Ruby

4

Learning to Be a Liar

"Here," Grandmère Catherine told Paul, "keep this pressed against your cheek with one hand and this pressed against your lip with the other." She handed him two warm cloths over which she had smeared one of her secret salves. When Paul took the cloths, I saw the knuckles on his right hand were all bruised and scraped as well.

"Look at his hand, too, Grandmère," I cried.

"It's nothing," Paul said. "When I was rolling around on the floor—"

"Rolling around on the floor? At the fais dodo?" Grandmère asked. He nodded and then started to speak. "We were having some gumbo and—"

"Hold those tight," she ordered. While he was holding the cloth against his lip, he couldn't talk, so I spoke for him, quickly.

"It was Turner Browne. He said one nasty thing after another just to show off in front of his friends," I told her.

"What sort of nasty things?" she demanded.

"You know, Grandmère. Bad things."

She stared at me a moment and then looked at Paul. It wasn't easy to keep anything from Grandmère Catherine.

For as long as I could remember, she had a way of seeing right into your heart and soul.

"He made nasty remarks about your mother?" Grandmère asked. I shifted my eyes away which was as good as saying yes. She took a deep breath, her hand against her heart and nodded. "They won't let it go. They cling to other people's hard times like moss clings to damp wood." She shook her head again and shuffled away, her hand still on her heart.

I looked at Paul. His sad eyes told me how sorry he was he had lost his temper. He started to take the cloth off his lip to say so, but I put my hand over his quickly. Paul smiled at me with his eyes, even though his lips had to be kept in a straight line.

"Just hold it there like Grandmère said," I told him. She looked back at us. I kept my hand over his and smiled. "He was very brave, Grandmère. You know how big Turner Browne is, but Paul didn't care."

"He looks it," she said, and shook her head. "Your Grandpère Jack wasn't much different and still isn't. I wish I had a pretty penny for every time I had to prepare a poultice to treat the injuries he suffered in one of his brawls. One time he came home with his right eye shut tight, and an-other time, he had a piece of his ear bitten off. You'd think that would make him think twice before getting into any more such conflicts, but not that man. He was at the end of the line when they passed out good sense," she concluded.

The rain that had been pounding on our tin roof subsided until we could hear only a slight tap, tap, tap, and the wind had died down considerably. Grandmère opened the batten plank shutters to let the breeze travel through our house again. She took a deep breath.

"I do love the way the bayou smells after a good rain. It makes everything fresh and clean. I wish it would do the same to people," she said, and sighed deeply, Her eyes were still dark and troubled. I never had heard her sound so sad and tired. A kind of paralyzing numbness gripped me and for a moment, I could only sit there and listen to my heart pound. Grandmère suddenly shuddered and embraced herself.

"Are you all right, Grandmère?"

"What? Yes, yes. Okay," she said, moving to Paul. "Let me look at you."

He took the cloths from his lips and cheek and she scrutinized his face. The swelling had subsided, but his cheek was still crimson and his lower lip dark where Turner Browne's fist had split the skin. Grandmère Catherine nodded and then went to the icebox and chipped out a small chunk to wrap in another washcloth.

"Here," she said, returning. "Put this on your cheek until it gets too cold and then put it on your lip. Keep alternating until the ice melts away, understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," Paul said. "Thank you. I'm sorry all this happened. I should have just ignored Turner Browne."

Grandmère Catherine held her eyes on him a moment and then relaxed her expression.

"Sometimes you can't ignore; sometimes the evil won't leave," she said, "But that doesn't mean I expect to see you in any more fights," she warned. He nodded obediently.

"You won't," he promised.

"Hmm," she said. "I wish I had another pretty penny for how many times my husband has made the same promise."

"I keep mine," Paul said proudly. Grandmère liked that and finally smiled.

"We'll see," she said.

"I better get going," Paul declared, standing. "Thanks again, Mrs. Landry."

Grandmère Catherine nodded.

"I'll walk you to the car, Paul," I said. When we stepped out on the galerie, we saw the rain had nearly stopped. The sky was still quite dark, but the glow from the galerie's dangling naked bulb threw a stream of pale white light to Paul's car. Still holding the ice pack against his cheek, he took my hand with his free hand and we walked over the pathway.

"I do feel terrible about ruining the evening," he said. "You didn't ruin it; Turner Browne ruined it. Besides, we got in plenty of dancing first," I added.

"It was fun, wasn't it?"

"You know," I said. "This was my first real date."

"Really? I used to think you had a stream of boyfriends knocking on your door, and you wouldn't give me the time of day," he confessed. "It took all the courage I could muster, more courage than it took to attack Turner Browne, for me to walk up to you that afternoon at school and ask to carry your books and walk you home."

"I know. I remember how your lips trembled, but I thought that was adorable."

"You did? Well, then I'll just continue to be the shyest young man you ever did see."

"As long as you're not too shy to kiss me now and then," I replied. He smiled and grimaced with the pain it caused to stretch his lip. "Poor Paul," I said, and leaned forward to kiss him ever so gently on that wounded mouth. His eyes were still closed when I pulled back. Then they popped open.

"That's the best poultice, even better than your grandmother's magical medicines. I'm going to have to come around every day and get another treatment," he said.

"It will cost you," I warned.

"How much?"

"Your undying devotion," I replied. His eyes riveted on me.

"You already have that, Ruby," he whispered, "and always will."

Then he leaned forward, disregarding the pain, and kissed me warmly on the lips.

"Funny," he said, opening his car door, "but even with this bruised cheek and split lip, I think this was one of the best nights of my life. Good night, Ruby."

"Good night. Don't forget to keep that ice on your lip like Grandmère told you to," I advised.

"I won't. Thank her again for me. See you tomorrow," he promised, and started his engine. I watched him back away. He waved and then drove into the night. I stood watching until the small red lights on the rear of his car were swallowed by the darkness. Then I turned, embracing myself, and saw Grandmère Catherine standing on the edge of the galerie looking out at me. How long had she been there? I wondered. Why was she waiting like that?

"Grandmère? Are you all right?" I asked when I approached. Her face was so gloomy. She looked pale, forlorn, and as if she had just seen one of the spirits she was employed to chase away. Her eyes stared at me bleakly. Something hard and heavy grew in my chest, making it ache in anticipation.

"Come on inside," she said. "I have something to tell you, something I should have told you long ago."

My legs felt as stiff as tree stumps as I went up the stairs and into the house. My heart, which had been beating with pleasure after Paul's last kiss, beat harder, deeper, thumped deep down into my very soul. I couldn't remember ever seeing such a look of melancholy and sadness on Grandmère Catherine's face. What great burden did she carry? What terrible thing was she about to tell me?

She sat down and stared ahead for a long time as though she'd forgotten I was there. I waited, my hands in my lap, my heart still pounding.

"There was always a wildness in your mother," she began. "Maybe it was the Landry blood, maybe it was the way she grew up, always close to wild things. Unlike most girls her age, she was never afraid of anything in the swamp. She would pick up a baby snake as quickly as she would pick a daisy.

"In the early days, Grandpère Jack took her everywhere he went in the bayou. She fished with him, hunted with him, poled the pirogue when she was just tall enough to stand and push the stick into the mud. I used to think she was going to be a tomboy. However," she said, focusing her eyes on me now, "she was to be anything but a tomboy. Maybe it would have been better if she had been less feminine.

"She grew quickly, blossomed into a flower of womanhood way before her time, and those dark eyes of hers, her long, flowing hair as rich and red as yours, enchanted men and boys alike. I even think she fascinated the birds and animals of the swamp. Often," she said, smiling at her memory, "I would see a marsh hawk peering down with yellow-circled eyes to follow her with his gaze as she walked along the shore of the canal.

"So innocent and so beautiful, she was eager to touch everything, see everything, experience everything. Alas, she was vulnerable to older, shrewder people, and thus, she was tempted to drink from the cup of sinful pleasure.

"By the time she was sixteen, she was very popular and asked to go everywhere by every boy in the bayou. They all pleaded with her for some attention. I saw the way she teased and tormented some who were absolutely in agony over her smile, her laugh, dying for her to say something promising to them whenever they came around.

"She had young boys doing all her chores, even lining up to help Grandpère Jack, who wasn't above taking advantage of the poor souls,I might add. He knew they hoped to court Gabrielle's favor by slaving for him and he had them doing more for him than they did for their own fathers. It was downright criminal of him, but he wouldn't listen to me.

"Anyway, one night, about seven months after her sixteenth birthday, Gabrielle came to me in this very room. She was sitting right where you're sitting now. When I looked up at her, I didn't need to hear what she was going to say. She was no more than a windowpane, easy to read. My heart did flip-flops; I held my breath.

"Mama,' she said, her voice cracking, 'I think I'm pregnant.' I closed my eyes and sat back. It was as though the inevitable had occurred, what I had feared and felt might happen, had happened.

"As you know we're Catholics; we don't go to no shack butchers and abort our pregnancies. I asked her who was the father and she just shook her head and ran from me. Later, when Grandpère Jack came home and heard, he went wild. He nearly beat her to death before I stopped him, but he got out of her who the father was," she said, and raised her eyes slowly.

Was that thunder I heard, or was it blood thundering through my veins and roaring in my ears?

"Who was it, Grandmère?" I asked, my voice cracking, my throat choking up quickly.

"It was Octavious Tate who had seduced her," she said, and once again it was as if thunder shook the house, shook the very foundations of our world and shattered the fragile walls of my heart and soul. I could not speak; I could not ask the next question, but Grandmère had decided I was to know it all.

"Grandpère Jack went to him directly. Octavious had been married less than a year and his father was alive then. Your Grandpère Jack was an even bigger gambler in those days. He couldn't pass up a game of bourré even though most times he was the one stuffing the pot. One time he lost his boots and had to walk home barefoot. And another time, he wagered a gold tooth and had to sit and let someone pull it out with a pliers. That's how sick a gambler he was and still is.

"Anyway, he got the Tates to pay him to keep things silent and part of the bargain was that Octavious would take the child and bring it up as his own. What he told his new wife and how they worked it out between them, we never knew, didn't care to know.

"I kept your mother's pregnancy hidden, strapping her up when she started to show in the seventh month. By then it was summer and she didn't have to attend school. We kept her here at the house most of the time. During the final three weeks, she stayed inside mostly and we told everyone that she had gone to visit her cousins in Iberia.

"The baby, a healthy boy, was born and delivered to Octavious Tate. Grandpère Jack got his money and lost it in less than a week, but the secret was kept.

"Up until now, that is," she said, lowering her head. "I had hoped never to have to tell you. You already know what your mother did later on. I didn't want you to think terrible of her and then think terrible of yourself.

"But I never counted on you and Paul . . . becoming more than just friends," she added. "When I saw you two kiss out by his car before, I knew you had to be told," she concluded.

"Then Paul and I are half brother and half sister?" I asked with a gasp. She nodded. "But he doesn't know any of this?"

"As I told you, we didn't know how the Tates dealt with it."

I buried my face in my hands. The tears that burned beneath my lids seemed to be falling inside me as well, making my stomach icy and cold. I shivered and rocked.

"Oh, God, how horrible, oh, God," I moaned.

"You see and understand why I had to tell you, don't you, Ruby dear?" Grandmère Catherine asked. I could feel how troubled she was by making the revelation, how much it bothered her to see me in such pain. I nodded quickly. "You must not let things go any further between the two of you, but it's not your place to tell him what I've told you. It's something his own father must tell him."

"It will destroy him," I said, shaking my head. "It will crack his heart in two, just as it has cracked mine."

"Then don't tell him, Ruby," Grandmère Catherine advised. I looked up at her. "Just let it all end."

"How, Grandmère? We like each other so much. Paul is so gentle and kind and—"

"Let him think you don't care about him anymore like that, Ruby. Let him go and he'll find another girlfriend soon enough. He's a handsome boy. Besides, his parents will only give him more grief if you don't, especially, his father, and you will only succeed in breaking the Tates apart."

"His father is a monster, a monster. How could he have done such a thing when he was married for such a short time?" I demanded, my anger overcoming my sadness for the moment.

"I make no excuses for him. He was a grown man and Gabrielle was just an impressionable young girl, but so beautiful, it didn't surprise me that grown men longed for her. The devil, the evil spirit that hovers in the shadows, crept over Octavious Tate day by day, I'm sure, and eventually found entrance into his heart and drove him to seduce your mother."

"Paul would hate him, he would hate his own father if he knew," I said vehemently. Grandmère nodded.

"Do you want to do that, Ruby? Do you want to be the one who puts enmity in his heart and drives him to despise his own father?" she asked softly. "And what will Paul feel about the woman he thinks is his mother? What will you do to that relationship, too?"

"Oh, Grandmère," I cried, and rose off the settee to throw myself at her feet. I embraced her legs and buried my face in her lap. She stroked my hair softly.

"There, there, my baby. You will get over the pain. You're still very young with your whole life ahead of you. You're going to become a great artist and have beautiful things." She put her hand under my chin and lifted my head so she could look into my eyes. "Now do you understand why I dream of you leaving the bayou," she added.

With my tears streaming down my cheeks, I nodded. "Yes," I said. "I do. But I never want to leave you, Grandmère."

"Someday you will have to, Ruby. It's the way of all things, and when that day comes, don't hesitate. Do what you have to do. Promise me you will. Promise," she demanded. She looked so anxious about it, I had to respond.

"I will, Grandmère."

"Good," she said. "Good." She sat back, looking as if she had just aged a year for every minute that passed. I ground the tears from my eyes with my small fists and stood up.

"Do you want something, Grandmère? A glass of lemonade, maybe?"

"Just a glass of cold water," she said, smiling. She patted my hand. "I'm sorry, honey," she said.

I swallowed hard and leaned down to kiss her on the cheek.

"It's not your fault, Grandmère. You have no reason to blame yourself."

She smiled softly at me. Then I got her the glass of water and watched her drink it. It seemed painful for her to do so, but she finished it and rose from her chair.

"I'm very tired, suddenly," she said. "I've got to go to bed."

"Yes, Grandmère. I will soon, too."

After she left, I went to the front door and looked out at where Paul and I had kissed good night.

We didn't know it then, but it was the last time we would ever kiss like that, the last time we would ever feel each other's heart beating and thrill to each other's touch. I closed the door and walked to the stairway, feeling as if someone I knew and loved with all my heart had just died. In a real sense that was true, for the Paul Tate I knew and loved before was gone and the Ruby Landry he had kissed and loved as well was lost. The sin that had given Paul life had reared its ugly head and taken away his love.

I dreaded the days that were now to follow.

That night I tossed and turned and woke from my sleep many times. Each time, my stomach felt as tight as a fist. I wished the whole day and night had just been a bad dream, but there was no denying Grandmère Catherine's dark, sad eyes. The vision of her face lingered behind my eyelids, reminding, reinforcing, confirming that all that had happened and all that I had learned was real and true.

I didn't think Grandmère Catherine had slept any better than I had, even though she had looked so exhausted before going to bed. For the first time in a long time, she was up and about only moments before me. I heard her shuffling past my room and opened the door to watch her make her way to the kitchen.

I hurried to go down to help her with our breakfast. Although the rainstorm of the night before had passed, there were still layers of thin, gray clouds across the Louisiana sky, making the morning look as dreary as I felt. The birds seemed subdued as well, barely singing and calling to each other. It was as if the whole bayou were feeling sorry for me and for Paul.

"Seems a Traiteur should be able to treat her own arthritis," Grandmère muttered. "My joints ache and my recipes for medicine don't seem to help."

Grandmère Catherine was not one to voice complaints about herself. I'd seen her walk miles in the rain to help someone and not utter a single syllable of protest. No matter what infirmity or hard luck she suffered, she always remarked that there were too many who were worse off.

"You don't drop the potato because hills and valleys suddenly appear on your road," she told me, which was a Cajun's way of saying you don't give up. "You bear the brunt; you carry the excess baggage, and you go on." I always felt she was trying to teach me how to live by example, so I knew how much pain she must be suffering to complain about it in my presence this morning.

"Maybe we should take a day off from the road stall, Grandmère," I said. "We've got my painting money and—"

"No," she said. "It's better to keep busy, and besides, we've got to be out there while there are still tourists in the bayou. You know we have enough weeks and months without anyone coming around to buy our things and it's hard enough to scrounge and scrape up a living then."

I didn't say it, because I knew it would only get her angry, but why didn't Grandpère Jack do more for us? Why did we let him get away with his lazy, swamp bum life? He was a Cajun man and as such he should bear more responsibility for his family, even if Grandmère was not pleased with him. I made up my mind I would pole out to his shack later and tell him what I thought.

Right after breakfast, I started to set up our roadside stall as usual while Grandmère prepared her gumbo. I saw the strain on her face as she worked and then carried things out, so I ran and got her a chair to sit on as quickly as I could. Despite what she had said, I wished it would rain hard and send us back into the house, so she could rest. But it didn't and just as she had predicted, the tourists began to come around.

About eleven o'clock Paul drove up on his motor scooter. Grandmère Catherine and I exchanged a quick look, but she said nothing more to me as Paul approached.

"Hello, Mrs. Landry," he began. "My cheek is practically all healed and my lip feels fine," he quickly added. The bruise had diminished considerably. There was just a slight pink area on his cheekbone. "Thanks again."

"You're welcome," Grandmère said, "but don't forget your promise to me."

"I won't." He laughed and turned to me. "Hi."

"Hi," I said quickly, and unfolded and folded a blanket so it would rest more neatly on the shelves of the stall. "How come you're not working in the cannery today?" I asked, without looking at him.

He stepped closer so Grandmère wouldn't hear.

"My father and I had it out last night. I'm not working for him anymore and I can't use the car until he says so, which might be never unless—"

"Unless you stop seeing me," I finished for him, then turned around. The look in his eyes told me I was right.

"I don't care what he says. I don't need the car. I bought the scooter with my own money, so I'll just ride around on it. All I care about doing is getting here to see you as quickly as I can. Nothing else matters," he declared firmly.

"That's not true, Paul. I can't let you do this to your parents and to yourself. Maybe not now, but weeks, months, even years from now, you'll regret driving your parents away from you," I told him sternly. Even I could hear the new, cold tone in my voice. It pained me to be this way, but I had to do it, I had to find a way to stop what could never be.

"What?" He smiled. "You know the only thing I care about is getting to be with you, Ruby. Let them adjust if they don't want to drive us apart. It's all their fault. They're snobby and selfish and—"

"No, they're not, Paul," I said quickly. His face hardened with confusion. "It's only natural for them to want the best for you."

"We've been over this before, Ruby. I told you, you're the best for me," he said. I looked away. I couldn't face him when I spoke these words. We had no customers at the moment, so I walked away from the stall, Paul trailing behind me as closely and as silently as my shadow. I paused at one of our cypress log benches and sat down, facing the swamp.

"What's wrong?" he asked softly.

"I've been thinking it all over," I said. "I'm not sure you're the best for me."

"What?"

Out in the swamp, perched on a big sycamore tree, the old marsh owl stared at us as if he could hear and understand the words we were saying. He was so still, he looked stuffed.

"After you left last night, I gave everything more thought. know there are many girls my age or slightly older who are already married in the bayou. There are even younger ones, but I don't just want to be married and live happily ever after in the bayou. I want to do more, be more. I want to be an artist."

"So? I would never stop you. I'd do everything I could to—"

"An artist, a true artist, has to experience many things, travel, meet many different kinds of people, expand her vision," I said, turning back to him. He looked smaller, diminished by my words. He shook his head.

"What are you saying?"

"We shouldn't be so serious," I explained.

"But I thought . . ." He shook his head. "This is all because I made a fool of myself last night, isn't it? Your grandmother is really very upset with me."

"No, she's not. Last night just made me think harder, that's all."

"It's my fault," he repeated.

"It isn't anyone's fault. Or, at least it isn't our fault," I added, recalling Grandmère Catherine's revelations last night. "It's just the way things are."

"What do you want me to do?" he asked.

"I want you to . . . to do what I'm going to do . . see other people, too."

"There's someone else then?" he followed, incredulous. "How could you be the way you were last night with me and the days and nights before that and like someone else?"

"There's not someone else just yet," I muttered.

"There is," he insisted. I looked up at him. His sadness was being replaced with anger rapidly. The softness in his eyes evaporated and a fury took its place. His shoulders rose and his face became as crimson as his bruised cheek. His lips whitened in the corners. He looked like he could exhale fire like a dragon. I hated what I was doing to him. I wished I could just vanish.

"My father told me I was a fool to put my heart and trust in you, in a—"

"In a Landry," I coached sadly.

"Yes. In a Landry. He said the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

I lowered my head. I thought about my mother letting herself be used by Paul's father for his pleasure and I thought about Grandpère Jack caring more about getting money than what had happened to his daughter.

"He was right."

"I don't believe you," Paul shot back. When I looked at him again, I saw the tears that had washed over his eyes, tears of pain and anger, tears that would poison his mind against me. How I wished I could throw myself into his arms and stop what was happening, but I was thwarted and muzzled by reality. "You don't want to be an artist; you want to be a whore."

"Paul!"

"That's all, a whore. Well, go on, be with as many different men as you like. See if I care. I was crazy to waste my time on a Landry," he added and pivoted quickly, his boots kicking up the grass behind him as he rushed away.

My chin dropped to my chest and my body slumped on the cypress log bench. Where my heart had been, there was now a hollow cavity. I couldn't even cry. It was as if everything in me, every part of me had suddenly locked up, frozen, become as cold as stone. The sound of Paul's motor scooter engine reverberated through my body. The old marsh owl lifted his wings and strutted about nervously on the branch, but he didn't lift off. He remained there, watching me, his eyes filled with accusation now.

After Paul left our house, I got up. My legs were very shaky, but I was able to walk back to the roadside stall just as a carload of tourists pulled up. They were young men and women, loud and full of laughter and fun. The men went wild over the pickled lizards and snakes and bought four jars. The women liked Grandmère's handwoven towels and handkerchiefs. After they had bought everything they wanted and loaded their car, one of the young men paused and approached us with his camera.

"Do you mind if I take your pictures?" he asked. "I'll give you each a dollar," he added.

"You don't have to pay us for our pictures," Grandmère replied.

"Oh, yes, he does," I said. Grandmère Catherine raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"Fine," the young man said and dug into his pocket to produce the two dollars. I took them quickly. "Can you smile?" he asked me. I forced one and he snapped his photos. "Thanks," he said, and got into the car.

"Why did you make him give us two dollars, Ruby? We haven't taken money from tourists in the past." Grandmère asked me.

"Because the world is full of pain and disappointment, Grandmère, and I plan to do all I can from now on to make it less so for us."

She fixed her eyes on me thoughtfully. "I want you to grow up, but I don't want you to grow up with a hard heart, Ruby," she said.

"A soft heart gets pierced and torn more, Grandmère. I'm not going to end up like my mother. I'm not!" I cried and despite my firm and rigid stance, I felt my new wall start to crack.

"What did you say to young Paul Tate?" Grandmère asked. "What did you tell him to make him run off like that?"

"I didn't tell him the truth, but I drove him away, just as you said I should," I moaned through my tears. "Now, he hates me."

"Oh, Ruby, I'm sorry."

"He hates me!" I cried, and turned and ran from her.

"Ruby!"

I didn't stop. I ran hard and fast over the marshland, letting the bramble bushes slap and tear at my dress, my legs, and my arms. I was oblivious to pain; I ignored the ache in my chest and disregarded the puddles and the mud into which I repeatedly stepped. But after a while, the pain in my legs and the needles in my side brought me to a halt, and I could only walk slowly over the long stretch of marshland that ran alongside the canal. My shoulders heaved with my deep sobs. I walked and walked, past the dried domes of grass that were homes to the muskrats and nutrias, avoiding the inlets in which the small green snakes swam. Fatigued and drowning in many emotions, I finally stopped and gasped in air, my hands on my hips, my bosom rising and falling.

After a moment, my eyes focused on a clump of small sycamore trees just ahead. At first, because of its color and size, I didn't see it. But gradually, it formed in my field of vision, seemingly appearing like a vision. I saw a marsh deer watching me with curiosity. It had big, beautiful, but sad looking eyes and it stood as still as a statue.

Suddenly, there was a loud report, the explosion of a high caliber rifle came from the blind, and the deer's knees crumbled. It stumbled a moment in a desperate effort to maintain its stance, but a red circle of blood appeared on its neck and grew larger and larger as the blood emerged. The deer went down quickly after that and I heard the sound of two men cheering. A pirogue shot out from under a wall of Spanish moss and I saw two strangers in the front and Grandpère Jack poling from the rear. He had hired himself out to tourist hunters and brought them to their kill. As the canoe made its way across the pond toward the dead deer, one of the tourists handed the other a bottle of whiskey and they drank to celebrate their kill. Grandpère Jack eyed the bottle and stopped poling so they could give him a swig.

Slowly, I retreated, following my footsteps back. Yes, I thought, the swamp was a beautiful place, filled with wonderful and interesting animal life, with fascinating vegetation, sometimes mysterious and still and sometimes a symphony of nature with its frogs croaking, its birds singing, its gators drumming water with their tails. But it could be a hard, cold place, too, wrought with death and danger, with poisonous snakes and spiders, with quicksand and sticky, sucking mud to draw the unsuspecting intruder down into the darkness beneath. It was a world in which the stronger fed on the weaker and into which men came to enjoy their power over natural things.

Today, I thought, it was like everywhere else on earth, and today, I hated being here.

By the time I returned, the showers had begun and Grandmère Catherine had begun to take in most of our handicraft goods. I hurried to help her with what remained. The rain fell harder and harder, so we had to rush as quickly as we could and we had no time to speak to each other until everything had been safely stored. Then Grandmère got us some towels to wipe our hair and faces. The rain pounded the tin roof and the wind whipped through the bayou. We ran around the house, closing the batten plank shutters.

"It's a real tosser," Grandmère cried. We heard the wind whistle through the cracks in our walls and saw brush and anything else that was loose and light being lifted and driven every which way over the road and lawn. The world outside became very dark.

Thunder clapped and lightning scorched the sky. I could hear the cisterns overflowing as sheets of rain came off the roof and collected in the barrels. The drops fell so hard and thick, they bounced when they hit the steps or little walkway in front of the house. For a while it sounded like the tin roof would split. It was as if we had fallen into a drum. Finally, it subsided and just as quickly as it had developed into a heavy downpour, it became a slight drizzle. The sky lightened and moments later, a ray of sunlight threaded itself through the opening in the overcast and dropped a shaft of warm brightness over our home.

Grandmère Catherine took a deep breath of relief and shook her head.

"I never get used to those sudden cloudbursts," she said. "When I was a little girl, I used to crawl under my bed."

I smiled at her.

"I can't imagine you as a little girl, Grandmère," I said.

"Well, I was, honey. I wasn't born this old with bones that creaked when I walked, you know." She pressed her hand against the small of her back and straightened up. "I think I'll make a cup of tea. I'd like something warm in my stomach. How about you?"

"All right, Grandmère," I said. I sat at the kitchen table while she put up the water. "Grandpère Jack is doing some guiding for hunters again. I just saw him in the swamp with two men. They shot a deer."

"He was one of the best at it," she said. "The rich Creoles were always after him when they came here to hunt, and none ever left empty-handed."

"It was a beautiful deer, Grandmère."

She nodded.

"And the thing is, they won't care about the meat; they just want a trophy."

She stared at me a moment. "What did you tell Paul?" she finally asked.

"That we shouldn't just be with each other, that we should see other people. I told him because I was an artist, I wanted to meet other people, but he didn't believe me. I'm not a good liar, Grandmère," I moaned.

"That's not a bad fault, Ruby."

"Yes, it is, Grandmère," I retorted quickly. "This is a world built on lies, lies and deceptions. The stronger and the more successful are good at it."

Grandmère Catherine shook her head sadly.

"It looks that way to you right now, Ruby honey, but don't give into the comfort of hating everything and everyone around you. Those you call stronger and successful might seem so to you, but they're not really happy, for there is a dark place in their hearts that they cannot deny and it makes their souls ache. In the end they are terrified because they know the darkness is what they will face forever."

"You've seen so much evil and so much sickness, Grandmère. How can you still feel hopeful?" I asked.

She smiled and sighed.

"It's when you stop feeling hopeful that the sickness and the evil wins over you and then what becomes of you? Never lose hope, Ruby. Never stop fighting for hope," she advised. "I know how much you're hurting now and how much poor Paul is suffering, too, but just like this sudden storm, it will end for you and the sun will be out again.

"I always dreamed," she said, coming over to sit beside me and stroke my hair, "that you would have the magical wedding, the one in the Cajun spider legend. Remember? The rich Frenchman imported those spiders from France for his daughter's wedding and released them into the oaks and pines where they wove their canopy of webs. Over them, he sprinkled gold and silver dust and then they had the candlelight wedding procession. The night glittered all around them, promising them a life of love and hope.

"Someday, you will marry a handsome man who could be a prince and you, too, will have a wedding in the stars," Grandmère promised. She kissed me and I threw my arms around her to bury my head in her soft shoulder. I cried and cried and she petted me and soothed me. "Cry honey," she said. "And like the summer rains turn to sunshine so will your tears."

"Oh, Grandmère," I moaned. "I don't know if I can."

"You can," she said. She lifted my chin and looked into my eyes, hers those dark, mesmerizing orbs that had seen evil spirits and visions of the future, "you can and you will," she predicted.

The teapot whistled. Grandmère wiped the tears from my cheeks and kissed me again, and then got up to pour us our cups.

Later that night, I sat by my window and looked up at the clearing sky and I wondered if Grandmère was right; I wondered if I would have a wedding in the stars. The glitter of gold and silver dust danced under my eyelids when I lay my head on the pillow, but just before I fell asleep, I saw Paul's wounded face once more and then I saw the marsh deer open its mouth to voice an unheard scream as it crumbled to the grass.