Chapter 13: The Big House

The Guidry house sat at the end of a live oak drive, white and square, with columns that had never held up anything.

I had eaten Sunday supper in it for six years.

I'd stood in its kitchen and told a cook her gravy was better than my own mother's.

I walked in on the Sunday after the levee with my daughter's hand in mine, in a yellow dress that I'd ironed twice.

"Is this a castle?" Lou asked.

"It's a house."

"It has a lot of chairs."

"It does," I said.

Gabe walked on the other side of her, in a clean shirt, with his jaw set.

He had not touched me since the tailgate, and I'd noticed every inch of the space he left.

The dining room table seated sixteen.

Tonight it held five places at one end, with a crystal pitcher and a platter of roast duck.

Armand sat at the head.

Delphine sat at his right hand in a green silk dress, which left the chair at his left for Gabe.

The chair beside that was for me.

There was a booster seat.

Someone had bought it that afternoon, and it still had the price tag on the corner.

"Sit, sit," Armand said warmly. "Eloise, you sit by me."

"I'm Lou," said Lou.

"Of course you are."

"I'll sit by Mama."

"Then by your daddy," Armand said, and the word landed on the table.

Gabe didn't blink.

He pulled out the booster seat for her himself and set her between us.

The duck came around.

Delphine asked Lou what her favorite color was, and Lou said it depended on the day.

Armand told a story about the mill during the flood of '89 that I'd heard four times.

Gabe cut Lou's meat into small pieces without being asked, and she let him.

I watched his hands and tried to eat.

It was nearly over, almost kind, when Armand tapped his glass with his knife.

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