Not surprisingly, Eddie is good with his hands and was able to get a job mending and laundering linens for a local hospital.
I made one trip down to check his working and living conditions. Both exceeded my expectations. His work campus had beautiful green grounds with picnic tables and gardens. Eddie smiled when I surprised him there one day. The group home was clean and well appointed and run by a kind widow with a CPA degree, who I trusted to help monitor the money Eddie made at work. He had a safe place to live now, full of love and understanding. Something he’d never had. He also had his first chance to work. Like Freud believed, we all need a reason to get up in the morning. Eddie has one now. When I called last week to check in, he said more words than usual. He even laughed. But he also mentioned he missed his dolls. Sharp objects aren’t allowed at the group home. That’s when I decided that, on my next trip, I’d bring him a gift. I glance in the back seat at the Lego box. Something safe he can build a new family with.
Speaking of family. I check the clock, punch in my mother’s cell phone number.
She answers by saying, “Your coffeepot’s too fancy. How the hell do you turn it on?”
I smile. Miraculously enough, our relationship is healing as well as my bones. Not long after returning, I went to Texas Rose, spoke with her doctors. With her. We came up with a plan for her medication. A dose that helps even her out. Mama said she didn’t like it, but I asked her to keep trying anyway. Told her we’d keep going until we got it right. And she, thankfully, agreed.
“Middle button,” I say to my new roommate. “Your physical therapist will be there in ten minutes.”
“I know that.”
I shake my head. It won’t be easy for either of us, but in our own ways, we need each other. We’re the last of the Watters women. We’re all we have left. We must work to embrace forgiveness. To maneuver those deep crevices between us and find the good memories among the carnage. Maybe it’s time to make some new memories.
“Are you packed?” I say.
“I’m packed,” Mama says.
“I’ll pick you up after the show.” I smell the sunscreen again, hear Mabry’s laugh as we bob in the warm water. “It’s time to set her free.”
I hang up, open the car door, and step into the frigid February air. Gray clouds hover overhead. Sleet is expected later. We’ll need to be on the road to Broken Bayou sooner rather than later. I rush across the lot in my sneakers and pull my coat closer. As hard as it’s going to be to return to that town, it’s the place for Mabry. It’s where she was happiest. And besides, that bayou needs an angel watching over it.
Inside the studio, the air is warm, and Amy is waiting for me.
I don’t remember much about that horrible day six months ago, but I remember Amy running into my hospital room out of breath. Ermine sitting beside me. The two of them comforting me as I was questioned by the police. I remember leaving the hospital, my arm in a cast, my heart full of hurt. Amy drove me to Shadow Bluff, and we retrieved mycar. Then we drove all night to Fort Worth. She stayed at my high-rise for a week. Until I stopped screaming in my sleep.
She takes my hand. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
I nod. “I’m ready.”
Amy leads me down the hallway. We walk past the makeup room. No need to dress me up today. I need the world to see me as I am. Hurting, traumatized. Healing.
The lights in the studio are blinding. I sit in a chair I know all too well. A sound tech approaches me as if I’m a ticking bomb. He holds up the mic pack. I take it from him and slip it in the waistband of my jeans, then attach the mic to my sweater. He points to my hip and leans in. Then he twists a button on the mic, and it lights up green.
“Mikes are hot,” he says over his shoulder.
A flutter of nervousness thumps in my chest. I inhale and exhale as slowly as I can. Then I hear her voice.
“Jesus, can’t you people get your shit together? I told you to dim those damn lights. She doesn’t need to feel like she’s on an operating table. Hell, they’re freaking me out, and I love being under lights.”
Rita clicks around the corner in glossy black heels and a red skirt and jacket that hug her thin frame as if they were sewn onto her body. Our eyes meet, and I smile. She touches my arm as the mic tech secures her mic. She was transported to the same hospital as me. She’d been drugged but was otherwise unharmed. Apparently, Travis liked his victims to go into the water alive.
The mic tech finishes, and a makeup artist steps in. She blots Rita’s perfect makeup.
“You’ve got this,” she says to me.
“With your help,” I say back.
We helped each other. In the days and months following that horrific night, Rita and I spoke with Chief Wilson and investigator Tom Bordelon several times. They kept us updated as the details unfolded. What a sick mess of details they were. The neighbors had indeed called the police that night after hearing gunshots.
The police found Raymond’s body along with Doyle’s. Both killed by the same gun. Travis’s gun. The chief believed Raymond suspected Travis. Said Raymond lied to Travis about going to New Orleans so he could poke around and Travis wouldn’t be suspicious. Raymond was following Travis that night he found me on the levee. He wanted to protect me. Like Doyle wanted to protect me.
I swallow, clear my throat, practice the breathing method I’ve preached to others, counting my breaths in a slow methodical rhythm.
Liv Arceneaux was also found that night, inside, strangled and hidden under a pile of old newspapers and magazines. They found cabinets full of medications, narcotics, syringes. Things, in his erratic state of mind, he hadn’t thought to use on his mother or on me. Thank goodness.
They also found a shoebox. The one Eddie showed me. It was tucked under Emily’s old bed. If only Eddie had opened it that day I visited. If only I’d seen the contents. Inside was a pile of Polaroid pictures. Women. The women from the barrels. The missing teacher. There was even one of Emily Arceneaux, who they now considered his first victim.
