"How long will I have to do this, Mama?"

"From the looks of you, a few weeks at least, honey. I'm sorry."

My tears burned under my eyelids. Every time I did this, I would think of my baby forced to drink the milk of a stranger while his mother's milk was poured into the ground. From the way I ached, I couldn't postpone it much longer either. After breakfast Mama showed me what to do. All the hot tears I had held back streaked down my cheeks.

They seemed to singe my heart as well as my face. I think Mama turned away and left me because she, too, was close to crying.

Afterward, when I lay back and closed my eyes, I thought I could hear my baby's cry. I recalled his tiny face and imagined what it would have been like to have his lips on my nipple drawing the milk from me. Perhaps, if I did this every time, it would make it a little easier, I thought.

Late in the afternoon, Daddy returned. He had a swollen left cheek and a black eye. There was a thin gash along the top of his forehead, and his clothes were wrinkled and marred with mud and grime as if he had been dragged through the swamp. He limped when he entered the house. Mama and I both looked up and gasped.

"What did you do now, Jack," Mama asked after a moment, "to get such a beating?"

"They ganged up on me is what happened," he wailed. "Those thieves down at Bloody Mary's." He fixed his eyes on me. "You shouldn't have left that house so fast, Gabrielle. We coulda made them pay to have you leave."

"What for, Jack? So you can go and throw it away at some bar or over some game of chance?" Mama snapped. "Just like you did every other nickel?"

"It was what was coming to us," he declared, his arms spread.

"Us, Jack? How's it us? She's the one's suffered and she don't get one penny because you've gone and lost or spent it all, right? Or did you put away a little for her?" Mama asked, knowing the answer.

"I . . . I just been trying to build something for this family, is all. But I got cheated, so I went back to get back what's mine and they jumped me." He stared at me a moment. "They give you anything before you left?" he asked.

"No, Daddy," I said.

"And if they had, we wouldn't tell you, Jack Landry," Mama said.

"Ahh. Women never appreciate what a man tries to do for them," he complained, and sank in his worn easy chair. "I got to think up a new plan here. Those Tates can't get off this. easy," he muttered.

"Instead of spending all this time sitting, there trying to think up a new plan to rob people, why don't you go look for honest work, Jack?" Mama said, her hands on her hips. He gazed up, his nearly closed right eye twitching.

"What'cha talking about, robbing people? It's them who's robbed us, robbed our daughter of her pure innocence. Just like you not to see the point."

"I see the point," Mama said. "I been seeing it grow sharper and sharper, too. It's cutting right through here," she said, holding her hand over her heart.

"Ahh, stop your wailing. I need quiet and something to eat. I got to think hard," he said.

Mama shook her head and went back to her roux.

"I said I need something to eat!" Daddy cried. Mama continued to stir her gravy with her back to him as if he weren't in the shack. I rose and put together a plate of food for him.

"Thank you, Gabrielle," he said, taking it and wolfing it down. "At least you care."

"Mama cares, Daddy. She's just tired. We're all tired," I said.

Daddy paused in his chewing, his eyes growing darker. "Damn if I'm going to sit here and watch my women suffer while that rich family enjoys the fruits of my daughter," he declared. "I'm going back, and this time I'm going to demand twice as much."

"Jack, don't you dare," Mama snapped.

"Don't tell me what not to do, woman. Cajun women," he spit. "Stubborn . . ." He put the plate down and rose.

"Jack Landry," Mama called, but he was already heading for the door.

"Just sit tight and let me be the man of the house," he yelled back, and shot through the door.

"Man of the house don't mean blackmailing people forever, Jack Landry," she called after him, but he didn't stop. He got into his truck and pulled away, leaving Mama and me standing by the door. "It's going to come to no good," she predicted, and shook her head. "No good."

Sure enough, late in the afternoon, the police arrived to tell us Daddy was in the lockup.

"He caused a terrible commotion over at the Tate Cannery," the policeman explained. "We're holding him until Mr. Tate decides whether or not to press charges."

Mama thanked the policeman for coming by to tell us.

"What are you going to do, Mama?" I asked after they left. "Are you going to go over to speak to Octavious?"

She shook her head. "I'm tired of bailing your father out of trouble, Gabrielle. Let him sit in the clink for a while. Maybe it will drum some sense in his head."

That evening after Mama and I had a quiet dinner, we sat on the galerie and watched the road, both wondering if Daddy would come driving up. Mama was very troubled, and those worries made her look so much older to me.

"Things have a way of going so sour sometimes," she suddenly muttered. "I guess I'm not doing so well as a traiteur. I can't do much for my own family," she moaned.

"That's not so, Mama. You've done a lot for us. Where would I be without your help and comfort?" I reminded her.

"I should have looked after you better, Gabrielle. I should have warned you about the evil that lurks deep within some people, and I shouldn't have left you alone so much. It's my fault," she said.

"No it isn't, Mama. I was stupid and blind. I shouldn't have been wandering around in my own dreamworld so much."

"It's been hard," she said. "It's like you never had a father. Be so careful about who you fall, in love with, Gabrielle," she warned. "It's so important. That first decision decides the road you'll follow, all the turns and hills, the twists and gullies."

"But, Mama, if you couldn't see the future, how can I expect to do so?"

"You don't have to see the future. Just don't be as trusting anymore and don't let your heart tell your mind to shut up." She rocked and shook her head.

"Will Daddy ever change, Mama?"

"Fraid not, sweetheart. What's rotted in his heart has taken hold of him. Now he's just a man to endure. Looks like you and I will have to tend to ourselves."

"We'll do fine, Mama. We always have."

"Maybe," she said. She smiled. "Of course we will," she said, and patted my hand. We hugged and then talked about other things until we both grew tired and decided to go to sleep.

I had to pump my breasts again and again; I conjured the image of baby Paul as I did so. I fell asleep dreaming of his tiny fingers and his sweet face.

Late in the morning Daddy returned. He was sullen and quiet, so Mama had to drag the story out of him. He did go back to Octavious to demand an additional payment, only this time, Octavious had his men throw Daddy off the grounds. Daddy sat in his truck, beeping his horn and creating a disturbance until Octavious called the police.

This morning the police told him Octavious wasn't making a formal complaint, but Daddy was warned to stay away from the Tate property. If he came within a hundred yards of it, they would lock him up again. He ranted and raved about how the rich controlled the law. He vowed to find a way to get back at them. Mama, refusing to talk to him, nevertheless made him something to eat. Finally he calmed down and talked about taking up Fletcher Tyler's offer to hire him as a guide for hunters in the swamp.

"Nobody could do it better than me. It pays all right and they give you tips," he told Mama. "Well?" he said when she didn't comment. "What'cha so quiet for? It's what you want me to do, honest work, ain't it?"

"I'll believe it when I see you actually doing it," she told him.

That set him on a tirade about how Cajun women don't give their men the support the men need. He raged about it for a while and then went off to trap some muskrats.

The day passed slowly into another hot and muggy night. Fireflies danced over the swamp water and the owls complained to each other. After I went up to my room, I sat by my window and listened to the cicadas. I wondered if Paul was asleep or being nursed. I imagined his little arms swinging, his excitement coming with every new discovery about his own body, and I turned to find a pen and some paper to write the letter I would never send.

Dear Paul,

You will probably grow up never hearing my name. If we do see each other, you will not look at me any differently from the way you look at anyone else. Perhaps, when you are old enough to realize, you might see me looking at you with a soft smile on my face and you, might wonder who I am and why I am gazing at you this way. if you ask your parents about me, they won't tell you anything. We will remain strangers.

But maybe, just maybe, on a night as warm and as lonely as this one is for me, you will feel a strange longing and you will realize something is missing. You may never tell anyone about this feeling, but it will be there and it will come often.

And then, one day, when you're old enough to put the feeling into a thought, you will remember the young girl who looked at you with such love and you will realize there was something more in her eyes.

Maybe you will confront your father or your mother and maybe, just maybe, they will be forced to tell you the truth.

I wonder then if you will hate me for deserting you. I wonder if you will want to know me. I wonder if we will ever have a conversation.