Page 128

be happy."

"And she took advantage of that goodness,"

Gladys accused, stabbing the air between us with her

long forefinger.

"No, Mother Tate, I--"

"Don't sit

there and try to deny what you did to

my son." Her lips trembled. "My son," she moaned.

"Once, I was the apple of his eye. The sun rose and

fell on my happiness, not yours. Even when you were

enchanting him here in the bayou, he would love to sit

and talk with me, love to be with me. We had a

remarkable relationship and a remarkable love

between us," she said. "But you were relentless and

you charmed him away from me," she charged, and I

realized there was no hate such as that born out of

love betrayed. This was why her brain was screaming

out for revenge.

"I didn't do those things, Mother Tate," I said

quietly. "I tried to discourage our relationship. I even

told him the truth about us," I said.

"Yes, you did and viciously drove a wedge between him and me. He knew that I wasn't his real

mother. Don't you think that changed things?" "I didn't want to tell him. It wasn't my place to

tell him," I cried, recalling Grandmere Catherine's

warnings about causing any sort of split between a

Cajun mother and her child. "But you can't build a

house of love on a foundation of lies. You and your

husband should have been the ones to tell him the

truth."

She winced. "What truth? I was his mother until