For sure, life was simpler here in the Louisiana bayou than it was back in Chicago, his home for the past decade. He hadn’t appreciated that singular simple fact when he’d lived here before. In fact, from the time he had been a teenager, all he’d ever wanted had been to get away from the simplicity. Go to the city. Any city. Seek out excitement and anything else that didn’t resemble the upbringing he was accustomed to—an upbringing with a down-home flavor that could only be found in the bayou. Or the backcountry. Or godforsaken nowhere. Or, as this area had been named by its early settlers, Big Swamp.
And he’d done all that. Molded himself into what he’d wanted to be, and set off to become it. Self-made man, he’d called himself in the early days, even though now he knew better. Nobody with the kind of love and support he’d had was self-made, and just thinking about how he used to brag about his self-sufficiency caused him to cringe now. Even so, he was successful. Wealthy. Some considered him a player, although he wasn’t sure he liked that description since he really didn’t have time to play. But it bolstered the image. Playboy. Sports car. Condo on the lakeshore. Medical practice in the high-end Magnificent Mile. Everything about him shooting to the top.
But Justin was also part of Big Swamp—something he was just now beginning to admit. Big Swamp, where his grandmother had done her level best to raise a wayward young boy who hadn’t wanted to be raised, hadn’t wanted to follow the rules, hadn’t wanted anything to do with an old-fashioned set of values that had done his grandmother well for her eighty-nine years on earth. Yes, that was all him, too. The part of him he didn’t talk about, or admit to. The part of him he wouldn’t deny but certainly wouldn’t confirm, either. It had been part of his embarrassment back then, part of his pride now.
No, none of this had been good enough for the young Justin. In a way it wasn’t even enough for the Justin who existed now; he certainly hadn’t made himself right with it. Hence the emotional exhaustion. But at least Justin felt more remorse for his attitude than he’d expected he ever would. And now that Grandma Eula was gone, his regrets weighed him down. Especially on an unsullied night like this, the kind of night she would have loved, where Big Swamp was at peace with itself. And yet Justin was not.
He missed Bonne-Maman Eula, as she’d been called by the people who loved her. More than that, he lamented … so much. And his grief felt so heavy against his heart, at times almost stopping it from beating. He’d owed her better, had always thought there was more time to do better for her. He’d always intended to.
“Now it’s too late,” he said to Napoleon, his grandmother’s big, lazy, orange-striped tomcat. A fourth-, maybe fifth-generation Napoleon, actually. There’d always been a big, orange-striped tomcat living here for as long as Justin could remember, and his name had always been Napoleon. This Napoleon seemed especially mellow, he thought. More mellow than the earlier ones, and it made Justin wonder what the cat knew that he did not.
“I’ve been thinking lately that she’d want you to stay on here,” Amos Picou said as he stepped up onto the wooden porch and took his customary seat on the well-worn wicker chair next to Justin’s porch swing. The same chair he’d been sitting in for every one of the twenty-five years he’d come visiting.
It had been Eula’s favorite chair—her chair of honor, she’d called it, because of its high, fan-shaped back. She’d loved that chair as it had reminded her of a throne, and she had spent many of her evenings sitting in it. Said it made her feel like royalty because she sat so high and mighty, which was why she’d always offered to let her guests sit in it, because in her house guests had always been treated like royalty.
In a way, Eula Bergeron had been royalty in that part of Big Swamp. There’d been no one more trusted or respected. With the way she’d been held in such high esteem in her community, there was no other way to describe it. Justin’s grandmother had been treasured, and that was something he hadn’t seen so much back in his childhood as he’d been too busy seeing other things—dreams, or delusions, of a better life mostly. Life away from here, somewhere, anywhere other than Big Swamp. Something other than what his grandmother had given him.
He hadn’t appreciated her enough, and that had played on his mind more than he probably even recognized. Those sleepless nights, guilt trips, wanting to make it up to her when he could, feeling like hell after it was too late.
Now that he was back for a little while to tie up loose ends, he was reminded of all the respect for his grandmother everywhere he looked. “Not sure what I’m going to do, Amos,” Justin said, his voice betraying his lackluster mood. “Can’t stay here, but I don’t want to walk away from the people who depended on my grandmother and leave them with nothing.”
“Folks in these parts need them a good doctor now that your Bonne-Maman Eula has left us. They’d be mighty grateful if you stayed on to look after them. I think Eula would have approved of that, getting you back home where you belong.”
“Except I don’t belong here now.” Justin exhaled an exasperated breath. “Too many years, too much separation … Besides, she knew how I felt about coming home for good. Knew I didn’t want any part of it, that short visits to see her were the best I could do.”
“She knew that, boy. Knew you loved what you were doing, where you were doing it. All she wanted was for you to be happy.”
“And I was … am. But …” He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know how to explain it.
“Torn between your worlds.”
“Did she ever tell you I asked her to come live with me in Chicago?”
“She had a good laugh over that. Appreciated the gesture, laughed at the idea of living in such a city. I lived there for a while once upon a time. Can’t say that I hated it, but it sure didn’t fit me. And it sure wouldn’t have fit Eula, either.”
“I wanted to buy her a condo in New Orleans.”
“Which kept her closer to home, which would have probably been even worse for her, so close and yet so far away from it.” He shook his head. “Eula was a single-minded woman and it was a mind you weren’t going to change. Not for any reason outside of you needing someone to take care of you.”
“Maybe I should have lied.”
“Or left it the way she wanted.”
“The way she wanted it …” He pulled a crumpled letter from his pocket. “‘You’d be a good doctor here, Justin. Promise me you’ll think about it.’ Well, I’ve been thinking. That’s all I’ve been doing and I don’t understand how she could have asked that of me. She knew better.”
“I supposed she did, but do you?”
“I can’t stay here and dispense herbs. That’s all there is to it.”
“Dispense herbs, get the folks in the area used to traditional medicine. Sounds to me that’s exactly what she wanted from you.”
“But I can’t do it! She’d asked me before, I’d told her no. Then she’d told me I’d know when it was time to come home. But I can’t just come home. Home is Chicago now. In a penthouse overlooking the lakeshore, senior member of a general surgery practice. That’s home.”
“You’re sounding awfully defensive about it, boy.”
“Because I am defensive about it. I’ve worked hard at setting up the life I want, and I’m not about to change that to come back here.”
“Ah, but you could compromise, couldn’t you? You, know … practice what you want most of the time, slip in a little bit of what they want every now and again? Make everybody happy.”
Yes, right. Make everybody happy but him. “You are persistent, old man. Gotta give you credit for that.” In spite of the man’s almost daily nagging, Justin liked him. Always had. Amos Picou was ageless, with his unflawed black skin that showed no wrinkles, no age. Like Napoleon, Amos had come around for as long as Justin could remember, bringing his grandmother gator