"Pierre would never do anything to hurt me," she insisted. "Soon, he was coming and not even pretending his purpose was to hire Grandpère Jack to guide him on a hunting trip. He and Gabrielle would pack a lunch and go off in the pirogue, deep into the swamp to places only Gabrielle knew."

Grandmère paused in her tale and stared down at her hands again for a long moment. When she looked up again, her eyes were full of pain.

"This time Gabrielle didn't tell me she was pregnant. She didn't have to. I saw it in her face and soon saw it in her stomach. When I confronted her about it, she simply smiled and said she wanted Pierre's baby, a child she would bring up in the bayou to love the swamp world as much as she did. She made me promise that no matter what happened, I would make sure her child lived here and learned to love the things she loved. God forgive me, I finally gave in and made such a promise, even though it broke my heart to see her with child and to know what it would do to her reputation among our own people.

"We tried to cover up what had happened by telling the story about the stranger at the fais dodo. Some people accepted it, but most didn't care. It was just another reason why they should look down on the Landrys. Even my best friends smiled when they faced me, but whispered behind my back. Many a family I had helped with my healing, contributed to the gossip."

Grandmère took a deep breath before she continued, seeming to draw the strength she needed out of the air.

"Unbeknownst to me, your Grandpère and Pierre's father had met to discuss the impending birth. Your Grandpère had already had experience selling one of Gabrielle's illegitimate children. His gambling sickness hadn't abated one bit; he still lost every piece of spare change he possessed and then some. He was in debt everywhere.

"A proposal was made some time during the last month and a half of Gabrielle's pregnancy. Charles Dumas offered fifteen thousand dollars for Pierre's child. Grandpère agreed, of course. Back in New Orleans, they were already concocting the fabrications to make it appear the child was really Pierre's wife's. Grandpère Jack told Gabrielle and it broke her heart. I was furious with him, but the worst was yet to come."

She bit down on her lower lip. Her eyes were glazed with tears, tears I was sure were burning under her eyelids, but she wanted desperately to get all of the story told before she collapsed in sorrow. I got up quickly and got her a glass of water.

"Thank you, honey," she said. She drank some and then nodded. "I'm all right." I sat down again, my eyes, my ears, my very soul fixed on her and her every word.

"Poor Gabrielle began to wilt with sorrow. She felt betrayed, but not so much by Grandpère Jack. She had always accepted his bad qualities and weaknesses the same way she accepted some of the uglier and crueler things in nature. For Gabrielle, Grandpère Jack's flaws were just the way things were, the way they were designed to be.

"But Pierre's willingness to go along with the bargain, to do what his father wanted was different. They had made secret promises to each other about the soon-to-be-born child. Pierre was going to send money to help care for the baby. He was going to visit more often. He even said he wanted the child to be brought up in the bayou where he or she would always be part of Gabrielle and her world, a world Pierre professed to love more than his own now that he had met and fallen in love with Gabrielle.

"She was so heartbroken when Grandpère Jack came to her and told her the bargain and how all the parties had agreed, that she did not put up any resistance. Instead, she spent long hours sitting in the shadows of the cypress and sycamore trees gazing out at the swamp as if the world she loved had somehow conspired to betray her as well. She had believed in its magic, worshipped its beauty and she had believed that Pierre had been won over by it as well. Now, she knew there were stronger, harder, crueler truths, the worst one being that Pierre's loyalty to his own world and his own family carried more weight with him than the promises he had made to her.

"She didn't eat well, no matter how I nagged and cajoled. I whipped up whatever herbal drinks I could to substitute for what she was missing and provide the nourishment her body needed, but she either avoided them or her depression overcame whatever value they had. Instead of blossoming in the last weeks of her pregnancy, she grew more sickly. Dark shadows formed around her eyes. She had little energy, became listless and slept most of the day away.

"I saw how big she had gotten, of course, and I knew why, but I never spoke a word of it to Grandpère or to Gabrielle. I was afraid the moment Grandpère knew, he would run out and make a second deal."

"Knew why?" I asked. "What?"

"That Gabrielle was about to give birth to twins."

For a moment my thumping heart stopped. The realization of what she had said thundered through my mind.

"Twins? I have a twin sister?" The possibility had never even occurred to me, even after I had seen how much I resembled the little girl in the picture with Pierre Dumas.

"Yes. She was the baby, the first to be born and the one I surrendered to Grandpère that night. I shall never forget that night," she said. "Grandpère had informed the Dumas family that Gabrielle was in labor. They drove here in their limousine and waited out there in the night. They had brought along a nurse, but I wouldn't permit her to enter my house. I could see the old man's expensive cigar burning in the limousine window as they all waited impatiently.

"As soon as your sister was born, I cleaned and brought her out to Grandpère, who thought I was being very cooperative. He rushed out with the child and collected his blood money. When he returned to the house, I had you cleaned and wrapped and in your weakened mother's arms.

"As soon as he set eyes on you, Grandpère Jack ranted and raved. Why hadn't I told him what to expect? Didn't I realize that I had thrown away another fifteen thousand dollars!

"He decided there was still time and actually went to take you from Gabrielle and run after the limousine. I struck him squarely on the forehead with a frying pan I had kept at my side just for that purpose and I knocked him unconscious. By the time he awoke, I had packed all of his things in two sacks. Then I chased him from the house, threatening to tell the world what he had done if he didn't leave us be. I threw out all his things and he took them and went to live in his trapper's shack. He's been there ever since," she said, "and good riddance to him."

"What happened to my mother?" I asked softly, so softly, I wasn't sure I had spoken.

Finally, Grandmère's tears escaped. They streamed down her cheeks freely, zigzagging to her chin.

"The double birthing, in her weakened state, was too much for her, but before she closed her eyes for the last time, she looked down at you and smiled. I made my promises quickly to her. I would keep you here in the bayou with me. You would grow up much like she had. You would know our world and our lives and some day, when the time was right, you would be told all that I have told you now.

"Gabrielle's last words to me were 'Thank you, ma mere, ma belle mere.'"

Grandmère's head dropped as her shoulders shuddered. I got up quickly and went to embrace her, crying with her for a mother I had never seen, never touched, never heard speak my name. What did I know of her? A snip of a ribbon she had worn in her dark red hair, some of her clothes, the few old faded pictures? To never know the sound of her voice, or the feel of her bosom when she embraced me and comforted me, to never bury my face in her hair and feel her lips on my baby cheeks, to never hear that wonderful, innocent laughter Grandmère had described, to never dream, like so many other girls I knew, that I would be as beautiful as my mother—this was the agony left to me.

How was I now to love, even like the man who was my real father but who had betrayed my mother's trust and love and broke her heart so badly she could only pine away?

Grandmère Catherine wiped away her tears and sat back, smiling at me.

"Can you forgive me for keeping all this a secret until now, Ruby?" she asked.

"Yes, Grandmère. I know you did it out of love for me, to protect me. Did my real father ever learn what had happened to my mother and did he ever learn about me?"

"No," Grandmère said, shaking her head. "That is one reason why I have encouraged you in your artwork, and why I wanted you to have your work shown in galleries in New Orleans. I have been hoping that someday, Pierre Dumas might learn of a Ruby Landry and wonder.

"It has brought me great pain and troubled my conscience that you have never met your father and your sister. Now, I feel in my heart that you should and will soon do so. If anything should happen to me, Ruby, you must promise, you must swear here and now, that you will go to Pierre Dumas and tell him who you are."

"Nothing will happen to you, Grandmère," I insisted.

"Nevertheless, promise me, Ruby. I don't want you to stay here and live with that . . . that scoundrel. Promise," she demanded.

"I promise, Grandmère. Now stop this talk. You're tired; you need to rest. Tomorrow, you will be as good as new," I told her.

She smiled up at me and stroked my hair.

"My beautiful Ruby, my little Gabrielle. You're all your mother dreamed you would be," she said. I kissed her cheek and helped her to her feet.

Never did Grandmère Catherine look older going up to her bedroom. I followed to be sure she was all right and I helped her get into bed. Then, as she had done for me so many, many times before, I brought the blanket to her chin and knelt down to kiss her good night.