Ancient Inheritance. Rita Vetere
humidity, as she made her way downstairs to the kitchen. The moss draping the trees outside the kitchen window hung motionless as Evangeline joined her mother, grandmother, and seven-year-old brother, Claude, in a breakfast of corn-meal mush, what her mother used to call ‘coush-coush.’ From the transistor radio on the windowsill, the only place it could pick up decent reception, a blues tune, ‘Canal Street’ or ‘Dusty Road’ maybe, played in the background as she took her place at the table.
Claude nattered on excitedly about the field trip to Lafayette he was to attend with his class. Evangeline, busy daydreaming about Charlie Robetaille, the boy who sat next to her in school and on whom she had a terrible crush, paid little attention to her brother’s conversation. Then Claude said something about his teacher, nasty old Mrs. Semple, that made her laugh and she turned to him to say something. The moment she looked at Claude, something terrible happened. A dark and menacing sensation gripped her. In her mind’s eye, she saw her little brother lying dead in a coffin. She began to shake uncontrollably, trembling all over, unable to stop, even after the image receded. Her mother turned from her conversation with her grandmother to look at Evangeline, who had suddenly burst into tears.
“Evangeline, what’s wrong?” her mother asked.
“Don’t let him go, maman,” she cried. “Something bad will happen. Please, maman, don’t let him.”
Her mother gave her a strange look, but her grandmother, who had always sensed something different about the girl, became uneasy.
“Perhaps it would be best if the boy stayed back,” she speculated.
Her mother, a superstitious soul, had tried to persuade Claude to stay home. But Claude, being Claude, knew how to get around maman. “I’m not sick,” he said. “Why do I have to stay home?” Evangeline watched as her mother tried to come up with a satisfactory answer. When she didn’t, Claude came out with “Well, if I’m not sick and I have to stay home, then I’ll stay home tomorrow, too.” Ultimately, maman relented, not wanting to encourage the boy’s tendency to play truant, although admonishing him to take extra care.
Evangeline turned out to be the one who stayed home that day. Plagued with a terrible headache, she could not go to school. Early in the afternoon, when the call came that Claude had perished under the wheels of a truck, her mother fainted on the spot and had to be carried to her room, where she remained for days, refusing to come out even to attend Claude’s funeral.
Her mother never got over Claude’s death, and Evangeline never forgot the brutal lesson. The ability she possessed carried with it an onerous responsibility.
And so, after her husband passed away, Evangeline had remained on in Marécage Noir, the only reason being that she ‘sensed’ she was supposed to. Something, she felt, remained as yet undone here. Nothing in the past twelve years had given her an indication that this was the case, but she remained anyway, knowing whatever it was would reveal itself in its own good time.
As she turned onto the road leading to her house, she spotted a car parked off to the side under a large oak. Her window was down and she heard the faint cry of a child. In the back seat of the parked car, a small dark-haired girl stood facing the rear window, tears streaming down her face. The man behind the wheel appeared to be asleep.
Evangeline’s radar told her to stop and take a look, so she slowed her car and brought it to a halt in front of the parked Volvo.
She walked to the driver’s window and knocked on it several times before the man behind the wheel jerked awake. “Everything all right here?” she asked. “I heard le petite bébé crying.”
The man appeared frightened. He looked all around before taking the child into the front seat with him.
Evangeline searched the child’s face for any indication that she was in trouble, but the child clung to the man and did not seem afraid, although she looked pale, and tired.
“Thank you, we’re fine. But my granddaughter and I need to stop for the night. We’ve been driving all day. Do you know of anyplace, someplace quiet, out of the way?”
The look of the man told Evangeline he was in some kind of trouble. His eyes darted around nervously as he spoke. The child was now sitting in his lap, but he kept one hand on the wheel, as if ready to drive off. Evangeline looked again at the pretty, dark-haired little girl, then back at the nicely-dressed man whose worried eyes pleaded with her.
“I’m Evangeline. Live a couple of miles from here. There’s a small town up ahead, Marécage Noir, but no lodging there. You could find someplace to stay the night back in Houma—”
“No,” he said, a little too quickly. “Not the city. Is there anyplace else?”
Evangeline looked sharply at the man. “Écoutez. I know nothing about you, but I smell trouble here. Do you run from the law?”
“No,” he responded, “no trouble. At least, not the kind you’re thinking of,” he added lamely.
Evangeline said nothing, studying him. Then she lightly placed her hand on the man’s arm, and closed her eyes, paying no attention when he asked her what she was doing. After a moment, she opened them and looked at Catherine.
“The child looks tired,” she said. “I suppose if you needed to, it would be all right for you and the baby to stay with me. Just for the night, mind. I can get some food into you both and there’s a cot for the girl. You can sleep on the sofa.”
A look of relief crossed the man’s face. “Thank you. Thank you very much. My name is Alan and this is my granddaughter, Catherine.”
Evangeline nodded, noticing he did not give his last name. “Just at the end of this road is where I live,” she told him, returning to her car.
When she was once again behind the wheel, Evangeline considered what had just been shown to her. Her purpose in remaining here was finally clear. Both the little girl and her grandfather were to be protected at all costs.
* * * *
Alan followed Evangeline’s car along the dirt road, wondering if he’d done the right thing. It wasn’t as if he had a lot of options, he reminded himself. Besides, he had a sense the woman could be trusted. At the end of the road sat a neatly-trimmed cottage, backed by towering oak trees and surrounded by a well-tended garden. Evangeline had just exited her car and waited for them to join her. The heat was sweltering as he carried Catherine up the porch steps.
“It’s cooler out here than in the house at this time of day,” she told him. “Something to drink? The child must be thirsty. Ice tea would be all right?”
Alan, who had been trying to place Evangeline’s accent, realized the woman must be of Creole descent. “Perfect, thank you.”
Catherine remained silent, her face buried against Alan’s neck.
He lowered himself into the large porch rocker and settled Catherine on his lap. They were safe for the moment, and he talked softly to her, trying to engage her in conversation, but she kept her face buried in his chest and remained unresponsive.
Soon, Evangeline came back out with a tray containing two tall glasses and a pitcher of ice tea. She had something tucked under her arm and, after she set the tray down, she held it out to Catherine.
“My maman made this doll for me when I was little, like you. Maybe you wish to play with her? Her name is Isabelle.”
Catherine said nothing, but took the little hand-made rag doll from Evangeline to study it.
“I was not expecting company,” she said to Alan. “I can offer you only beans and rice for supper.”
“I’m grateful. And thank you for the doll, that was thoughtful of you.”
Cat slipped off his lap to investigate the porch, carrying the rag doll with her.
Alan knew the woman must have been curious about them, yet she refrained from asking awkward questions, returning inside instead to start dinner.
Later,