“I don’t see any pounds on you, but it does look like a few might have been lifted off your shoulders,” Gabby says and sets the bowl of dough aside to rise, as my phone begins to ring incessantly, just like it did yesterday.
“I had to turn this damn phone off yesterday, and it looks like the same thing’s going to have to happen today.” I glare down at Declan’s name as another text comes in. Without saying a word, Gabby reaches over and takes it from me, then sets it in the fridge.
“Trust me,” she says. “It works.”
“It stops ringing when it’s cold?” I ask.
“No, you can’t hear it when it’s in the fridge,” she replies with a laugh. “Just don’t forget that it’s in there. I’ve done that. Not a good idea.”
I laugh and shrug. Hey, I could use a couple of quiet hours, without the ringing phone in my hand.
“Where’s the baby?” I ask, itching to get my hands on her again. She’s such a sweet little thing, and she smells so good.
“Mama took her last night,” Gabby says with a sigh. “Sam was off to school this morning, and I had two whole hours alone with my husband. It was bliss. But I miss the little stinker. Mama should be back with her soon. You’re sure good with babies.”
“I love babies,” I reply and grin. “I know, I don’t look like the type.”
“Why? Because you’re a strong woman who dresses like a badass? Seems to me you’d be a great mother and wonderful role model for any child.”
I blink at her and have to swallow hard. “Thank you.”
“How are you feeling?” she asks kindly.
“I’m… better.”
“Come to any conclusions?” She grabs two oatmeal raisin cookies and passes one to me.
“I guess I can’t really make any decisions without talking to him,” I reply and bite into the cookie as she nods in agreement.
“Probably a good idea,” she replies. “I tried to figure out my situation with Rhys without Rhys, and boy, did he ever put me in my place when he got his hands on me." She smiles smugly. “I guess that if a decision is being made that involves another person, they should be in on that decision too.”
“I agree, but he’s the one who shut me out last week.”
“Daddy always said, two wrongs just means that you’re both stupid.” She laughs. “He was a blunt man.”
“Sounds like it.” I sigh and take another cookie when she offers it. Yep, I’m going to need some serious time in the gym when I leave here. “Maybe he’s right.”
“He usually was, much to my chagrin.” We both look out the window above the sink when we hear a car pull up. “There’s Mama now.”
“I’ll be sure to say hello to her before she leaves. But in the meantime I’m going to enjoy my last couple of hours here and take a walk.”
“Have you seen the old slave quarters out back?” Gabby asks. “Rhys and I also added a confederate army camp site out back too, where we think the original site was.”
“The confederates camped here?” I ask, amazed.
“They camped just about everywhere along the Mississippi,” she replies with a nod. “Best I could tell, from old diaries that the women kept, we got it right. And let me tell you, it wasn’t a hardship to watch Rhys work with his shirt off, digging some holes and setting up the tents.”
“I’m sure that wasn’t a horrible thing to watch.” I laugh. “I love that you’re still so much in love.”
“It’s only been a year. And honestly, I fall more in love with him every day. I know, it sounds corny, but I can’t help it.”
“It doesn’t sound corny. I think that’s how it’s supposed to be. Okay, I’m going to wander out there, then through the garden.”
“Perfect day for it. Fall’s settling in.”
I nod, wave, and while chewing on the last of my cookie, I wander out back, down a path that leads me through several huge old oaks, like the ones out in front of the house. There are several small cabins lined up that Gabby has preserved in their original conditions, with genuine artifacts that were found around the grounds where the cabins originally stood. Plexiglas covers the windows and doors, so guests can look in without disturbing anything.
Plaques stand near each cabin, describing what slave life was like here on the plantation two hundred years ago. She’s included photocopies of original sales receipts when her ancestor bought or sold each slave. The documentation is striking and amazing.
How incredible is it that all of this was preserved and saved all of this time? It’s a true treasure for the family. How would it feel to belong to a history as vast and as old as this one? To know that no matter where you end up in the world, this is where you belong?
And maybe that’s what I’ve needed to figure out all along: where I belong. Because I’m just not sure. I never have felt like I truly belonged anywhere. I left New Orleans as soon as I could, but Denver wasn’t home any more than Louisiana was. And now that I’ve been back for a while, I thought that I was starting to feel like this is home, but I’m not sure. I still feel restless.
I wander through it all, soaking in the history, picturing how it must have looked then. When I find myself near the rose garden, I hear footsteps behind me and turn to find Declan’s mama coming out to join me.
“Hello, Mrs. Boudreaux,” I say with a smile.
“Oh, you can call me Mama,” she says with a chuckle. “Just about everyone does.”
“Thank you,” I reply as she takes my hand and walks beside me. Mama is a petite woman, like Gabby, with salt and pepper hair that she keeps in a short cut. Her makeup is perfectly done, and despite being easily in her sixties, she’s in excellent shape.
I like her.
“It’s a nice day for a walk,” she says and takes a deep breath. “The air always was fresher out here.”
“It’s a beautiful place,” I agree with a nod. “I’ve enjoyed being here.”
“It’s a good thinking spot,” she says. “And I expect you’ve had some thinkin’ to do.”
“I have.”
“Sometimes you can do too much thinkin’,” she says as we make our way through the garden and over a beautiful stone bridge that carries us over a creek. “You’ll just think your way into circles.”
“I might have done some of that too,” I reply with a laugh. We fall into an easy silence. I can tell that she wants to ask me questions, but she doesn’t push. Instead she points out places in the trees where her boys built tree houses in the summer, and where her husband proposed to her.
“He proposed out here?” I ask.
“He did. He courted me for a few months, and talked me into taking a drive out here to his family’s summer home. Walked me through the gardens, like we are now, although Gabby’s really brought them back to life. And then we sat under that magnolia tree and had a picnic lunch, and he asked me to marry him.”
“That’s sweet,” I murmur, picturing a younger woman sitting under the tree with her handsome man, him slipping a ring on her finger.
We walk just a bit farther, and we’re at the entrance to a cemetery, and I can’t help but feel sudden guilt. I haven’t been to either of my parents' graves.
And right now, in this moment with Declan’s sweet mother, I miss my own mama, and I wonder what advice she would give me about Declan and this whole mess.
“You can talk to me, you know,” Mama says as she sits on a bench, under an oak tree, and pats the seat beside her.
“Oh, I don’t know where to start.”
“I always find that the beginning is as good a place as any,” she says with a kind smile, and I find myself suddenly spilling all of it to her, about how Declan and I first met, how he would walk me to my car after work, helping him with his house, all the way through until this week and how confused I am.
She sits patiently, listening, nodding, and when I’m finished and wiping tears from my cheeks, she simply reaches over and grabs my hand in hers and squeezes gently, three times.
And that only makes me cry more.
“What?”
“Declan squeezes my hand like that.”
She smiles. “How lovely. Ask him what it means sometime.”
“It means something?”