Chapter 25: Thanksgiving

Etienne left at six in the morning with a case of green sauce belted into the passenger seat.

I stood in the café lot in my coat and watched him check the strap twice.

"Two hours there," he said. "She tastes at nine. If she signs, Lise has it by ten."

"And if she doesn't?"

"Then I drive home and we lose together."

He kissed me through the open window.

His mouth tasted like Lise's coffee.

Then his taillights went over the causeway in the dark, and I went upstairs and put on my only good dress.

Luc had planned Thanksgiving like a coronation.

White tents on the big house lawn.

Turkey fryers going behind the garage.

Long tables in white cloths, and at the head of the lawn, under the oldest oak, a small table with a leather folder and a silver pen.

Every soul on Pointe Rouge was there.

He'd made sure of it.

Attendance wasn't required, but nobody was going to miss the day the island got sold.

The Houston buyer sat at the small table with two lawyers in matching ties.

He'd traded his quarter-zip for a blazer and kept the teeth.

Mémère sat beside him in her chair, in her pearls and her church cardigan.

She didn't look at me when I sat down.

At noon Luc stood up with a glass of champagne.

"A hundred and twelve years," he said.

His voice cracked in the right place again.

He talked about his great-great-grandfather and the coffee can of seed.

He talked about the storm, and the bank, and the hard choices a family makes.

He said "partnership" over and over, leaning on the word.

"And today," he said, "Arceneaux Red goes to the next level."

The buyer smiled.

People clapped, the thin way people clap at a funeral.

My phone was in my lap.

Nothing from Etienne.

Nothing from Lise.

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