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Would it be my destiny as well: to help others but be unable to help myself?
The bayou was a world filled with many mysterious things. Every journey into it, revealed something surprising. A secret until that moment not discovered. But the secrets held in our own hearts were the secrets I longed to know the most.
Just before we reached home, Grandmere Catherine said, "There's someone at the house." With a definite note of disapproval, she added, "It's that Tate boy again."
Paul was sitting on the galerie steps playing his harmonica, his motor scooter set against the cypress stump. The moment he set eyes on our lantern, he stopped playing and stood up to greet us.
Paul was the seventeen-year-old son of Octavious Tate, one of the richest men in Houma. The Tates owned a shrimp cannery and lived in a big house. They had a pleasure boat and expensive cars. Paul had two younger sisters, Jeanne, who was in my class at school, and Toby, who was two years younger. Paul and I had known each other all our lives, but just recently had begun to spend more time together. I knew his parents weren't happy about it. Paul's father had more than one run-in with Grandpere Jack and disliked the Landrys.
"Everything all right, Ruby?" Paul asked quickly as we drew closer. He wore a light blue cotton polo shirt, khaki pants, and leather boots laced tightly beneath them. Tonight he looked taller and wider to me, and older, too.
"Grandmere and I went to see the Rodrigues family. Mrs. Rodrigues's baby was born dead," I told him.
"Oh, that's horrible," Paul said softly. Of all the boys I knew at school, Paul seemed the most sincere and the most mature, although, one of the shyest. He was certainly one of the handsomest with his cerulean blue eyes and thick, chatin hair, which was what the Cajuns called brown mixed with blond. "Good evening, Mrs. Landry," he said to Grandmere Catherine.
She flashed her gaze on him with that look of suspicion she had ever since the first time Paul had walked me home from school. Now that he was coming around more often, she was scrutinizing him even more closely, which was something I found embarrassing. Paul seemed a little amused, but a little afraid of her as well. Most folks believed in Grandmere's prophetic and mystical powers.
"Evening," she said slowly. "Might be a downpour yet tonight," she predicted. "You shouldn't be motoring about with that flimsy thing."
"Yes, ma'am," Paul said.
Grandmere Catherine shifted her eyes to me. "We got to finish the weavin' we started," she reminded me.
"Yes, Grandmere. I'll be right along."
She looked at Paul again and then went inside.
"Is your grandmother very upset about losing the Rodrigues baby?" he asked.
"She wasn't called to help deliver it," I replied, and I told him why she had been summoned and what we had done. He listened with interest and then shook his head.
"My father doesn't believe in any of that. He says superstitions and folklore are what keeps the Cajuns backward and makes other folks think we're ignorant. But I don't agree," he added quickly.
"Grandmere Catherine is far from ignorant," I added, not hiding my indignation. "It's ignorant not to take precautions against evil spirits and bad luck."
Paul nodded. "Did you . . . see anything?" he asked.
"I felt it fly by my face," I said, placing my hand on my cheek. "It touched me here. And then I thought I saw it leave."
Paul released a low whistle.
"You must have been very brave," he said.
"Only because I was with Grandmere Catherine," I confessed.
"I wish I had gotten here earlier and been with you . . . to make sure nothing bad happened to you," he added. I felt myself blush at his desire to protect me.
"I'm all right, but I'm glad it's over," I admitted. Paul laughed.
In the dim illumination of our galerie light, his face looked softer, his eyes even warmer. We hadn't done much more than hold hands and kiss a halfdozen times, only twice on the lips, but the memory of those kisses made my heart flutter now when I looked at him and stood so closely to him. The breeze gently brushed aside some strands of hair that had fallen over his forehead. Behind the house, the water from the swamps lapped against the shore and a night bird flapped its wings above us, invisible against the dark sky.
"I was disappointed when I came by and you weren't home," he said. "I was just about to leave when I saw the light of your lantern."
"I'm glad you waited," I replied, and his smile widened. "But I can't invite you in because Grandmere wants us to finish the blankets we'll put up for sale tomorrow. She thinks we'll be busy this weekend and she's usually right. She always remembers which weekends were busier than others the year before. No one has a better memory for those things," I added.
"I got to work in the cannery all day tomorrow, but maybe I can come by tomorrow night after dinner and we can walk to town to get a cup of crushed ice," Paul suggested.
"I'd like that," I said. Paul stepped closer to me and fixed his gaze on my face. We drank each other in for a moment before he worked up enough courage to say what he really had come to say. "What I really want to do is take you to the fais dodo next Saturday night," he declared quickly.
