Chapter 6: Eyebrows

Gabe set the grocery sacks down very carefully on the chair by the window.

He did it with both hands.

"Lou," he said. "Is that short for something?"

"Eloise," Lou said. "But Mama says nobody gets to call me that unless I'm in trouble."

"Am I in trouble?"

"No. You're just tall."

He crouched down so his face was level with hers, and I saw his knees crack.

I saw her look at his chin.

Her hand came up before I could stop her, and she touched the cleft in it with one crayon-colored finger.

"I have one of those," she said. "Mémère says it's where the angel put her thumb."

"Does she?"

"Do you have a dog?"

"I've got two," Gabe said.

"What are their names?"

"Boudin and Cracklin."

Lou looked delighted.

"I'm going to draw them," she said. "What color?"

"One's brown and one is too brown to tell."

I could not breathe.

"Lou," I said. "Stay with Mémère and finish the hip. Mr. Guidry and I are going to talk in the hall."

She gave me a look that said she knew perfectly well it was a grown-up lie.

But she climbed back up on the bed beside my grandmother, and Mémère put an arm around her without a word.

Gabe stood.

He kept his eyes on Lou until the last second, and then he followed me out.

The corridor was long and white, with a window at the end showing a parking lot and a cypress tree.

I stopped halfway down.

He stopped too, a careful six feet away, and put both hands in his back pockets.

"How old is she?" he said.

"Five."

"When was she born?"

"October fourth," I said.

I watched him do the arithmetic.

He did it slowly, with his lips moving.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Left Pregnant and Swore She Wasn't His, Now He Wants the Truth from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.