As he had reached the tip of her toes, the old man stood and circled around Marie, finding the continuation at her shoulder blades, the words running like stripes across her back. The other women had finished their crayfish, and in the sink, the shells sparkled like mother-of-pearl. In his basket, the baby quietly snored. Outside the window, the cypress trees dripped with Spanish moss, and from the swamps, the alligators bellowed.
“Once she had managed to swallow a few mouthfuls of water, Hachard related the events since leaving the family LaChance. I knew, of course, that she had married the Big Fella and they had gone to live among the maroons in Pointe Coupée, but I had not heard of their troubles there. He had broken down early on, the victim of too many years toiling on the docks and too much rum and sugar. All my life, she said, I’ve been taking care of someone. First my own papa, and then thirty-odd years for the old Goose and his children, and then ten years nursing the Big Fella, watching him shrivel like a cornstalk and die. No one would have me, and I had so little left. I went to my friends in the Tremé, and cooked the once awhile for Mr. Puckett, she said. My anger got the better of me. The Tremé? You were back here in Orleans and you never came to see me once? I was ashamed, Hachard said. And then I took ill myself and bound for heaven, and my friends were burned out like everyone else, and here I am, seeking charity. Oh, what shall happen to me? She grabbed my hands. Do you think LaChance would have me back? I shook my head. There are three of us, now, and the baby. For the first time, she seemed aware of Clothide beside her. Whose is this child? I pointed to my heart. And who is the father, surely not the old Goose? I bowed my head, Non. Do you remember little Georges? Phtt, he is just a young lad. No, maman, he is all grown up and full of what every man is full of. He had a little dog that followed him everywhere, and one night I heard the barking outside my door and knew it was Georges and why he had come, and I tried to say no, but he insisted himself upon me. More than once. And I thought, okay, perhaps he will keep me in pla?age like some other black women are kept by the whites, but no. Came to it that I heard that yip-yap and I just wanted to die. Georges is as fat and white as buttermilk, and when the baby came, his mother chased him out of the house with a broom. He’s up in Baton Rouge, carrying on with some Cajun girl knows no better. But he left the little dog behind, and I’d like to kick it every time I pass by. Left his baby behind, too.