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"Oh, I know I am, Mama."

She smiled and we hugged.

"I'm darn proud of you, sweetheart. Darn proud."

"Thank you, Mama."

She went in and I stepped off the gallery and walked around to the dock. I took off my moccasins to dip my feet in the water and sat there for a while, listening to the cicadas and the occasional hoot of an owl. From time to time I heard a splash and saw the moonlight glimmer off the back of a gator sliding along the oily surface of the water and into the shadows.

I stared into the swamp, fixing my eyes on the inky darkness, and I wished and wished until I thought I saw him . . . the handsome young Cajun ghost. He was floating over the water and beckoning to me, tempting me.

If there really was a handsome young man haunting the swamps, I thought, I could forget the terrible thing that had happened to me. I'd even be willing to fall in love with him the way I had described to Yvette and Evelyn, and exchange my soul with his. I'd rather be a ghost, floating along through eternity, than a violated young woman right now, I thought.

His smile faded in the darkness and became a group of fireflies dancing madly around each other.

All the magic of this d

ay evaporated. The stars seemed to shrink away, and dark clouds slid from behind silvery ones and chased away the moon.

I sighed, got up, and walked back to the house, not full of hope and dreams for tomorrow, as I should be, but weighed down, soaked with terror about the days to come.

Did I have a little of Mama's clairvoyance? I hoped not. I hoped I was just tired.

3

Hiding With Mama

.

Summer had begun as timidly as a white-tailed

deer the year I graduated high school, but a little more than a week after the ceremony, the heat became more oppressive than I had ever known it to be. Mama said it was the worst she could recall, and Daddy said she had finally gotten her wish: She had brought him hell on earth. Nights were no cooler than the days. At times the air was so heavy with humidity, my hair would become damp and my dress would cling like a second layer of skin to my body.

All of Nature appeared just as depressed. Every animal restricted its travel to bare necessity. The gators dug themselves deeper into the mud; the bream seemed reluctant to come out of the water even to feed on the clouds of bewildered insects. Part of the problem was we didn't have much of a breeze coming up from the Gulf. The air was so still, leaves looked wilted and painted against the sky, and birds looked stuffed and fastened on branches.

What little tourist business there normally was during the summer months dried up. A snake could curl around itself in the shady area of our road and feel safe. We could count on our fingers the vehicles that rumbled by between morning and night. Every day Mama complained about how hard things were getting, but Daddy continued to sweep aside problems as if they were dust on his boots. Mama made some income and bartered food from her traiteur missions, two of which involved bad snakebites, and another three involved insect bites. There were more skin rashes than ever, lots of heat exhaustion, and then finally there was Mrs. Townley, who went into a strange coma that lasted nearly a month.

Even though Daddy had little or no work, when an out-of-town contractor finally came by and offered him and some of the other men work in Baton Rouge, he was reluctant to take it, complaining it meant he would be gone nearly six weeks. Mama told him he was gone nearly that long on and off, drinking and gambling anyway, so what difference did it make? At least now he could send hone some money for us.

Despite the harsh line she took with him, I saw sadness in her eyes when it came time for him to get into his truck and join the others for the journey to Baton Rouge. She made him a thick po'boy sandwich filled with oysters, shrimp, sliced tomatoes, shredded lettuce, and her sauce piquant.

"You ain't made me a sandwich like this for a while, Catherine," he -told her.

"You ain't gone off to do decent work for a while, Jack Landry," she replied. He shook his head and shifted his guilty eyes away a moment. They were parting on the gallery. I was just inside behind the screen door. I hated it when they argued, and I hoped if I remained inconspicuous, they might be gentle with each other.

"Sure you're going to be all right without me, woman?" he asked her.

"Should be. I've had plenty of practice," she replied. Mama could be hard as stone when she felt the need to be.

"You don't let up on me," he complained. "I'm going off, won't see you for weeks. Cut me some slack, woman. Give me a chance to gulp some air before you push my head back underwater, hear?"

"I hear," she said, a tiny smile on her lips. Her eyes twinkled. His whining amused her. I don't know why he tried to put on false faces. Mama could read the truth through a mile-high pile of dead Spanish moss, but Daddy, especially, was a windowpane.

"Well," he said, sliding his boot over the gallery floor, "well . . ." He looked at me and then he leaned forward and pecked Mama's cheek like a chicken. "You take care. And you, Gabriel, you spend more time with your mama than with them animals, hear?"

"Yes, Daddy."

"Don't worry about me, Jack. Just don't drop the potato this time," she warned him.