His grandmother had called Mellette Chaisson a godsend. He’d called her the compromise he’d needed to assuage his guilty feeling at not being the one to help his grandmother. The worst of it was, a traveling nurse who spent two days a week here assuaged a lot of his guilt. Just not all of it.
“That nurse was a real blessing for your grandmother, especially getting on toward the end. But she’s not the solution here now, and you know that.”
Yes, he did know that, which was why he was passing his days and nights only writing. Writing was where he could escape, a different world. A place with no guilt. “What I know is that I’m doing the best I can for the people here. I support that nurse coming in, and I’ll continue to do that. Even up her presence here if that’s what needs to happen.”
“But what about the other days of the week, Justin? If we get sick, if somebody gets hurt, do we just wait until she comes back? Put our aches and pains on hold until her next day on duty?”
“You take a twenty-five-mile trip to the nearest hospital. This area of the bayou may be remote, but it’s not entirely cut off from civilization.”
Amos laughed out loud over that. “Whose universe are you living in, boy? Because you know the people here aren’t makin’ that trip. They keep to themselves, don’t step foot in the big city unless it’s absolutely necessary, go over to Grandmaison only when it’s necessary, and they never, ever, look for medical help outside Big Swamp. That’s just the way things are around here.”
“Then that’s their problem, because help’s available.”
“And it was your grandmother’s problem, because she doctored these people every day of her life.”
“She gave them herbs, Amos. The rest of it was …” He wanted to say hysteria, or emotional dependence, but that would be downplaying what his grandmother had done for the isolated people in Big Swamp, and he sure didn’t want to do that. “I’m not my grandmother. I don’t have her knowledge of herbs. Can’t be what anybody here wants.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
“Same difference. Anyway …” He shrugged. “Let me think on it some more, try to figure out what’s best.”
“You know what’s best, boy. Seems to me you’re spending all your time trying to figure your way around it. And it’s not like we expect you to be here all the time. Keep that nurse coming in two days, then use some of that city money you make and fly down here for two days yourself. Or maybe transfer your fine medical skills to one of the hospital establishments in New Orleans to make it easier on you. That would work. Would suit us just fine, too.”
Amos pulled out one of his homemade cigarettes, tamped down the end of it, then stuck it in his mouth and lit it up. “But here you sit, all bound up with some heavy confusion,” he said, letting the first long draw settle into his lungs.
“Here I sit because I’m tying up my grandmother’s affairs,” Justin said defensively.
A deep, rumbling laugh started from what seemed like the pit of Amos’s belly and burbled its way out. “Tying up her affairs, my ass,” he said, offering Justin a hit of his cigarette.
Justin refused.
“You’re here because you got yourself caught someplace between heaven and hell, and you don’t know which way to turn. Part of you is pulling to go one way but part of you is holding back for some reason you probably don’t even understand yet.” Amos took another draw of his cigarette, and chuckled. “You’re confused, boy. Just plain confused.”
“Not denying it,” Justin said, taking another sip of tea. “I’m confused, and I feel guilty as hell that I didn’t know she was sick. Guilty that I didn’t come back to see her as much as I would have if I’d known. I mean, I loved my grandmother, but …”
“But you didn’t make her life easy.”
“Not when I was a boy.” He’d tried harder when he was a man, though.
“And now that you’re a man you’re paying for something she’d long ago forgot. She didn’t hold it against you, boy. In fact, she was proud of what you made of yourself. Bragged on it all the time.”
“And didn’t tell me she was sick.”
“Because you would have stuck her in some fancy hospital where she didn’t want to go.”
“If she’d gone she might not have …” He bit his tongue to hold back the bitterness. It didn’t matter. Choices had been made; he hadn’t been included. “Anyway, I’m trying to figure it out. I’ll be talking to the nurse, and I’ll see if she can give you another day. But that’s the best I can do.”
“The best you can do is admit you’re still one of us, and give us that day yourself. Would have been Eula’s wish.”
“Damn it, Amos! I can’t just commute from Chicago one day a week, and I’m not going to transfer to a New Orleans hospital to be closer. Also, I’m not one of you, which is the biggest problem. I never was. Not even when I was a kid, and you know that.”
“That’s right, city boy. You come from spoiled uppity folks who never would step foot in Big Swamp for fear something might bite them, or dirty their pretty little leather shoes.” He kicked his foot up, showing up a well-worn, holey sneaker that had seen better days a decade ago. “I do have me a fine pair of alligator boots I save for special occasions, but that’s not good enough for the Bergerons who left these parts.”
“Would that be me?” Justin asked, knowing in some ways it was. He’d been from the city, raised there until he was five, then dumped on a grandmother he’d never met when his parents had died in a plane crash.
“If you want it to be, boy. Only if you want it to be.”
The problem was, while his formative years had been spent in Big Swamp, he’d turned uppity, as it was called in these parts. But only after walking a long, hard road to get there. “Never mine, mon cher,” his grandmother had said to him on many occasions. “You’ve still got the good in you.” The good. Whatever that was.
After the way he’d behaved he wasn’t sure the good she’d seen was still there. If it ever had been.
His grandmother had loved him dearly, though. Taken him in without question when asked, raised him the best way she’d known how. And loved him. Dear God, that woman had possessed such a capacity for love. Along with the same generous capacity for forgiveness and understanding. “What I want …” Justin paused. Listened to the same barred owl he’d been listening to earlier, then sighed. “Don’t have a clue.” Not a clue, except that he couldn’t stay here.
“Sure you do, boy. It’s just going to take some strong medicine to cure you—something that’s stronger than anything you can prescribe.” Amos took another draw on his cigarette, then stood up. “Got me a couple dozen fresh eggs and a loaf of Miss Minnie’s bread, made fresh this afternoon. Caught me a whole mess of crawfish today, too. So I’m fixing up a fine scramble for breakfast in the morning. Bring some peppers and onions and I’ll see you around six.”
“Nine,” Justin countered. “And no chicory in the coffee.”
“Seven-thirty, city boy. And it’s not coffee if it doesn’t have chicory. So don’t be late, or I’ll be startin’ without you.” He smacked his lips. “Havin’ those crawfish all for myself.”
Okay, so part of Big Swamp was in his blood. He loved crawfish and wasn’t ashamed to admit it. He missed the way his grandmother had fixed them. “Fine, seven-thirty. But not a minute earlier. And go easy on the