“Legality and morality are not always the same thing, is that it? That’s an interesting perception. How is your novel progressing?”
“Fine. Thank you for asking. What is all this about, Mr. Abelard?”
When he grinned, his mouth exposed an incisor tooth, and the sunlight seemed to pool in the eye that was smaller and more liquid than the other. “In part, it’s about what I just mentioned—morality as opposed to legality. This man named Vidor Perkins, a past associate of Robert Weingart, was hanging around the island. I had to run him off. Now Robert has informed me that Mr. Perkins is writing a book containing fabrications about my family. In the eyes of the law, this man has completed his prison sentence in the state of Texas, and legally, he has every right to be in our community. But in my view, he does not have the moral right, particularly when he slanders others. What are your feelings about that, Miss Robicheaux?”
“I don’t have any feelings about it at all. I have nothing to say about this man except that I didn’t bring him here.”
“But I did?”
She looked at the sunlight on the dead cypress trees in the lagoon and didn’t reply.
“Well, reticence is a statement in itself,” Abelard said. “My grandson is weak. But I suspect you’ve learned that.”
“Sir?”
“It’s not his fault. His parents died when he was a teenager, and I protected and spoiled him. He’s worked with his hands in the oil field and championed all kinds of leftist causes, but inside he’s always been a scared little boy. So he attached himself to Robert and thought that would give him the masculine dimension he doesn’t possess in his own right. Unfortunately for him, his dependency on Robert cost him his relationship with you, didn’t it?”
“I don’t dwell on it. I don’t think you should, either.”
“My hearing isn’t all that it should be. Would you repeat that?”
“No.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“No, I won’t repeat it. And I won’t talk about Kermit. You said your family’s honor had been sullied and you would have no peace unless you set something straight. If you’re telling me that somehow your family name has been tarred because of an offense committed against me, you’re seriously overrating the importance of your family. I couldn’t care less about what Kermit or Robert Weingart did or didn’t do. I feel sorry for Kermit, but he made his choice. As far as Robert Weingart is concerned, if you wanted him out of this community, he’d be gone in twenty-four hours. Why don’t you deal with your own culpability and stop demeaning your grandson?”
“You’re speaking to me as though I’m benighted. Or perhaps condemned by God for my sins and unworthy of respect.”
“I don’t know what your sins are.”
“Be assured they are many. But not of the kind you think—greed and misuse of power and all the kind of nonsense that liberals like to rave on and on about. If there is a great sin in my life for which I’ll be held to account, it lies in not accepting the rules of mortality.”
“Sir?”
“You’re not deaf, are you?” he said, smiling, leaning forward in his wheelchair. “Paul Gauguin wrote, ‘Life is merely a fraction of a second. An infinitely small amount of time to fulfill our desires, our dreams, our passions.’ I’ve tried to buy back my youth, with various degrees of success. They say it can’t be done, but they’re wrong. Youth isn’t a matter of physical appearance. It resides in one’s deeds. It doesn’t die until the heart and the brain and the glands die. Those who say different not only give up the joy of living but seek the grave.”
“You’ve found the secret to eternal youth?”
“No, it’s not eternal. But its pleasures can be magnified with age rather than surrendered.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because my grandson is a fool and didn’t know what he had.”
His mouth flexed slightly, and she saw the tip of his tongue wet his lip. An odor like menthol rub and dried perspiration seemed to rise from his clothes.
“I think I’ll go now.”
“I’ve offended you?”
“Not me. Perhaps God. But I’m not sure He would waste his time on you, Mr. Abelard.”
“You’re a mixture of Spaniard and Indian. Your heritage is the Inquisition and blood sacrifice on a stone altar. You think those are removed by a cleric splashing water on you? I read part of your novel, the one you gave to Kermit. You’re a talented and intelligent young woman. Why do you talk the theological rot of a fishwife?”
She stood up from the chair and took a breath. “I’m going to walk across your bridge and down your road. You can send Miss Jewel to pick me up and take me home. Or you can decide not to, whichever you prefer.”
“Stay,” he said, one hand reaching out toward her like a claw.