All That Glitters (Landry 3)

bright and feverish.

"What do you want?" she demanded, shooting

me a stabbing glance.

Beau rose. "Madame Tate, we've come to try to

reason with you, to get you to understand why we did

what we did," he said.

"Humph," she retorted. "Understand?" She

smiled coldly with ridicule. "It's simple to understand.

You're the type who care only about themselves, and if you inflict terrible pain and suffering on someone in your pursuit of happiness, so what?" She whipped her eyes to me and flared them with hate before she turned to sit in the high-back chair like a queen, her

hands clasped on her lap, her neck and shoulders stiff. "Much of this is my fault, not Ruby's," Beau

continued. "You see," he said, turning to me, "a few

years ago we. . . I made Ruby pregnant with Pearl, but

I was cowardly and permitted my parents to send me

to Europe. Ruby's stepmother tried to have the baby

aborted in a run-down clinic so it would all be kept

secret, but Ruby ran off and returned to the bayou." "How I wish she hadn't," Gladys Tate spit, her

hating eyes trying to wish me into extinction. "Yes, but she did," Beau continued, undaunted

by her venom. "For better or for worse, your son

offered to make a home for Ruby and Pearl." "It was for worse. Look at where he is now,"

she said. Ice water trickled down my spine.

"As you know," Beau said softly, patiently,

"theirs was not a true marriage. Time passed. I grew

up and realized my errors, but it was too late. In the

interim, I renewed my relationship with Ruby's twin

sister, who I thought had matured, too. I was mistaken

about that, but that's another story."

Gladys smirked.

"Your son knew how much Ruby and I still

eared for each other, and he knew Pearl was our child,

my child. He was a good man and he wanted Ruby to