I called home. Aubrey got Daddy on the phone immediately when he heard I had Mommy waiting to speak to him.

"You found her!" Daddy cried. "Oh, thank God. And thank you, Pearl. Please let me speak to her."

I handed Mommy the phone.

"Hello, Beau. . . . I'm fine now. We'll soon be on our way home." She listened and then started to cry softly. "I'm sorry," she said in a cracked voice. "I'm very sorry." She couldn't say another word. Instead, she shook her head and handed me the phone.

"Ruby, Ruby?" Daddy was calling.

"She's all right, Daddy. She's just overwrought right now. We'll just finish our breakfast and then we'll be on our way."

"Hurry, but drive carefully," he said.

Mommy had sat down again. I asked Daddy softly if he had heard anything new from the hospital.

"No. No change," he replied.

"See you soon, Daddy," I told him and cradled the receiver. I went to Mommy and put my arm around her.

She cried softly. "No matter . . . what I do, I make more trouble," she said with a sigh.

"It's not your fault. You've got to stop blaming yourself for things. All of us bear some responsibility for our own actions. The blame can't all fall on your shoulders."

"Let's go," she said pushing away her cup and plate. "I can't eat another thing."

I helped her up.

"You sure you can make this drive yourselves?" Jack asked me.

"I'm fine, Jack. We'll be all right once we get started," I said.

He followed us out and helped Mommy get into the car. "Take care of yourself, Madame Andreas. I will say a prayer for you."

"Thank you." She looked surprised as she gazed at him.

Jack came around the car to say good-bye to me. We stood outside, the car door still closed.

"I'll be coming for my clothes," he kidded. "Maybe I won't want to give them back. I've grown quite fond of them."

"Then I'll leave without them, but at least I'll have seen you."

"You know what this means, don't you? You'll be forced to come into the city where you have to strain your neck to see the sun."

He laughed. Then his face turned very serious, his eyes fixed firmly on mine. "I wouldn't be afraid to live in total darkness if you were with me, Pearl. You would bring me my sunlight."

His words brought tears of joy to my eyes, and then he glanced quickly at Mommy before chancing a good-bye kiss. His lips only grazed mine, but I closed my eyes and savored the instant, embossing it on my memory.

"Please be careful," he said squeezing my hand. "I'll call you later today."

"Good-bye Jack." I opened the door. "Thanks for all you've done."

I got into the car and started the engine. Mommy was biting down on her lower lip and holding back her tears. We drove off slowly. In my rearview mirror, I saw Jack watching us. The other riggers were starting to arrive. Some beeped their horns and waved.

"Everyone seems to know you," Mommy said, amazed.

"Oil riggers are a tight group," I replied, remembering how Jack had described them. "They help each other and anyone each of them cares about. Once they heard what had happened to me, they volunteered to do all sorts of things for Jack and me."

As we made the turn away from his trailer, and as the house began to disappear behind us, a soft smile couched itself on my lips.

Mommy noticed. "How did you meet this young man?"

"We met when Daddy and I first came to Cypress Woods looking for you. He takes care of my well, number twenty-two," I said proudly.

"Your well? Oh. Paul's legacy to you." She grew sad again. "He was so fond of you."

"It's horrible how the Tates are permitting the house to fall apart, isn't it, Mommy?"

"Yes. It was once the most beautiful home in the bayou. Paul was so proud of it and everything in it. I remember the day he brought you and me to see it completed. He couldn't stop bragging about his special windows and his chandeliers," she said.

"I met Uncle Paul's mother," I said and described my visit to Aunt Jeanne's home.

Mommy listened as I told her the things Gladys Tate had said, but she didn't seem angry. "She put us through hell, but I can understand her terrible loss now and why she wanted to hurt us. Of course, hate poisons after a while, and that's the second tragedy," she added.

"But from what you've told me and from what I could see, Gladys Tate wasn't a happy woman even before all this happened."

"No. She had many crosses to bear. She made herself believe she was Paul's natural mother for her own sake as well as for his. I do believe she loved him as much as a natural mother could love a son. But she was possessive and always very angry. She had a bad marriage. Octavious was a ladies' man from the start and strayed often from their marriage bed. My mother wasn't his only conquest," she muttered. "Grandmère Catherine used to say unhappiness was a hungry snake that fed upon itself until it swallowed itself. The more miserable their marriage was, the more he wandered, and the more he wandered, the more miserable Gladys became. She's to be pitied now."

"I wonder why Gladys and Octavious got married, then," I said.

"Sometimes people get married for all the wrong reasons, but don't realize it until it's too late," Mommy explained. "The Tate fortune, the factory—all of it was in Gladys Tate's family, not Octavious's. He was a handsome, debonair man who chained himself to a woman for the money and property she possessed. I'm sure he said all the right things to her. Perhaps he didn't convince her he was in love with her; perhaps she convinced herself because she wanted to believe it, but the effect was the same. They started building a life on a foundation of lies, made promises they knew in their hearts they would never keep, and kept adding to the illusion until the devil came knocking and Octavious answered the door.

"So you see, you have to be careful, Pearl," Mommy said sharply, turning to me. "You have to avoid the swamp of illusions and false promises. They dangle words in front of you, words that sparkle like diamonds, but when you reach out for them, you find they are only flecks of glass that shatters in your fingers and falls into dust at your feet.

"Sometimes they don't even mean to be false to us. Sometimes they believe their own false promises; they swallow their own illusions, too. But that's even worse, for when they are sincere, you accept and believe and give yourself completely to the dreams. You float higher and higher, and the fall is that much more severe. Believe me, I know.

"This young man," she said jerking her head to-ward the rear, "how involved have you become with him?"

"His name is Jack, Mommy, Jack Clovis. He's not just another young man."

"Jack," she said. "You were sleeping with him last night, weren't you?"

"Jack is the first man I've met who I felt was real, Mommy. He's sincere, and he doesn't make promises he can't keep. His feet are set solidly in reality. He's not a dreamer," I told her.

She shook her head skeptically. "What I've been trying to tell you, to show you with my own tragic background, is that you have to be extra careful. For some reason the Landry line was born to hoe a harder field, a field filled with sharp rocks and webs of stubborn weeds."

"I am extra careful, Mommy. I've always been. You know that."

"I know, but when you came up here looking for me, you were emotionally distraught. You have to be sure that what you see in this man and what he says to you isn't colored by your own vulnerability. He must have seemed like a guardian angel to you."

"He did," I declared. "And rightly so."

"I'm afraid for you," she said, her chin quivering. "Don't make the mistakes I did. Take your time, and when your heart is pounding and your body is demanding that you give yourself completely, step back and think of me.

"When you make a mistake, you hurt not only yourself but also the people you love.

"When I was living in the bayou with you, and Gisselle wrote me that your father was going to marry someone else, I thought I'd go mad. He had given me up for dead. Here I was a young woman with a baby, so I gave in to the illusions and the promises and the hope that Paul offered. I wanted to believe I could live in a magical world where we would be forever safe and protected. But that's when all the tragedy had its ugly start." She began to cry softly again.

"It's all right, Mommy. Please don't cry." I reached for her hand.

"Poor Jean," she muttered. "My poor baby. He's gone, gone . . ."

The pain in my heart was so heavy I thought I wouldn't be able to keep driving. I took deep breaths while Mommy whimpered softly. Finally she stopped, closed her eyes, and fell asleep against the window. When I gazed at her, she looked as if she had aged years. The sight of her brought the stinging, hot tears to my eyes and clouded my vision. It was as if it was raining.

It looked as if it might storm anyway. The sky was heavily overcast with some bruised, dark clouds rolling in from the southwest.

When I pulled onto the main highway, the bayou began to drop behind me, flowing back as if it had all turned liquid and was pouring down a drain. The toothpick-legged shacks were still visible here and there, and I saw oyster fishermen and Cajun women and children harvesting Spanish moss. We passed a few roadside stands, and then the road became relatively deserted for a while.

I thought about Jack and the things Mommy had said. Maybe she was right; maybe I was in a weak and vulnerable state when we met, but why did that have to mean what we felt for each other was just illusion? And why did that have to mean that Jack was less sincere than I thought he was? Sometimes tragic and difficult times bring together people who are meant to be together, I reasoned. Mommy was understandably wary, but I needn't live like that, too.

I didn't regret anything that had happened between Jack and me. Our loving remained an oasis of happiness in a sea of turmoil and pain. Everyone was always warning me about the dangers inherent in first love. It was better to be cautious, modest, reasonable, everyone said.

But I was convinced that what I felt in my heart now for Jack was more than just a young girl's first infatuation. He and I had found depths of feelings together that were beyond the reach of mere girlish crushes.

No, Mommy, I thought. Don't worry about my relationship with Jack. It's built on solid ground, not swampland, and the only illusion for us was the idea that we could ever forget each other and what we had come to mean to each other.

I sped up. The rain started just before we reached New Orleans, but it was a slow, steady drizzle rather than a blinding downpour. Mommy woke up after we crossed the bridge and started down the city streets toward the Garden District. In the gray light of morning, the city looked tired, worn. Without the glow of neon signs, the rainbow colors of costumes, and the sound of music, New Orleans in the morning resembled an aging woman caught without her make-up. Street cleaners were still trying to remove the debris cast about by frenzied partygoers. Sleepy store owners opened their doors and squinted at the daylight.

The rain slowed to a sprinkle, but the air was so hot and humid already that the sidewalks looked steamy. "Are you all right, Mommy?" I asked.

She flashed a smile and nodded. "There were moments when I thought I would never set eyes on this city again," she said. "But that's over." She squeezed my hand. "Let's get Daddy and go to Pierre."

The rain came to a complete stop when we reached the Garden District. I pulled into our driveway, and we hurried up the steps to the front door. Aubrey, who knew we were on our way, must have been waiting by the window, for the door was thrust open before we reached it.

"Welcome home, madame," he said quickly. The warmth in his moist eyes was as much emotion as Aubrey had ever shown.

Mommy surprised him with a quick embrace. "Where's Monsieur Andreas?" she asked.

Aubrey was flustered for a moment. "Monsieur Andreas . . . oh, upstairs. I helped him dress. He's practicing with the crutches."

We charged up the stairway. When we reached the open door to Mommy and Daddy's suite, I stepped back. Daddy was up, leaning on his crutches, his leg in a cast. He stopped and looked at Mommy for a moment. "Ruby," he said, teetering.

She rushed forward, and he embraced her, the crutches falling to the floor. She held him firmly, and they stood there clinging to each other for a long moment. Their embrace sent my fugitive tears flowing freely down my cheeks. After another moment I picked up Daddy's crutches and held them out to him.