"Your Grandmère would be right proud of you, Ruby," Mrs. Livaudis added, squeezing my hand gently. "Now look after yourself."
Mrs. Thibodeau raised her eyes and gazed toward the rear of the house where the laughter was growing louder by the minute.
"If you need us, you just holler," she said.
"You're always welcome at my house," Mrs. Livaudis added before leaving.
Grandmère Catherine's friends and some of the neighbors had cleaned up and had put everything away before they had left. There was nothing for me to do but kiss Grandmère Catherine good night and go to sleep myself. I heard Grandpère Jack and his trapper friends howl and laugh long into the night. In a way I was grateful for the noise. I lay awake for hours, wondering if there was anything else I could have done to have helped Grandmère Catherine, but then I thought, if she couldn't help herself, what could I do?
Finally, my eyelids became so heavy, I had to let them close. Someone was laughing in the darkness. I heard what sounded like Grandpère's howl and then all was still; and sleep, like one of Grandmère Catherine's miracle medicines, brought me some hours of relief and eased the pain in my heart. In fact, when I awoke early the next morning, I felt so relieved from my deep repose, that for a few moments, I actually believed all that had happened had been some terrible nightmare. In moments, I expected to hear Grandmère Catherine's footsteps as she made her way down to the kitchen to start our breakfast.
But I heard nothing but the soft, sweet sounds of the morning birds. Slowly, the reality of what had occurred settled in again and I sat up, wondering where Grandpère Jack had slept when he had finally stopped cavorting with his trapper friends. When I discovered he wasn't in Grandmère Catherine's room, I thought he might have gone back into the swamp; but when I went down, I found him sprawled out on the galerie, one leg dangling over the edge of the porch floor, his head on his rolled up jacket, an empty bottle of cheap whiskey still clutched in his right hand.
"Grandpère," I said, nudging him. "Grandpère, wake up."
"Huh?" His eyes flickered open and then shut. I shook him harder.
"Grandpère, wake up. People will be arriving here any moment. Grandpère."
"What? What's that?" He kept his eyes open long enough to focus on me and then groaned and folded his body into a sitting position. "What the. . ." He looked around, saw the expression of disappointment on my face and then shook his head. "Must have just passed out with grief," he said quickly. "It can do that to you, Ruby. You think you can handle it, but it seeps into your heart and it just takes you over. That's what happened to me," he said, nodding, trying to convince himself as well as me. "I just couldn't handle the tragedy. Sorry," he said, rubbing his cheeks. "I'll go out back and wash myself with the cistern water and then come in for some breakfast."
"Good, Grandpère," I said. "Did you bring any of your other clothes?"
"Clothes? No."
I remembered there were some old things of his in a box upstairs in Grandmère's room.
"You have some clothes still here that might fit," I said. "I'll find them for you."
"Well, that's right nice of you, honey. Right nice. I can see where we're going to make out just fine. You tending after the house and me, and me trappin' and huntin' and guidin' rich city folks through the swamp. I'll make us more money than I ever did. I'll fix up everything that's broke. I'll make this house look as fresh and as new as it did the day I built it. Why, in no time, I'll change . . ."
"Meanwhile, Grandpère, you'd better go and wash like you said you would." If anything, the stench rising from his clothes and hair had grown doubly worse. "It's getting close to the time people will be coming," I said.
"Right, right." He stood up and looked with surprise at the empty whiskey bottle on the floor of the galerie. "I don't know how I got that. Must have been Teddy Turner or someone who laid it on me for a stupid joke."
"I'll throw it away for you, Grandpère," I said, picking it up quickly.
"Thank you, honey. Thank you." He stuck his right forefinger in the air and thought for a moment until it came back to him. "Wash up, that's first," he said, and stumbled off the galerie and around to the back of the house. I went upstairs and found the old carton of clothes. There were a pair of pants and a few shirts, as well as some socks buried under an old blanket. I took everything out, pressed the pants and shirt, and laid the clothes on Grandmère's bed for him.
"I think I'll do just what Catherine would tell me to do with these old clothes I'm wearing," Grandpère said after he came in from washing himself. "I'll burn them." He laughed. I told him to go up and put on the clothes I found. By the time he had come down again, I had some breakfast made and Mrs. Livaudis and Mrs. Thibodeau arrived to help set up the food for our mourners. They ignored Grandpère even though he did look like a new man washed up and in his fresh clothes.
"I got to trim my beard and hair some, Ruby," Grandpère said. "You think if I sit on a rolled over rain barrel out back you could do it for me?"
"Yes, Grandpère," I said. "I'll do it right after you finish your breakfast."
"I thank you," he said. "We're going to do just fine," he added, more for the benefit of Mrs. Thibodeau and Mrs. Livaudis than for me, I thought. "Just fine. Long as people lets us be," he added pointedly.
After he had finished eating, I took the sewing shears and chopped off as much of his long, ratty hair as I could. Much of it was matted and there were lice, so I had to shampoo him with some of Grandmère Catherine's mixture specially made to get rid of lice as well as crabs and other tiny insects, too. He sat obediently, his eyes closed, a grateful smile on his lips as I worked. I trimmed the beard and cut the excess hair out of his ears and nose. Then I trimmed his eyebrows. When I was finished and I stepped back to look at him, I was surprised and proud of how well I had done. It was possible to look at him now and see why Grandmère Catherine or any woman might have been attracted to him when he was young. His eyes still had a youthful, mirthful glint and his strong cheekbones and jaw gave his face a classic, handsome shape. He gazed at his reflection in a piece of broken glass.
"Well, I'll be. Lookee here now. Who is this? Bet you didn't know your Grandpère was a movie star," he said. "Thank you, Ruby." He slapped his hands together. "Well, I'd better go out front and greet some of the mourners, right and proper like," he decided, and went around to take a seat in one of the rockers on the galerie and play the part of a bereaved husband, even though most everyone knew he and Grandmère Catherine hadn't lived together for years.
However, I was beginning to wonder if I couldn't help him change. Sometimes, dramatic events like this made people think harder about their own lives. I could just hear Grandmère Catherine say, "You'd have a better chance of changing a bullfrog into a handsome prince." But maybe all Grandpère Jack needed was another chance. After all, I thought as I cleaned up the gobs of matted hair that had fallen around the barrel, he's the only Cajun family I have left, like it or not.
We had just as many mourners if not more than we had the day before. A steady stream of Cajun folks came from miles and miles away to pay their last respects to Grandmère Catherine, whose reputation had spread much farther through Terrebonne Parish and the surrounding area than I had ever imagined. And so many of the people who arrived had wonderful stories to tell about Grandmère, stories about her earthy wisdom, her miraculous touch, her wonderful remedies, and her strong and always hopeful faith.
"Why, when your grandmother walked into a room of frightened, anxious people concerned over one of their loved ones, it was as if someone lit a candle in the darkness, Ruby honey," Mrs. Allard from Lafayette told me. "We're gonna miss her something terrible."