Pamela Morsi (16 page)

"It's pretty high up here," Armand said.

The little boy looked around, getting his
bearings. "I like it," he said finally. "I like climbing trees and
this is the biggest tree I have ever climbed."

Armand grinned at him and kissed the side of
his brow.

"Being in the tree can be very wonderful.
Look how far downstream you can see."

Gaston craned his neck.

"How far away do you think that is off
there?"

The little boy shook his head in wonder.

"Perhaps we can see as far as La Pointe or
Vermilionville. Do you think we can see as far as the bay?"

The boy squinted off into the distance. "I
don't know," he admitted.

Armand smiled at him, pleased. "Shall I show
you how to use the pole?" he asked.

Gaston nodded.

He had the boy grasp the pole just below
Armand's hands. "Just ease it out," he said. "Get it just into the
center of the swag and then gently pull back."

The two managed to hook a good-sized piece.
Carefully they brought it around until it hung high over the
pirogue. Then with a twist of the wrist, it fell into the towering
heap that already heavily loaded the boat.

"I did it!" Gaston cheered himself
loudly.

Both adults made the proper
congratulations.

"I can gather moss just like you and Poppa,"
he declared proudly.

"My father, your grandpere, used to gather
moss in this bayou. Maybe from this very tree," Armand told
him.

"Truly?"

Armand nodded. "And someday you and Pierre
will gather moss here, too, just like we do today."

"Me and Pierre?" Gaston was skeptical.
"Pierre's just a baby."

"But he will grow up just like you will,"
Armand said. "And you two will be farmers like your father and I.
And you will do things together and help each other because you are
brothers. That is what brothers do. And the difference in age won't
seem like anything important at all."

Gaston accepted that idea thoughtfully. "I'll
be the big brother, like Poppa. So I will stand in the boat to get
the ones hanging low."

Armand shrugged. "Maybe so. But you can never
tell who will grow to be biggest."

"Oh I will," Gaston assured him. "I want to
be tall like my poppa."

The two looked down at Jean Baptiste, who was
smiling proudly.

"It's a good thing to be a big man and
strong," Gaston said.

"It's a good thing to be happy with whoever
you are," Armand told him.

"Uncle Armand, are you happy being
small?"

Armand looked at the boy for a long minute
and then leaned closer as if to put a secret in his ear.

"I get to climb the trees," he whispered.

The pirogue was low in the water as the
Sonniers made their way home. With the weight of the moss it took
both of them to pole the huge craft. Armand took the fore and Jean
Baptiste the aft. They moved in unison aiding the pirogue on its
downstream journey and keeping it within the deepest channel where
it would not snag up on some unseen debris.

Young Gaston slept soundly, peacefully atop
the heap, even though it was only noon. They had risen at dawn to
complete their task before the heat of the day.

"How is Laron?" Jean Baptiste asked, breaking
the contemplative silence.

Armand sighed heavily. "I don't really
know."

"His family was very surprised and upset
about his running off to Bayou Blonde."

"The German widow has bid him pass no more
time with her," Armand said. "He is taking it very hard."

Jean Baptiste shook his head.

"It is for the best though," Armand
continued. "She was why he was so hesitant to wed. Now he can go
ahead, begin his life, have his family as he's always planned."

"Yes, he should get on with his life. He will
forget the German soon enough. A beautiful young woman like Aida
Gaudet could make any man forget the past," Jean Baptiste said
appreciatively. "Even a past with one that he thought he
loved."

Something as cold as fear and as hard as
stone settled in Armand's chest.

"So have they pushed up the wedding date?"
Jean Baptiste asked.

"Not yet. Laron is not yet reconciled."

"What do you mean he's not yet
reconciled?"

"He still thinks to have the widow” Armand
answered.

"How can he do that? She is widow in name
only."

Armand sighed heavily. "He cannot. He doesn't
accept it, but of course he will. He will have to."

Jean Baptiste nodded.

The last few days with Laron had been
difficult ones. His friend was just becoming impervious to reason.
He was going to have Helga Shotz and no one else.

Armand's own guilt about this multiplied
innumerably. It was he himself who had first suggested this idea,
after all. It was he who had said that perhaps Laron could be happy
merely living with the woman that he truly wanted. He had spoken
from his own heart, selfishly. Now he feared to reap the harvest of
those careless words.

Having heard the whole story, he found that
he now greatly admired Madame Shotz. With her little children to
raise, the German widow was not about to openly live in sin with
Laron, reviled by the community, an embarrassment to the Boudreau
family. And now that her oldest had come to an age of
understanding, she was not even willing to continue the
clandestine relationship of the past.

Laron must see that he could not have her.
And he must turn once again to Aida Gaudet. Armand had deliberately
sought her out on several occasions in

the last couple of weeks. He had spoken at
length about Laron's good qualities and what a fine husband he
would make for her.

She remained vaguely noncommittal. And the
gossip about Laron's activities in Bayou Blonde had not helped, he
was certain.

"You sound as if you have been chosen as his
protégé,'' Aida told him, speaking of the tradition of a man other
than the would-be groom proposing to the bride.

"Laron is my dearest friend," Armand said. "I
want him to be happy."

He only hoped that the words he spoke were
the truth.

The day before he'd gone by to check on Orva
Landry, and the old woman had shaken her head and pointed her
finger at him accusingly.

"You stir and stir," she told him. "But you
can't make a chicken from soup. Just let the pot boil and accept
destiny as it comes."

Armand glanced behind him at his nephew,
asleep on the moss pile, and his brother, steady at the pole.

Armand knew from his own experience what it
was for two brothers to grow up without a father. Would Gaston and
Pierre share that fate? He thought to himself that some destinies
must be avoided in any way possible.

Swallowing his anxiety, he purposely
concentrated on the peace and beauty that surrounded him. There was
almost no breeze upon the water. The occasional plop of a fish or
splash of a turtle were the only sounds except for the gentle wake
of their own pirogue. The morning had been cool, almost chill.

And there was a bite to the air and a
fragrance in it that said winter was close.

All up and down the banks the verdant greens
of summer grass and trees were giving way to the muted browns, pale
yellows, and occasional vibrant splash of fall orange.

Winter was coming and winter was a good time
for Acadians. There was little work and much time spent in frolic
and family gatherings.

Old man Breaux had again spoken to Armand of
his "tiny little niece" who was coming for an after-Christmas
visit. Armand wanted to feel a sense of anticipation for his
future, but the present worries of the people that he loved too
much overwhelmed him.

Up ahead the sound of splashing water caught
his attention. It was too loud to be turtles or gators. Was someone
swimming? As they rounded a curve in the river, they spotted a
woman doing laundry.

A long rough-hewn plank extended from the
bank out into the river where the woman sat straddled, her bare
legs in the gray water. The mid-morning sun gleamed down, showing
her in relief against the dark shaded woods behind her. With the
square wooden battoir she pounded the clothes on the end of the
plank mercilessly. The strong, rhythmic motions were born of much
practice and competence, the task somehow passionate and feminine
in its aspect.

"Bonjour, Madame!" Armand hailed her,
politely not wishing to come up on her unexpectedly.

It was only when she turned to look in his
direction that Armand realized the woman was Aida Gaudet. He was
momentarily taken aback. He should have realized; certainly this
was very near her father's home. And of course he knew that
Mademoiselle Gaudet would have laundry to do for herself and her
father, just as any other woman would. But somehow he did not
imagine her, had never imagined her, as she was now. Garbed in a
loose-fitting, near-threadbare work dress and with a gardesoleil
sun-bonnet so functional and unattractive it was only describable
as ugly, she labored hardily at such a mundane task.

"Messieurs Sonnier!" she called out gaily, as
if she were at a party rather than scrubbing dirty clothes on the
end of a plank. "How are you?"

Armand waved back silently and would have
passed right by, but realized as the pirogue began to slow that
Jean Baptiste was steering them closer. He answered her
greeting.

"Well mamselle, and you?"

With an ease that belied the weight and
clumsiness of the cargo, they pulled to a stop only a few feet from
the end of the young woman's wash plank.

"How lovely you look this afternoon," Jean
Baptiste said to her. "With the sun shining down on you, you are
beautiful as a painting in church."

Armand had thought the same thing, but he was
disturbed to hear Jean Baptiste say it.

Aida giggled as if he told a great joke.

"Thank you, monsieur," she said with
exaggerated formality. "What you see before you is the very latest
in laundering fashion. All the best clothes must be washed, so
alas, the worst must be worn."

The two laughed together easily. Too easily,
Armand thought. It was no problem for Aida Gaudet to joke about her
appearance, he realized. Even clad

in such clothes, she was inordinately
desirable. Her rolled-up sleeves allowed a man to feast his eyes
upon the smooth, sun-pinked skin of her arms, prettily rounded with
not a hint of skinniness, and the delicate femininity of her narrow
wrists, small enough for a man to hold both in his own.

It was upon her arms and wrists that Armand
concentrated his attention because he was much too aware of her
bosom, heavily spattered with water, the thin cottonade clinging to
her abundant curves with unrelenting accuracy, and of the exposed
flesh of her naked legs, only partially hidden in the murky water
of the Vermilion River.

Of course it was impossible for a woman to
wash clothes without rolling up her sleeves and tying up her skirt
and getting wet. But did a woman converse with men in such
attire?

To be fair Armand did recall several times
when he conversed with Felicite as she did the wash. And of course
he'd watched Orva Landry do hers. But that was not at all the same.
Felicite was his sister-in-law and Orva Landry an old woman. He had
spoken briefly once with Madame Hebert in much the same position
that Aida was at this moment. But that had not seemed at all . . .
at all the way that this seemed.

They should move away. They should not speak
with her any longer.

Jean Baptiste kept talking. He kept smiling
at her.

She kept giggling.

"Most women do their wash on Wednesday,"
Armand pointed out.

Aida's cheeks brightened with embarrassment.
"As do I, too," she admitted. "But yesterday, well, I . . . I just
forgot that yesterday was Wednesday and

then Thursday was upon us and . . . and so I
have to do Wednesday's laundry on Thursday."

As Armand listened to her explanation, it was
all he could do not to shake his head in disbelief. The woman was
completely devoid of any sense of reality. She must spend her life
in a haze, unaware of anyone else.

She did, however, have other qualities.
Unerringly Armand's eyes were drawn to her bare knees just breaking
the surface of the water. They were spread apart by the width of
the plank. She was completely covered by the bunched fabric of her
skirt. There was nothing inherently immodest in her pose. Still
Armand's throat went extremely dry and his body tense. Her knees
were spread on either side of the plank. Parting Aida's knees,
spreading them apart, wide . . . The idea sizzled through him like
grease on hot coals.

He jerked his hat off his head and held it in
front of him, ostensibly to run a hand through his hair.

Aida looked at him, smiling shyly, as if
nothing was amiss.

"How is it going with Madame Sonnier?" she
asked Jean Baptiste. "Her time draws near, I think."

"She is well," he answered. "Her limbs
trouble her somewhat, they are badly swollen it seems. Much more so
than any of the other times."

Felicite's limbs? Armand nearly scoffed
aloud. Anger mixed unevenly into the heat of his arousal. His
brother was thinking about limbs all right, but not swollen ones.
He was looking at Aida Gaudet with her legs astraddle that plank
and he was thinking the same thing that Armand was. Armand was sure
of that. But unlike Jean Baptiste, Armand did not have a wife at
home who loved him and cared for him. Jean Baptiste had no right to
allow his mind to stray in such a direction.

And she, since the most handsome unattached
man was ignoring her, was encouraging the most handsome attached
man.

"Perhaps she should try some catmint tea,"
Aida suggested.

"Catmint tea?"

"It's said to help with swelling."

Jean Baptiste offered a polite thank you. "I
shall ask Madame Landry for the herb next time I see her."