They Sold Me to the Crippled War God, So Why Was He Standing in My Father's Barn on Two Good Legs novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Fais Do-Do

The fais do-do hall on Route 82 had a cypress floor older than the parish's oldest grandmother, and on Saturday nights it sounded like a boat under sail.

Fais do-do means go to sleep, the thing you say to a child.

It is what the mothers said to the babies they laid down in the back room while they danced.

I had not been to one in three years, because Gabe didn't dance and I didn't go without him.

I went that Saturday alone, in my green dress, with a bandage on my hand and my chin up.

By the time the church clerk's story had gone round the parish twice, I was the girl who had run off to the War God.

If I stayed hidden I would be that girl for the rest of my life.

I wanted the parish to see my face.

The hall was packed.

A fiddle, an accordion and a triangle played on the little stage, and a hundred couples turned across the boards in a slow two-step.

Strings of colored lights hung from the rafters, and the air smelled of sweat and boudin and spilled beer.

I felt the room notice me.

It went through the crowd.

A man I'd gone to school with asked me to dance, because his wife had a bad foot, and I said yes.

He steered me through a two-step with his eyes on the floor and said nothing.

When the song ended, someone touched my shoulder.

Gabe stood there in his pressed plaid shirt with his hat in his hands.

Tessie sat at a table by the wall, in a white sundress, pretending not to watch.

"Odile," Gabe said.

"Can we talk?"

"No," I said.

"I just want to say I'm sorry about how it happened," he said.

"How it happened," I said, loud enough for the nearest dancers to hear.

"You mean how you stood up in front of the whole parish and told me you'd picked my sister."

His face flushed.

"Keep your voice down."

"You let me wait three years, Gabe.

"You let my aunts buy me a dress.

"I'm not going to keep my voice down.

"You're a coward, and you did it in a church hall so I couldn't say so."

The dancers nearest us had stopped.

Behind them, the music went on, thinner.

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