"My family is here, too, Paul."
"Right. So. Where is this twin sister?" he asked. I quickly told him about the automobile accident. "Oh," he moaned. "I'm sorry. Is she still in the hospital?"
"No. She's upstairs, dying to meet you. I've told her all about you," I said.
"You have?"
"Come on. She's probably tearing up the room because I've taken so long."
I led him upstairs. On the way he told me that Grandpere Jack was the same.
"You wouldn't recognize the house, of course. He's made it into the same pigsty he had in the swamps. And the grounds are peppered with holes. He's still looking for the buried money.
"For a time, after you had left, the authorities thought he might have done something to you. It was something of a scandal, but when nothing to lead anyone to believe it was found, the police stopped hounding him. Of course, some people still believe it."
"Oh. That's terrible. I'll have to write to Grandmere's friends and let them know where I am and that everything is fine."
He nodded and I showed him into Gisselle's room.
Nothing brought the tint back into Gisselle's cheeks and the glint back into her eyes as much as a handsome young man did. We weren't sitting and talking five minutes before she was flirting, batting her eyelashes, swinging her shoulders, and smiling at him. Paul was amused, maybe even a bit
overwhelmed with such feminine attention.
Toward the end of the visit, Gisselle surprised me by suggesting that we go visit him in the bayou one of these days soon.
"Would you?" Paul beamed. "I'd show you around, show you things that would make your eyes pop. I've got my own boat and now I have horses and--"
"I don't know if I could sit on a horse," Gisselle moaned.
"Of course you can," Paul said. "And if you couldn't, I'd sit with you."
She liked that idea.
"Now that you know where we are, you don't be a stranger either," Gisselle told him. "We've got to get to know each other more and more."
"I will. I mean, thanks."
"Are you going to stay for dinner?" she asked.
"Oh, no. I got a ride in with someone and I've got to meet him real soon," he said. I could tell he was making that up, but I didn't say anything. Gisselle was disappointed but she lit right up when he leaned over to kiss her good-bye.
"You come back real soon, hear?" she called as we started out.
"You could have stayed for dinner," I told him. "I'm sure Daddy would like to meet you. My stepmother Daphne is snobby, but she wouldn't be impolite."
"No. I really do have to get back. No one knows I came here," he confessed.
"Oh."
"But now that I know where you are and I've met my other half sister, I won't be a stranger. That is, if you don't want me to be."
"Of course I don't. And one day soon, I will bring Gisselle out to the bayou."
"That would be great," Paul said. He looked down for a moment and then looked up quickly. "There hasn't been anyone else for me since you," he confessed.
"That's not right, Paul."
"I just can't help it," he said.