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I reached back for whatever strength remained in my flesh and bones and pushed. It seemed to go on and on for hours, but it was only minutes later

when I heard the cry of my first baby girl. The second baby girl followed soon thereafter, and Mama was so busy cleaning them off and wrapping them in blankets, she didn't have time to tend to me. I was too exhausted to speak and barely could keep my eyelids open. She put the second baby safely and comfortably in my arms and took the first into her own. She knew Daddy was waiting.

"I want to hurry," she said in a whisper, "so he don't hear the other one cry."

She didn't cry. It was as if she knew that she must keep still to remain with her mother and grandmere. I struggled to look at her tiny face and bring my lips to her cheek.

Minutes later, Mama was back upstairs. "It's done," she said. "God forgive us."

"It's all right, Mama. Pierre needs her, too."

"Your scoundrel of a father hightailed it with his money.

It will be gone in days, I'm sure, gambled and drunk away."

"Look at her, Mama," I said. "She has ruby red hair."

"The other one did, too."

"I want to call her Ruby, Mama. All right?"

"Of course, dear." She smiled and then her smile faded when she gazed at the bed again.

"What is it, Mama?"

"The bleeding. Let me take the baby away for a while, honey, and tend to you."

The bleeding didn't stop. Mama said it happened when there was more than one baby, but I could see from the look on her face that this time was more serious than most of the others she had seen.

I tried to stay awake, but I kept falling in and out of sleep, drifting for longer and longer periods each time. In fact, I thought I was a little girl again, floating in my pirogue. Sometimes I would just lie back and let the current take me wherever it wanted to take me in the swamp. I would lie there with the 'sun on my face and try to imagine where I was. Then I would sit up and greet my surroundings with surprise and delight. Sometimes, because I was so still, an egret would land on the canoe and strut about bravely. And once, my blue heron did the same.

I heard Mama calling my name. She sounded farther and farther away, and I knew that was because I was drifting on in the canoe.

"Don't worry, Mama," I wanted to shout back to her. "I'm all right. I'm where I want to be, where I'll be safe forever."

Her voice grew so tiny.

Ahead of me the Spanish moss looked like the secret doorway again. My canoe passed under and through it and then I was in a small pond where all my birds waited to greet me. There were doe on the shore and nutria scurrying about happily. A lazy old turtle floated alongside the pirogue.

I felt myself sit up.

There, just ahead, his shoulders gleaming in the sunlight, was my mythical lover. As I drew closer, the features of his face became clearer and clearer until I recognized it was Pierre.

"I've been waiting for you," he said, stepping into the water. He took hold of the canoe.

"I came as soon as I could," I told him.

"It wasn't soon enough."

We both laughed. He held his hand toward me and I reached and reached and reached. . . . I just couldn't . . . "Gabriel!" Mama was crying. "My Gabriel!"

I turned slowly and smiled at her. "It's all right, Mama. I'm fine now."

Slowly the world behind me began to shrink and darken, but when I turned back to my lover, there was only brightness and warmth.

I was home. Truly.

I was home.