Robicheaux (Dave Robicheaux 21)

The house was dark except for Alafair’s bedroom, where she was working on her film adaptation of Levon Broussard’s Civil War novel. Boys who had been playing softball in the park had left for the evening, and one by one the floodlamps above the diamond clicked off. I felt my eyes closing and a great fatigue seeping through my body, one that I did not argue with, in the same way that, at a certain age, you do not argue with the pull of the earth. In my dream, I saw the boys in tattered gray and butternut brown marching through the trees in the park, a sergeant with a kepi canted on his brow high-stepping and counting cadence. I walked along beside them and spoke to them in both English and French, once again expecting them to pass by without acknowledging me. But this time was different. They were gesturing, waving me into their ranks.

Now? I said.

What better time? the sergeant said. His cheeks were spiked with blond whiskers, his uniform sun-faded and stiff with salt, white light radiating from a hole in his chest.

I have a daughter who needs me.

We all get to the same place. She’ll be joining us one day as well.

You wouldn’t talk like that if you had a daughter.

I had a son, though. The blue-belly who put a ball through my heart didn’t care about him or me.

If God had a daughter, I bet He wouldn’t have let her die on a cross.

Then perhaps you belong among the quick. Right you are, sir. Top of the evening to you.

The column disappeared inside the fog. I felt a weight bounce sharply on my lap and tumble off my knees. I thought I had wakened, then realized I was still dreaming, because I saw a raccoon waddling through the leaves, his furry tail flicking like a fat spring. I fell deeper into my sleep, into a place that was cool and warm at the same time, when the year was 1945 and people in my community spoke only French and on festival days danced under the stars with the innocence of medieval folk.

Someone shook my arm, hard and steady. “Wake up, Dave.”

I looked up at Alafair’s face.

“Better come in before you get rained on,” she said.

I stood up, off balance. “What a dream.”

“You were laughing.”

“I thought a big coon jumped in my lap.”

“Better take a look at your trousers.”

The muddy paw prints were unmistakable. There was a gummy smear on one thigh. I touched it and smelled my fingers.

“What is it?” she said.

“Sardines.”

“Maybe he got in somebody’s trash.”

“Coons don’t jump in people’s laps.”

“Tripod did,” she said.

“He sure did. How you doin’, Alfenheimer?”

“Why are you acting so weird?”

“I’ll take weird over rational any day of the week,” I said.

* * *

THE NEXT DAY, I went to the office of the Broussard family physician, Melvin LeBlanc. “Now what?” he said.

“Rowena cut her wrists right above the palms,” I said.

“Yes?”