"I'm telling you the truth. He doesn't live here," I said as sincerely as I could, but they shook their heads and looked at me with pity in their eyes.

"We just want you to know, Ruby, that when it comes time to do what's right, we'll be with you," Mrs. Thirbodeaux said. "Do you want a doctor or a traiteur? There is a traiteur living just outside Morgan City who will come to see you."

The thought of going to some other traiteur besides Grandmère Catherine bothered me.

"I'll see the doctor," I told them.

"The bills should be paid by you know who," Mrs. Livaudis commented, shifting her eyes toward the others, who all nodded in firm agreement.

"I'll be all right," I promised them.

They left, convinced that what they believed was the truth. Paul had been right, of course. He knew our people better than I did. But this was my burden now, something I would have to live with and deal with on my own. Of course, I thought about Beau and wondered what, if anything, he had heard about me.

As if she heard my thoughts, Gisselle sent me a letter through Paul.

"This came this afternoon," he said, bringing the letter over. I was in the kitchen preparing a shrimp gumbo. I wiped my hands and sat down.

"My sister wrote to me?" I smiled with surprise and opened the envelope. Paul stood in the doorway, watching me read.

Dear Ruby,

Bet you never dreamed you'd receive a letter from me. The longest thing I ever wrote was that dumb English report on the old English poets, and even that was half written for me by Vicki.

Anyway, I found Paul's old letters in your closet when Daphne told me to go into your room and take anything I wanted before she gave the rest away to the needy. She had Martha Wood strip down your room and shut it up. She said as far as she was concerned, you never existed. Of course, she still has the problem of the will to face. I overheard her and Bruce talking about it one night and he told her to get you out of the will. It would take a lot of legal maneuvering and might upset their own apple cart, so for the time being, you're still a Dumas.

I know you're probably wondering why I'm writing from New Orleans. Well, guess what? Daphne gave in and let me come home and return to school here. Know why? Word of your pregnancy spread around the school. I wonder how? Anyway, it became disgraceful and Daphne couldn't stand that, especially when I started calling her night and day to tell her what the girls were saying, how the teachers were looking at me, what Mrs. Ironwood thought. So she gave in and let me come home, where your secret is well kept.

Daphne's told everyone you just ran off to the bayou to live with your Cajuns because you missed them so much. Of course, people wonder about Beau.

"I bet you're wondering about him, huh?" she wrote at the bottom of the page, making it seem as if she wouldn't tell me anymore.

Just like Gisselle, I thought, teasing me even in a letter. I turned the paper over and found the rest.

Beau is still in France, where he is doing very well. Monsieur and Madame Andreas are telling everyone about his accomplishments and how he will be going to college there too. And it seems he is seeing a very wealthy French girl, someone whose family lineage goes back to Louis Napoleon.

I got a letter from him last month in which he begged me to tell him anything at all about you. I just wrote today and told him I don't know where you are. I told him I'm trying to find you by writing to one of our Cajun relatives, but I heard you might have gotten married in one of those Cajun marriage ceremonies on a raft in the swamp with snakes and spiders at your feet.

Oh, I forgot. Before I left Greenwood, I had a visitor at the dorm. I bet you know who: Louis. He was very nice and very handsome. He was heart-broken to hear you had a baby coming and you had run off to live in the swamps with your Cajuns. He had a sheet of music he had hoped to send you, so I promised him if I ever find out where he should mail it, I would let him know.

But promises are made to be broken, aren't they?

Just joking. I don't know if I will ever hear from you again or if this letter will get to you. I hope it does and I hope you write back. It's sort of nice to have a notorious sister. I'm having loads of fun making up different stories about you.

Why didn't you just do what Daphne wanted and get rid of the baby? Look at what you gave up.

Your darling twin sister,

Gisselle

"Bad news?' Paul asked when I lay down the letter and sat back. Tears filled my eyes, but I smiled.

"You know how my sister is always trying to hurt me," I said through my tears.

"Ruby . . ."

"She makes things up; she just sits around and thinks, What would hurt Ruby the most? And then she writes it in the letter. That's all. That's what she's doing. That's all."

My tears flowed faster. Paul rushed to me and embraced me.

"Oh Ruby, my Ruby, don't cry. Please."

"It's all right," I said, catching my breath. "I'll be all right."

"She wrote something about him, didn't she?" Paul asked perceptively. I nodded. "It may not be a lie, Ruby."

"I know."

"I'm still here for you."

I looked up at him and saw that his face was full of love and sympathy for me. I probably wouldn't ever find anyone as devoted, but I couldn't agree to the arrangement he was proposing. It wouldn't be fair to him.

"I'll be fine. Thanks, Paul," I said, wiping away my tears. "A young woman like you, alone here and pregnant," he muttered. "It worries me."

"You know everything's been fine," I said. He had taken me to see the doctor twice, which only added to the rumor that my child was his. In our small community, it didn't take long for people to find out the news, but he didn't care, even after I had told him what Grandmère Catherine's friends believed.

During the last half of my seventh month and the first half of my eighth, Paul was at my house every day, sometimes appearing more than once. It wasn't really until the eighth month that I started to grow real big and carry low. I never complained to him, but a couple of mornings he came upon me without my realizing he was present and he caught me moaning and groaning, my hands on my lower back. By this time I felt like a- duck, because I waddled when I walked.

When the doctor told me he couldn't be exactly sure when I would give birth but that it would be sometime within the next week or so, Paul decided he would spend every night with me. I could always reach him or someone else during the day, but he was afraid of what could happen at night.

Early one afternoon at the beginning of my ninth month, Paul arrived, his face flushed with excitement.

"Everyone's saying we're going to be hit with a hurricane," he declared. "I want you to come to my house."

"Oh no, Paul. I can't do that."

"It's not safe here," he declared. "Look at the sky." He pointed to the dull red sunset caused by a thin haze of clouds. "You can practically smell it," he added. The air had become hot and sticky, and the little breeze we had had all day had all but died.

But I couldn't go to his house and be with his family. I was too ashamed and afraid of his father's and his mother's eyes.

Surely they resented me for returning and creating all these rumors.

"I'll be all right here," I said. "We've been here for storms before."

"You're as stubborn as your Grandpère," Paul said. He was angry with me, but I wouldn't budge. Instead, I went in and prepared some dinner for us. Paul went into his car to listen to the radio. The weathermen were making dire predictions. He came into the house and started to button down whatever he could. I set out two bowls of gumbo, but the moment we sat down, the wind began to howl something fierce. Paul looked out the rear of the house toward the canals and groaned. A dark storm cloud had appeared quickly, and the torrential rains could be seen approaching.

"Here she comes," he announced. After what seemed like only seconds later, the rain and the wind hit. Water poured down the roof and found every crack in the building. The wind lashed at the loose boards. We heard things lifted and thrown, some of them bashing against the house, slamming so hard i tto the walls we thought they would come clear through. I screamed and retreated to the living room, where I cowered on the sofa. Paul rushed about, closing up and tying down whatever openings he could, but the wind threaded itself right through the house, blowing things off shelves and counters and even turning over a chair. I thought the tin roof would lift away and in moments we would be exposed to the jaws of this raging storm.

"We should have left!" Paul cried. I was sobbing and holding myself. Paul gave up trying to tie anything down and came over to embrace me. We sat beside each other, holding each other and listening to the howling, thundering wind tear trees from their roots.

Suddenly, just as quickly as it had started, the storm stopped. A deadly calm fell over the bayou. The darkness lifted. I caught my breath and Paul got up to survey the damage. We both gazed out the window and shook our heads in shock at the sight of the trees that had been split. The world looked topsy-turvy.

And then Paul's eyes widened when the little patch of blue above us started to disappear.

"It was the eye of the storm," he declared. "Back, back . . ."

The tail of the storm reached us, ripping and howling like an angry giant creature. This time the house shook, walls cracked, and windows came splintering out, their shards of glass flying everywhere.