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With the rooms repainted, new drapes on the windows, the changes in the artwork, the house took on my and Beau's identities. Of course, there were still memories lingering like cobwebs, but I believed, as did Beau, that time was the best vacuum cleaner and these troublesome memories would someday become vague and insignificant.

After I had done what I wanted with the house, I directed my energies back into my artistic work. One of the first pictures I drew and then painted was a picture of a young woman sitting in a gazebo with a newborn baby in her arms. The setting placed her in a home and on grounds like ours in the Garden District. When Beau looked at the picture, he told me he thought I had done a self-portrait, and then, a few weeks later, I woke with the symptoms of pregnancy and realized that the inspiration for the picture had come from a deeper realization inside myself.

Beau swore it meant I had some of Grandmere Catherine's traiteur powers. "Why can't it be so? Your people believe it's inherited power, right?" he said.

"I never felt anything like that, Beau, and I never even dreamt of healing people. I don't have that sort of mystical insight."

He nodded and thought a moment and then said a startling thing. "Sometimes, when I'm with Pearl and she's jabbering away in her baby language, I see her fix intently on something, and suddenly her face seems years older than four. There's an aware

ness in her eyes. Do you ever feel that when you're with her?"

"Yes," I said, "but I was afraid to even mention anything like it for fear you would laugh at me."

"I'm not laughing. I'm wondering. You know," he said, "she's even beguiling my parents these days. Mother tries not to show it, but she can't help but dote on her, and my father . . . when he's with her, he's like a little boy again."

"She has her way with them."

"With anyone," Beau said. "I think she's charmed. There. I've said it. Just don't tell any of my friends," he added quickly. I laughed. "Next thing you know," he said, "you'll have me believing in some of those voodoo rituals you and Nina Jackson used to practice."

"Don't discount anything," I warned.

He laughed again, but two weeks into my ninth month, he managed to surprise me with a wonderful present. He had located Nina and he brought her to our house to see me.

"I have a surprise visitor for you," Beau said, coming into the sitting room first.

Then he reached around the door and brought Nina forward. She didn't look very much older, although her hair was completely gray.

"Nina!" I struggled to my feet. I was so big, I felt like a hippopotamus rising out of a swamp. We embraced.

"You be big, all right," Nina said. "And close. I can see it in your eyes."

"Oh, Nina, where have you been?"

"Been travelin' a bit up and down the river. Nina be retired now. I live with my sister."

She sat and talked with me for an hour. I showed her Pearl and she ranted and raved about how beautiful she was becoming. She told me she thought she was a special child, too. And then she told me she was going to light a blue candle for my new baby so the baby would have success and protection.

"It don't be long," she predicted. She reached into her pocket and produced a camphor lump for me to wear around my neck. "It keep germs away from you and your baby," she promised. I told her I would wear it even in the hospital.

"Please, don't be a stranger. Come see us again, Nina."

"Be sure I will," she said.

"Nina," I asked, taking her hand into mine, "do you think the anger I threw into the wind when I went to see Mama Dede with you about Gisselle has blown away?"

"It be blown from your heart, child. That's what matters most."

We hugged and Beau took her home.

"That was a wonderful present, Beau," I told him when he returned. "Thank you."

"I see she left something," he said, eyeing the camphor lump around my neck. "Figured she would. To tell you the truth," he admitted, "I was hoping she would. Can't take any chances."

We laughed about it.

Four days later my labor began. It was intense, even more so than it had been with Pearl. Beau was at my side constantly and was even there with me in the delivery room. He held my hand and encouraged my breathing. I think he felt every stick of pain I felt, for I saw him wince each time. Finally my water broke and the baby started to enter this world.

"It's a boy!" the doctor cried, and then screamed, "Wait!"