Page 113

"It's not your fault. You've got to stop blaming yourself for things. All of us bear some responsibility for our own actions. The blame can't all fall on your shoulders."

"Let's go," she said pushing away her cup and plate. "I can't eat another thing."

I helped her up.

"You sure you can make this drive yourselves?" Jack asked me.

"I'm fine, Jack. We'll be all right once we get started," I said.

He followed us out and helped Mommy get into the car. "Take care of yourself, Madame Andreas. I will say a prayer for you."

"Thank you." She looked surprised as she gazed at him.

Jack came around the car to say good-bye to me. We stood outside, the car door still closed.

"I'll be coming for my clothes," he kidded. "Maybe I won't want to give them back. I've grown quite fond of them."

"Then I'll leave without them, but at least I'll have seen you."

"You know what this means, don't you? You'll be forced to come into the city where you have to strain your neck to see the sun."

He laughed. Then his face turned very serious, his eyes fixed firmly on mine. "I wouldn't be afraid to live in total darkness if you were with me, Pearl. You would bring me my sunlight."

His words brought tears of joy to my eyes, and then he glanced quickly at Mommy before chancing a good-bye kiss. His lips only grazed mine, but I closed my eyes and savored the instant, embossing it on my memory.

"Please be careful," he said squeezing my hand. "I'll call you later today."

"Good-bye Jack." I opened the door. "Thanks for all you've done."

I got into the car and started the engine. Mommy was biting down on her lower lip and holding back her tears. We drove off slowly. In my rearview mirror, I saw Jack watching us. The other riggers were starting to arrive. Some beeped their horns and waved.

"Everyone seems to know you," Mommy said, amazed.

"Oil riggers are a tight group," I replied, remembering how Jack had described them. "They help each other and anyone each of them cares about. Once they heard what had happened to me, they volunteered to do all sorts of things for Jack and me."

As we made the turn away from his trailer, and as the house began to disappear behind us, a soft smile couched itself on my lips.

Mommy noticed. "How did you meet this young man?"

"We met when Daddy and I first came to Cypress Woods looking for you. He takes care of my well, number twenty-two," I said proudly.

"Your well? Oh. Paul's legacy to you." She grew sad again. "He was so fond of you."

"It's horrible how the Tates are permitting the house to fall apart, isn't it, Mommy?"

"Yes. It was once the most beautiful home in the bayou. Paul was so proud of it and everything in it. I remember the day he brought you and me to see it completed. He couldn't stop bragging about his special windows and his chandeliers," she said.

"I met Uncle Paul's mother," I said and described my visit to Aunt Jeanne's home.

Mommy listened as I told her the things Gladys Tate had said, but she didn't seem angry. "She put us through hell, but I can understand her terrible loss now and why she wanted to hurt us. Of course, hate poisons after a while, and that's the second tragedy," she added.

"But from what you've told me and from what I could see, Gladys Tate wasn't a happy woman even before all this happened."

"No. She had many crosses to bear. She made herself believe she was Paul's natural mother for her own sake as well as for his. I do believe she loved him as much as a natural mother could love a son. But she was possessive and always very angry. She had a bad marriage. Octavius was a ladies' man from the start and strayed often from their marriage bed. My mother wasn't his only conquest," she muttered. "Grandmere Catherine used to say unhappiness was a hungry snake that fed upon itself until it swallowed itself. The more miserable their marriage was, the more he wandered, and the more he wandered, the more miserable Gladys became. She's to be pitied now."

"I wonder why Gladys and Octavius got married, then," I said.

"Sometimes people get married for all the wrong reasons, but don't realize it until it's too late," Mommy explained. "The Tate fortune, the factory-- all of it was in Gladys Tate's family, not Octavius's. He was a handsome, debonair man who chained himself to a woman for the money and property she possessed. I'm sure he said all the right things to her. Perhaps he didn't convince her he was in love with her; perhaps she convinced herself because she wanted to believe it, but the effect was the same. They started building a life on a foundation of lies, made promises they knew in their hearts they would never keep, and kept adding to the illusion until the devil came knocking and Octavius answered the door.