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, Grandpere," 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 Grandmere'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, Grandpere, 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, Grandpere," 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 Grandmere's bed for him.
"I think I'll do just what Catherine would tell me to do with these old clothes I'm wearing," Grandpere 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 Grandpere 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," Grandpere said. "You think if I sit on a rolled over rain barrel out back you could do it for me?"
"Yes, Grandpere," 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 Grandmere 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 Grandmere 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 grandpere 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 Grandmere 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 Grandmere Catherine say, "You'd have a better chance
of changing a bullfrog into a handsome prince." But maybe all Grandpere 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 Grandmere 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 Grandmere, 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."
The people around her nodded and extended their condolences. I thanked them for their kind words and finally got myself up to get something to drink and nibble on some food. It never occurred to me that simply sitting by the coffin and greeting mourners would be so exhausting, but the constant emotional strain took a greater toll than I had imagined it could.
Grandpere Jack, although he wasn't drinking, was holding court vociferously on the front galerie. Every once in a while, he would give out with a shout and rant and rave about one of his pet subjects. "Those damn oil derricks poking their heads above the swamps, changing the landscape from the way it's looked for more than one hundred years, and for what? Just to make some fat Creole oil man wealthy in New Orleans. I say we burn 'em all out. I say--"
I went out back and closed the door behind me. It was nice that all these people came to show their respect and comfort us, but it was beginning to get overwhelming for me. Every time someone came over to squeeze my hand and kiss my cheek, she or he would start up the tears behind my eyes and close-my throat until it ached worse than any sore throat ever made it ache. Every muscle in my body was still rope tight from the shock of Grandmere's passing. I took a short walk toward the canal and then felt my head begin to spin.
"Oh," I moaned, bringing my hand to my forehead. But before I could fall backward, a strong pair of arms caught me and held me upright and steady.
"Easy," a familiar voice said. I let myself rest against his shoulder for a moment and then I opened my eyes and looked up at Paul. "You'd better sit down, here, by this rock," he said, guiding me to it. He and I had often sat together on that same rock and thrown little stones into the water to count the ripples.
"Thank you," I said, and let him guide me to it. He sat beside me quickly and put a blade of marsh grass in his mouth.
"Sorry I didn't come yesterday, but I thought there would be so many people around you. . ." He smiled. "Not that there aren't today. Your
grandmother was a very famous and beloved woman in the bayou."
"I know. I never fully appreciated how much until now," I said.
"That's usually the way it is. We don't realize how important someone is to us until he or she is gone," Paul replied, the underlying meaning of his words telegraphed through his soft eyes.