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"Daddy," I began. I wanted to tell him everything, to confide in him and develop the sort of relationship in which he wouldn't be afraid to confide in me.

"Yes, Ruby?" He took another step into my bedroom. "We never talked any more about Uncle Jean. I mean, I would like to go see him with you some day," I added. What I really meant to say was I wanted to share the burden of his sorrow and pain. He gave me a tight smile.

"Well, that's very kind of you, Ruby. It would be a blessed thing to do. Of course," he said, widening his smile, "he would think you were Gisselle. It will take some lengthy explanation to get him to even fathom that he has two different nieces."

"Then he can understand things?" I asked.

"I think so. I hope so," he said, his smile fading. "The doctors aren't as convinced of his improvements as I am, but they don't know him as I know him."

"I'll help you, Daddy," I said eagerly. "I'll go there and read to him and talk to him and spend hours and hours with him, if you like," I blurted.

"That's a very nice thought. The next time I go, I will take you along," he said.

"Promise?"

"Of course, I promise. Now let me go downstairs and order your breakfast," he said. Oh," he said, turning at the doorway, "Gisselle has phoned already to tell us she will be spending the day with the girls, too. She wanted to know how you were doing. I said I would tell you to call them later, and if you were up to it, I'd bring you back."

"I think I'll just do what you suggested, Daddy, and relax here."

"Fine," he said. "About fifteen minutes?" "Yes. I'm getting up," I said. He smiled and left.

Maybe what I had suggested I would do would be a wonderful thing. Maybe that was the way to get Daddy out of the melancholia Daphne had described and I had witnessed last night. To Daphne, it was all simply too embarrassing. She had no tolerance for it, and Gisselle certainly couldn't care less. Maybe this was one of the reasons Grandmere Catherine sensed I belonged here. If I could help lift the burden of Daddy's sadness, I could give him something a real daughter should.

Buoyed by these thoughts, I rose quickly and dressed to go down to breakfast. As was proving to be more the rule than the exception, Daddy and I had breakfast together while Daphne remained in bed. I asked Daddy why she rarely joined us.

"Daphne likes to wake up slowly. She watches a little television, reads, and then goes through her detailed morning ministrations, preparing to face each day as if she were making a debut in society," he replied, smiling. "It's the price I pay to have such a beautiful and accomplished wife," he added.

And then he did something rare: he talked about my mother, his eyes dreamy, his gaze far-off.

"Now Gabrielle, Gabrielle was different. She woke like a flower opening itself to the morning sunlight. The brightness in her eyes and the rush of warm blood to her cheeks were all the cosmetics she required to face a day in the bayou. Watching her wake up was like watching the sun rise."

He sighed, quickly realized what he was doing and saying, and snapped the newspaper in front of his face.

I wanted him to tell me so much more. I wanted to ask him a million questions about the mother I had never known. I wanted him to describe her voice, her laugh, even her cry. For now it was only through him that I could know her. But every reference he made to her and every thought he had of her was quickly followed by guilt and fear. The memory of my mother was locked away with so many other forbidden things in the closets of the Dumas past.

After breakfast, I did what my father

suggested--I curled up on a bench in the gazebo and read a book. Off, over the Gulf, I could see rain clouds, but they were moving in a different direction. Here, sunlight rained down, occasionally interrupted by the slow journey of a thin cloud nudged by the sea breeze. Two mockingbirds found me a curiosity and landed on the gazebo railing, inching their way closer and closer to me, flying off and then returning. My soft greetings made them tilt their heads and flick their wings, but kept them feeling secure, while a gray squirrel paused near the gazebo steps to sniff the air between us.

Every once in a while, I closed my eyes and lay back and imagined I was floating in my pirogue through the canals, the water lapping softly around me. If there was only some way to marry the best of that world with this one, I thought, my life would be perfect. Maybe that was what Daddy had dreamt would happen when he began his love affair with my mother.

"So there you are," I heard a voice cry out, and I opened my eyes to see Beau approaching. "Edgar said he thought he saw you go out here."

"Hi, Beau. I completely forgot that I suggested yo

u come by today," I said, sitting up.

He paused at the gazebo steps. "I've just come from Claudine's," he said. The look on his face told me he already knew more than I anticipated.

"You know what they did to me, don't you?"

"Yes. Billy told me. The girls were all still asleep, but I had a few words with Gisselle," he replied.

"I suppose everyone's laughing about it," I said. His eyes answered before he did. They were full of pity for me.

"A bunch of sharks, that's all they are," he snapped, the blue in his eyes turning steel cold. "They're jealous of you, jealous of the way everyone has taken to you at school, jealous of your

accomplishments," he said, and drew closer. I looked away, the tears welling up.