That evening Mama prepared one of my favorite meals: her crawfish etouffée. She kept busy to keep from worrying and made some lace cookies. Daddy had gone to town to shop for some of the things he was planning to buy with the money. He returned with a box of chocolates and a bottle of French toilet water for Mama. It had been a while since I had seen him so buoyant and happy. He cleaned himself up for dinner and wore his best shirt and pants. As we ate, he rattled on and on about things we should do in the house.

"What'cha say we buy a new stove, Catherine?"

"The one I have is fine, Jack."

"Well, that ain't the point. I was thinking we would get one of them new radios and maybe I'll get you one of them Mixmasters so you don't have to stand over the bowl and churn and churn all day, how's that? And what about one of them whatchamacallits that suck dirt up?"

"You need electricity for all those things, Jack," Mama reminded him dryly.

"Well, we'll get the electricity now. I got the money coming, don't I?"

"Don't spend it all in one day, Jack," Mama warned.

"Oh, I know that. I'm giving you a stash, but I'll need some money to invest. Can't live off five thousand forever, you know," he said as if he were already a big businessman. "Maybe instead of a truck and tools, I'll see about getting me my own shrimp boat with a down payment or—"

"Stop it," Mama said. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

"What? What I do?"

She got up from the table and ran out the front door. "What I do?" Daddy asked me, his arms out.

"It's all right, Daddy. Let me talk to her."

I followed her. She was sitting in her rocker, staring at the darkness.

"Mama."

"I can't abide him sitting there gloating over all the things he's going to do with that money, Gabrielle. I'm sorry. It's tainted money, no matter what," she insisted.

"I know, Mama. But it's not the money that matters so much. It's having a good place for the baby and keeping the shame from our door. Gladys Tate is right: Even though it's not my fault, people will think bad things about me, and what good man will want to know me?"

"She said that?"

"Yes, Mama."

"She really wants this baby, don't she?"

"It certainly seemed that way, Mama."

Mama sighed deeply and then held out her arms. I knelt beside her and buried my face against her bosom the way I used to when I was just a little girl and she held me close and rocked a bit. Then she kissed the top of my head.

"All right," she said. "I'll be all right. Just tell him to stuff his mouth with a pound of hemp."

I laughed and hugged her again. Mama was my best friend. There would be no one like her in the world for me, ever. It was knowledge that made me happy, but sad too, for I knew I would lose her someday and have to face mornings and days, nights and the stars, without her wisdom and comfort, her love and her smiles. It would be like a cloud forever and ever blocking the sun.

We returned and finished our meal. Daddy had sense enough to be quiet and went out back to smoke his corncob pipe and muse about his newfound wealth. After we cleaned the kitchen and dishes, Mama and I went back to the galerie and talked. She told me what it had been like when she was pregnant and how my birth went. She told me about the two babies her mother had lost, one in a miscarriage and one in a silent birth. I had never known it.

Just about eleven-thirty, Daddy appeared to tell me it was near the time.

"How's this going to work?" Mama asked.

"I just drive her up there and she goes into the house herself, right, Gabrielle?"

"That's right, Mama."

"You see that she goes in safely, Jack."

"Of course I will," he snapped. "I don't care how rich them folks are. They ain't going to do nothing to make Jack Landry upset," he threatened.

"It's not Jack Landry I'm worrying over," Mama retorted.

"I'll go get my things, Daddy," I said, and hurried upstairs. I stood in my room for a while and gazed around. It wasn't a big room, but it was cozy and warm and the place where I had suffered through my childhood illness, cried my tears of frustration, dreamed my fantasies, and had some wonderful conversations with Mama at night. It was where she had sung her lullabies to me and where she had tucked me in and made me feel safe. Tonight would be the first night of my life that I would sleep someplace else. I choked back my tears, for fear I would upset Mama more than she already was upset. Then I said a silent prayer for her and for Daddy and for me and left my room quickly, not looking back.

Daddy turned off the truck's headlights when we reached the entrance to The Shadows's driveway. Then he drove very slowly over the gravel. A heavy layer of dark clouds had come pouring in from the Gulf, drawing a sheet of thick raven darkness to shut out the twinkling stars I often looked to for comfort. Now the sky looked like a giant inkwell, purple-black, deep and endless. It stirred me with a strange sense of foreboding as we drew closer and closer to this magnificent Cajun mansion. I knew that under any other circumstances, I would love simply visiting such a home, much less actually living in one for a while.

With only a light on here and there, the house appeared dismal, ominous. Its roof loomed in a silhouette against the ebony sea of clouds. Off to the right, I could hear the plaintive howl of a chained hound dog, and in the distance I could see lightning around the thunderheads. Bats swooped over the driveway, clicking their wings with a mechanical precision as they dipped to scoop up an insect invisible to my eyes. When Daddy turned off the engine, we could hear the monotone symphony of the cicadas.

Daddy was a bit more agitated than usual. After he had brought the truck to a stop, he kept his gaze locked on the front door of the mansion while he spoke.

"Well," he said, "I guess this here's good-bye for a while, Gabrielle. I know you'll be in good hands. Don't take no guff from no one, hear?"

"Yes, Daddy."

"Your mother will be visiting you shortly and bring back a report."

"Okay, Daddy," I said in a voice that seemed smaller and younger even to me.

"Okay," he said. "Best you hop out and go up there by yourself like she said." He leaned over and gave me a quick peck on the cheek.

"'Bye, Daddy," I said, and opened the truck door. It groaned with a metallic complaint that seemed to echo over the whole property. Even the bullfrogs paused to listen.

"Soon I'll have me a new truck without dents and squeaks," Daddy bragged.

I closed the truck door and carried my bag and myself up the galerie steps to the front door of the house, but before I could shake the bells, the door was thrust open with such force, I thought it had created a draft of air that would suck me inside the dimly lit entryway. Gladys Tate stood there dressed in a dark blue robe over her ivory lace nightgown. She held a small kerosene lantern in her hand. Her hair was down around her shoulders, and her face, now without a drop of makeup, looked as if candle wax had been melted and smeared over her forehead and cheeks, giving her a ghostly white complexion. The tiny flame in the lantern flickered.

"Get in, quick," she croaked. As soon as I stepped through the doorway, she closed the door and turned toward the stairs. "Follow me."

Without another word, she led me up, hustling me along so I wouldn't have a second to pause and gaze around. I half expected to see Octavious, too, but he was nowhere in sight. When we reached the upstairs landing, she turned left and took me down a short corridor to a narrow door. She dipped into a bathrobe pocket to produce a set of keys and unlocked the door. She stood for a moment listening. Satisfied, she reached in and threw a switch to illuminate a short stairway that led to an attic landing where there was a second door.

"What's up there?" I asked.

"What do you mean, what's up there? Your room's up there. Where did you think I would put you, in my bedroom or with Octavious?" she retorted. Even in the dim light, I could see the grotesque smile.

"No, madame, but . . ."

"But what?"

"Nothing," I said.

"Just watch your step and step very lightly. Tiptoe," she advised, and started up the short, steep stairway, practically floating on air herself. When she reached the second door, she inserted a second key and unlocked it. I entered behind her. She set the lantern down on a bare, rectangular cypress plank table carefully and turned it up to reveal the claustrophobic small room that had one window facing the rear of the house. Now it had a shade drawn and a curtain closed over that.

The walls had once been papered in a flowery print, but that had long since faded so that the flowers were barely visible in the eggshell background, a background I was sure had once been bright white. On my right were a set of shelves now full of dolls of all sizes and apparently some from different countries. There were cobwebs between many of the dolls, and their faces and doll clothing were faded almost as badly as the wallpaper.

Directly in front of me was the short box spring mattress in a low, dark oak bed frame with no headboard. There was a tiny night table to its right, and adjacent to that, a dresser no more than three and a half feet tall, if that.

"Once," Gladys Tate said, "this was my playroom. Some of my cutouts, puzzles, toy dishes, pots and pans, as well as some other children's games are in that closet." She nodded toward the narrow cabinet just to the right of the small dresser. "It's not the Waldorf, but it will serve our purpose," she added, and turned to me. Her words were cold and uncaring. The purpose could easily be to punish someone for misbehaving.