Chapter 13: The Church Steps

The nine women stopped on the steps behind me.

Aurore's hand closed on my sleeve.

Laurent didn't let go of my hand.

Armand looked at our two hands together.

"Is it true?" he said.

The men had come out of the courthouse onto the steps to watch.

The square was full of market carts.

I could have said anything.

"Yes," I said.

He laughed, once.

Nobody laughed with him.

"In the woods?" His voice went up. "With my ring on your hand?"

"With your two hundred dollars in my pocket," I said. "The ones you won when I fell."

Down at the curb, the carriage door opened again.

"Armand." Odile didn't lean out. She only said his name.

He stood there one more second, looking at his brother's face.

Then he went down the steps and got in, and the carriage pulled away through the carts.

Aurore let out her breath.

"He'll say it in church," she said.

Old Madame from the sugar house thumped her cane on the step.

"Let him," she said. "I sit in the second pew. I'll hear every word."

Laurent was at our gate at eight the next morning in his father's coat.

He'd trimmed his beard again, and he'd shined his boots.

"You look like a man going to his own hanging," Aurore told him.

"I'm going to Mass."

"Same thing, in this parish."

He looked at me over her head.

"Whatever he says," he said, "don't stand up there alone."

"I'm not going to stand alone." I took his arm on our own gallery, where the whole bayou road could see. "I'm going to stand next to you."

St. Martin de Tours was packed to the doors.

People who hadn't been to Mass since Easter were there.

I knew why.

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