"He's still your beautiful brother, Daddy. And I think that he could make enough progress to leave that place. I really do. When I spoke to him and told him things, I felt he really understood."

"Did you?" Daddy's eyes lit up as he raised his head again. "Oh, how I wish that were true. I'd give anything now . . . all my wealth, if that were true."

"It is, Daddy. You must go to him more often. Maybe you should get him better treatment, find another doctor, another place," I suggested. "They don't seem to be doing anything more than making him comfortable and taking your money," I said bitterly.

"Yes. Maybe." He paused and looked at me and smiled. "You are a very lovely young lady, Ruby. If I was to believe in any forgiveness, it would be that you were sent here to me as an indication of that. I don't deserve you."

"I was almost shut away, too, Daddy," I said, returning to my original theme.

"Yes," he said. "Tell me more about that."

I described how Daphne had tricked me into accompanying her to the institution and all that had followed after-ward. He listened intently, growing more and more upset.

"You've got to get hold of yourself, Daddy," I said. "She just told me she might have you committed, too. Don't let her do these things to you and to me and even to Gisselle."

"Yes," he said. "You're right. I've wallowed in self-pity too long and let things get out of hand."

"We've got to end all the lying, Daddy. We've got to cast the lies off like too much weight on a boat or a canoe. The lies are sinking us," I told him. He nodded. I stood up.

"Gisselle has to know the truth, Daddy, the truth about our birth. Daphne shouldn't be afraid of the truth either. Let her be our mother because of her actions and not because of a mountain of lies."

Daddy sighed.

"You're right." He rose, brushed back his hair, and straightened his tie, tightening the knot. Then he stuffed his shirt into his pants neatly. "I'm going down to speak with Daphne. She won't do anything like this to you again, Ruby. I promise."

"And I'll go in to see Gisselle and tell her the truth, but she won't believe me, Daddy. You'll have to come up and speak with her, too," I told him. He nodded.

"I will." He kissed me and held me for a moment. "Gabrielle would be so proud of you, so proud."

He straightened up, pulled back his shoulders, and left. I gazed at Uncle Jean's photographs for a moment and then I went to tell my sister who her mother really was.

"Where have you been?" Gisselle demanded. "Mother's been home for hours and hours. I kept asking for you and they kept telling me you weren't here. Then Mother came by and told me you ran away. I knew you wouldn't stay away long," she added confidently. "Where would you go, back to the bayou and live with those dirty swamp people?"

Because I didn't say anything immediately, her smile of self-satisfaction evaporated.

"Why are you standing there like that? Where were you?" she wailed. "I needed you. I can't stand that nurse anymore."

"Mother lied to you, Gisselle," I said calmly.

"Lied?"

I walked over to her bed and sat on it to face her in her wheelchair.

"I didn't run away," I said. "Don't you remember? We were going to the institution to see Uncle Jean, only—"

"Only what?"

"She had other intentions. She brought me there to leave me there as a patient," I said. "I was tricked and locked up like some mentally disturbed person."

"You were?" Her eyes widened.

"A nice young man helped me escape. I've already told Daddy what she did."

Gisselle shook her head in disbelief.

"I can't believe she would do such a thing."

"I can," I replied quickly. "Because she's not really our mother."

"What?" Gisselle started to smile, but I stopped her and seized her full attention when I reached out to take her hand into mine.

"You and I were born in the bayou, Gisselle. Years ago, Daddy would go there with our grandfather Dumas to hunt. He saw and fell in love with our real mother, Gabrielle Landry, and he made her pregnant. Grandpère Dumas wanted a grandchild, and Daphne couldn't have any, so he made a bargain with our other grandfather, Grandpère Jack, to buy the child. Only, there were two of us. Grandmère Catherine kept me a secret and Grandpère Jack gave you to the Dumas family."

Gisselle said nothing for a moment and then pulled her hand from mine.

"You are crazy," she said, "if you think I’ll ever believe such a story."

"It's true," I said calmly. "The story of the kidnapping was invented after I turned up here to keep people believing Daphne was our real mother."

Gisselle wheeled herself back, shaking her head. "I'm not a Cajun, too. I'm not," she declared.

"Cajun, Creole, rich, poor, that's not important, Gisselle. The truth is important. It's time to face it and go on," I said dryly. I was very tired now, the heavy weight of one of the most emotional and difficult days of my life finally settling over my shoulders. "I never met our mother because she died right after we were born, but from everything Grandmère Catherine told me about her and from what Daddy told me, I know we would have loved her dearly. She was very beautiful."

Gisselle shook her head, but my quiet revelation had begun to sink in and her lips trembled, too. I saw her eyes begin to cloud.

"Wait," I said, and opened our adjoining door. I went to the nightstand and found Mother's picture and brought it to her. "Her name was Gabrielle," I said, showing the picture to Gisselle. She glanced at it quickly and then turned away.

"I don't want to look at some Cajun woman you say is our mother."

"She is. And what's more . . . she had another child . . . we have a half brother . . . Paul."

"You're crazy. You ARE crazy. You do belong in the institution. I want Daddy. I want Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" she screamed.

Mrs. Warren came running from her room.

"What's going on now?" she demanded.

"I want my father. Get my father."

"I'm not a maid around here.

"GET HIM!" Gisselle cried. Her face turned as red as a beet as she struggled to shout with all her might. Mrs. Warren looked at me.

"I'll get him," I said, and left Gisselle with her nurse cajoling her to calm down.

Daddy and Daphne were down in the parlor. Daphne was sitting on the sofa, looking surprisingly subdued. Daddy stood in front of her, his hands on his hips, looking much stronger. I gazed from him to Daphne, who shifted her eyes from me guiltily.

"I told Gisselle the truth," I said.

"Are you satisfied now?" Daphne fired at Daddy. "I warned you she would eventually destroy the tender fabric that held this family together. I warned you."

"I wanted her to tell Gisselle," he said.

"What?"

"It's time we all faced the truth, no matter how painful, Daphne. Ruby is right. We can't go on living in a world of lies. What you did to her was bad. But what I did to her was even worse. I should never have made her lie, too."

"That's easy for you to say, Pierre," Daphne retorted, her lips trembling and her eyes unexpectedly tearing. "In this society, you will be forgiven for your indiscretion. It's almost expected for you to have an affair, but what about me? How am I to face society now?" she moaned. She was crying. I never thought I'd see tears emerge from those stone cold eyes, but she was feeling so sorry for herself, she couldn't prevent it.

In a way, despite all she had done to me, I felt sorry for her, too. Her world, a world built on falsehoods, on deceits, and propped up with blocks and blocks of fabrications was crumbling right before her eyes and she couldn't stop it.

"We all have a lot of mending to do, Daphne. I, especially, have to find the strength to repair the damage I've done to people I love."

"Yes, you do," she wailed.

He nodded. "But so do you. You know, you're not totally innocent in all this?'

She looked up at him sharply.

"We have to find ways to forgive each other if we're to go on," he said.

He pulled back his shoulders.

"I'd better go up to Gisselle," he said. "And then afterward, I'd better go see my brother. I'll go to him as many times as I have to until I've gotten him to forgive me and to start his real recovery."

Daphne looked away. Daddy smiled at me and then left to go up to my sister to confirm and confess the truth.

For a long moment I just stood there looking at my stepmother. Finally, she turned toward me slowly, her eyes no longer clouded with tears, her lips no longer trembling.

"You haven't destroyed me," she said firmly. "Don't think you have."

"I don't want to destroy you, Daphne. I just want you to stop trying to destroy me. I can't say I forgive you for the dreadful thing you tried to do to me, but I'm willing to start anew and try to get along with you. If for no other reason than to make my father happy," I said.

"And maybe someday," I added, although it seemed impossible to me at the moment, "I'll call you Mother and be able to mean it."

She turned back to me, her eyes narrow, her face taut. "You've charmed everyone you've met. Would you try to charm me, even after today?"

"That's really up to you, isn't it . . . Mother?" I said, and turned away to leave her pondering the future of the Dumas.

Epilogue

Truth, like a foundation in the bayou, has to be driven deeply to take hold, especially in a world where lies could storm in and wash away the paper-thin walls of illusion any time. Grandniere Catherine used to say the strongest trees are the ones whose roots go the deepest. "Nature has a way of finding out which ones don't go deep enough and they get washed away in the floods and the winds. But that ain't all bad because it leaves us with a world in which we can feel more secure, a world on which we can depend. Drive your roots deep, child. Drive your roots deep."