When the doctor told me he couldn't be exactly sure when I would give birth but that it would be sometime within the next week or so, Paul decided he would spend every night with me. I could always reach him or someone else during the day, but he was afraid of what could happen at night.

Early one afternoon at the beginning of my ninth month, Paul arrived, his face flushed with excitement.

"Everyone's saying we're going to be hit with a hurricane," he declared. "I want you to come to my house."

"Oh no, Paul. I can't do that."

"It's not safe here," he declared. "Look at the sky." He pointed to the dull red sunset caused by a thin haze of clouds. "You can practically smell it," he added. The air had become hot and sticky, and the little breeze we had had all day had all but died.

But I couldn't go to his house and be with his family. I was too ashamed and afraid of his father's and his mother's eyes.

Surely they resented me for returning and creating all these rumors.

"I'll be all right here," I said. "We've been here for storms before."

"You're as stubborn as your Grandpère," Paul said. He was angry with me, but I wouldn't budge. Instead, I went in and prepared some dinner for us. Paul went into his car to listen to the radio. The weathermen were making dire predictions. He came into the house and started to button down whatever he could. I set out two bowls of gumbo, but the moment we sat down, the wind began to howl something fierce. Paul looked out the rear of the house toward the canals and groaned. A dark storm cloud had appeared quickly, and the torrential rains could be seen approaching.

"Here she comes," he announced. After what seemed like only seconds later, the rain and the wind hit. Water poured down the roof and found every crack in the building. The wind lashed at the loose boards. We heard things lifted and thrown, some of them bashing against the house, slamming so hard i tto the walls we thought they would come clear through. I screamed and retreated to the living room, where I cowered on the sofa. Paul rushed about, closing up and tying down whatever openings he could, but the wind threaded itself right through the house, blowing things off shelves and counters and even turning over a chair. I thought the tin roof would lift away and in moments we would be exposed to the jaws of this raging storm.

"We should have left!" Paul cried. I was sobbing and holding myself. Paul gave up trying to tie anything down and came over to embrace me. We sat beside each other, holding each other and listening to the howling, thundering wind tear trees from their roots.

Suddenly, just as quickly as it had started, the storm stopped. A deadly calm fell over the bayou. The darkness lifted. I caught my breath and Paul got up to survey the damage. We both gazed out the window and shook our heads in shock at the sight of the trees that had been split. The world looked topsy-turvy.

And then Paul's eyes widened when the little patch of blue above us started to disappear.

"It was the eye of the storm," he declared. "Back, back . . ."

The tail of the storm reached us, ripping and howling like an angry giant creature. This time the house shook, walls cracked, and windows came splintering out, their shards of glass flying everywhere.

"Ruby, we've got to get under the house!" Paul screamed. The thought of going out terrified me. I pulled out of his arms and retreated toward the kitchen. But I stepped into a puddle that had formed under a leak in the roof and slipped. I fell face forward, just catching myself in time to prevent the floor from smashing into my nose. However, I did fall sharply on my stomach. The pain was excruciating. I turned over on my back and screamed and screamed. Paul was beside me quickly, trying to get me up.

"I can't, Paul. I can't . . ." I protested. My legs felt like lead, too heavy to bend or lift. He tried to pick me up, but I was a deadweight, I was too much for him, and he too had begun to slip and .slide on the wet floor. And then I felt the sharpest pain of my life. It was as if someone had taken a knife and started to cut from my belly button down. I squeezed Paul's shoulder.

"Paul! The baby!"

His face was filled with abject terror. He turned toward the door as if he were considering going for help, realized how impossible that was, and turned back to me, just as my water broke.

"The baby's coming!"

The wind continued to twist the building. The tin roof groaned, and some of it loosened and slammed against the bracing.

"You've got to help me, Paul! It's too late!"

I was positive I would pass out and maybe even die on the floor of the shack. How could anyone endure such agony and live? I wondered. It came in waves of pain and tightness, the waves occurring closer and closer in time until I actually felt the baby moving. Paul knelt before me, his eyes so wide I thought they would burst. He shook his head in disbelief.

It got so I didn't even hear the storm or realize it was still around us. I seemed to drift in and out of consciousness, until finally I gave this great push and Paul exclaimed with delight. The baby was in his hands.

"It's a girl!" he cried. "A girl!"

The doctor had explained about the umbilical cord. I instructed Paul, and he cut and tied it. Then my baby started to wail. He placed her in my arms. I was still on the floor, and the storm, although diminished, remained around us, the rain pounding the house.

Paul brought me some pillows and I sat up to gaze down at the little face that was turned toward me, already searching for comfort and security and love.

"She's beautiful," Paul said.

The rain became a shower, the shower a sprinkle, and then the weak rays of the falling sun broke through the clouds and came through a window to drop the warm illumination over my baby and me. I covered her face with my kisses.

We had survived. We would go on together.

Epilogue

Remarkably, Grandmère Catherine's toothpick-legged shack had survived what everyone in the bayou was calling the worst storm in decades. Many others were not as lucky and had their homes swept away in the torrential rains and winds. The roads were strewn with broken tree limbs and branches. It looked like it would take days, if not weeks, to get things back to some semblance of normalcy.

But as soon as word of my baby's birth had spread, I was visited by Grandmère Catherine's friends, all bringing something I would need.

"What's her name?" Mrs. Livaudis asked.

"Pearl," I told them. And then I told them that I had once had a dream about my baby, and in the dream she had a complexion the color of a pearl. They all nodded, their eyes on the baby, their faces filled with understanding. After all, I was Catherine Landry's granddaughter. Mystical things were bound to happen to me.

Paul was at the house constantly, each day arriving with his arms full of things for the baby, as well as for me. He brought some of his employees from the factory with him the day after the storm and they went about repairing what they could. He was there tinkering about the building and grounds when the women were there.

"It's nice that he does all these things for you," Mrs. Thirbodeaux said, "but he should acknowledge his bigger responsibilities," she whispered. It did no good to protest and explain anymore, although I did feel sorry for Paul and his family. No matter how it looked, he refused to stay away.

In the evenings after dinner, I would sit in Grandmère Catherine's old rocker with Pearl in my arms and rock her to sleep. Paul would lay back on the floor of the galerie, his hands behind his head, a blade of grass in his mouth, and compliment me on how well I was taking care of the baby and cooking wonderful meals. I knew what he was up to, but I pretended I didn't.

One afternoon, a few weeks after Pearl's birth, Paul arrived with another letter from Gisselle. This one was much shorter but much more painful.

Dear Ruby,

You haven't written back, but Paul has. I told Daphne where you are and that you had a baby now. She didn't want to hear a word. I was going to tell Beau as soon as I saw him, but I just learned that he is not coming back from Europe. He's staying there and going to college there to become a doctor. And like I wrote before, he is in love with some daughter of some duke or count who lives in a real castle.

Daphne and Bruce have announced their wed-ding date. Wouldn't it be wild if you showed up with your baby in your arms! I'll keep you up on all the details. I know you're just dying to know about everything that happens here, even though you're pretending you don't care.

Why don't you write me back? I'll read your letter to Daphne. I just thought of something funny: Not only am I an aunt, but she's technically a grandmother. remind her whenever she's unpleasant to me. Thanks. You finally did something I can appreciate.

Just kidding.

I wonder if we will ever see each other again.

Your darling twin sister, Gisselle

"Why did you write to her, Paul?" I asked him.

"I thought your family should know about you and . . ."

"And you wanted Beau to know, didn't you?" I pursued. He shrugged. "It doesn't matter anymore," I said in a defeated voice.

"Then you're really home for good? You're going to stay?"

"Where else would I go? Where would Pearl and I go?"

"Then let me make you a home here," he pleaded.

"I don't know, Paul," I said. "Let me think hard about it."

"Fine," he said, encouraged by the fact that I didn't say no immediately.

After he left me that night, I sat on the galerie and listened to the owl. Pearl was asleep inside, content and safe for now. But I had come a long way to make a full circle, and I knew that the world was not a soft place in which to cuddle forever. It was hard and cold, cruel and filled with tragic possibilities. It was good to have someone to look after you, to protect you, to keep you warm and safe. How could it be a sin to want that and have it, if not for myself, then for my baby? I thought.

Grandmère, I whispered. Give me a sign. Help me make the right choices, go down the right roads now.

The owl stopped its hooting when a marsh hawk swooped down and landed in front of the house. It strutted about for a moment and then turned toward me. In the moonlight I could see its yellow-circled eyes fixed on me. It lifted its wings as if to greet me, and then as quickly as it had come, it flew off into the darkness where, I knew, it perched itself on a branch and continued to watch the house, watch me and watch my baby.

And I knew in my heart that Grandmère Catherine was here with me, whispering in the breeze, filling me with hope. I would make the right decisions.