"The child needs a lot of attention," Mama said. "Remember, he's premature."

"We'll have a real doctor here in less than an hour. He's someone we can trust, but I still want you out of the house as soon as possible," she said. She handed the baby to Octavious as she rose from her bed. Then she took the baby back quickly and started out of the bedroom, taking care, it seemed to me, to prevent me from getting a good view of him. She paused at the doorway.

"Once you're gone, I don't want to ever see you on this property again," she told me.

"She'd rather step in quicksand," Mama retorted. Gladys smiled, satisfied. "Good," she said, and walked out with my baby. I hadn't even seen him for a full minute and he was already gone from my life forever. My lips trembled and my heart ached.

Octavious remained behind a moment, stuttering some apology and some thanks. "Take as long as you need," he concluded, his eyes down. Then he hurried to follow his wife and new child.

I couldn't help but burst into tears. Mama put her arm around me and kissed my hair and forehead, trying to comfort and soothe me.

"Is he really perfect, Mama?"

"Yes, honey, he is. He's one of the prettiest babies I've seen, and you know I've seen a few in my time."

"Will he be all right?"

"I think so. He was breathing strong on his own. It's good that they're having a doctor come around, though. Let me tend to your bleeding, Gabrielle, and then let you rest. Damn your father for hurrying away. I could use him now," she muttered.

I lay back, exhausted, not only from the delivery, but from the emotional pain of having only a glimpse of baby Paul and then seeing him swept away from me instantly. Mama was right: This was a terrible feeling. I felt like I was trapped in a nightmare that would haunt me forever.

It was very late by the time I felt strong enough to get out of the bed and stand on my own. Mama held me cautiously and had me walk around the room first. Then she sat me down and went to find Octavious. Since Daddy hadn't returned, she had to ask Octavious to drive us home.

The house was dim and quiet with all the servants gone. I paused outside the bedroom door on the upstairs landing because I heard my baby crying. I looked at Octavious.

"I want to see him," I said.

He looked at Mama and then me.

"I won't leave before I do," I threatened.

He nodded. "Gladys is sleeping. She claims she's exhausted. If you're very quiet about it . . ."

"I will be. I promise," I said.

"Gabrielle. Maybe it's better you just leave, honey. You're just prolonging the pain and . . ." Mama's voice trailed off.

"No, Mama. I've got to look at him. Please," I begged.

She shook her head and then turned to Octavious and nodded.

"Very, very quiet," he said, and practically tiptoed down the hallway to the nursery he and Gladys had prepared. The wet nurse was already there. She was a young girl not much older than me. Octavious whispered something to her and she left without glancing at me.

I stepped up to the cradle and peered in at baby Paul, wrapped in his blue cotton blanket, his pink face no bigger than a fist. His eyes were closed, but he was breathing nicely. His skin was so soft. It was a little crimson at the cheeks. All of his features were perfect. Mama was right. His fingers, clutched at the blanket, looked smaller than the fingers of any doll I had ever had. My heart ached with my desire to touch him, to kiss him, to hold him against my throbbing breasts filled with milk that was meant to be his and would never touch his lips.

"We better go," Octavious whispered.

"Come on, honey," Mama urged. She put her hand through my arm and held me at the elbow.

"Good-bye, Paul," I whispered. "You'll never know who I am. I'll never hear your cry again; never comfort you or hear your laughing somehow, somehow, I hope you'll sense that I'm out there, waiting anxiously for the day I can set eyes on you again."

I kissed my finger and then touched his tiny forehead. My throat felt like I had a stone caught in it. I turned and walked away like one in a trance, not feeling, not seeing, not hearing anything but the cries of sadness inside me.

Somehow, we got down the stairway and out the front door to Octavious' car. Mama and I sat in the back, me lying against her, my eyes closed, my hand clutching hers. We slipped through the night like shadows indistinguishable from the blanket of darkness that had fallen heavily over the world. No one spoke until we arrived at our shack. Octavious opened the door and helped Mama get me out.

"I'll take her from here," Mama told him sternly:

"Will she be all right?" he asked. Mama hesitated. I felt her turn to him and I opened my eyes.

"She will be fine; she will grow strong again, whereas you will grow weaker and smaller under the burden of your sin," she predicted. He seemed to shrink. "You be sure that that madwoman you call your wife treats that child with love and kindness, hear?"

"I will," he promised. "He'll have everything he needs and more."

"He needs love."

Octavious nodded. "I'm sorry," he muttered one final time, and went back to his car.

Mama turned me to the shack and we made our way to the door as Octavious drove away, the sound of his car drifting back into the darkness. I was still in pain. My legs felt so heavy and my head even heavier, but I didn't complain. I didn't want to make things any harder than they were for Mama. She managed to get me in the house and up the stairs to my little room. It was actually a bit smaller than the room I had been living in at the Tate house, but it was my room and full of my memories. It was like seeing an old friend again.

"It's so good to be home, Mama," I said.

She helped me into bed. "Just get some rest, honey. I'll be right here if you need me," she added. She said something else, but I didn't hear it. Before she had completed the sentence, I was asleep.

Daddy returned sometime before morning, bitter and angry about the money he had lost gambling, raging that he had been cheated and that he would get revenge. He was quite drunk and smashed a chair in anger, splintering it to bits. It woke me and sent Mama flying down to bawl him out. I heard the shouting, his pounding the walls and stomping the floor. I heard the door slam so hard, the whole shack shook, and then it was deadly quiet. My eyes shut themselves and didn't open again until the sunlight brushed my face. They fluttered open, and for a moment I didn't know where I was. After a moment, it all came rushing back over me, including the racket I had heard in the middle of the night. Mama, anticipating my awakening, stepped into the room with a cup of rich Cajun coffee, the steam rising from the mug.

"Got to get you up and about, honey. Women who lay around like sick people after they give birth usually develop some problem or another," she said.

I sat up and took the mug of coffee. "Was I dreaming or was Daddy screaming and yelling last night?" I asked her.

She shook her head. "I wish you had been dreaming. No, he came home in one of his drunken states again, claiming he had been cheated out of the money he lost at cards. Instead of finding a good job and working hard, he keeps trying to make a killing somewhere. He works harder at not working than he would if he worked," she added.

"Does he know I'm home?"

"I tried to tell him, but he wasn't hearing anything but his own stupid voice last night."

"Where is he?"

"He fell asleep in his truck last I saw, but when I looked out before, the truck was gone. No telling what he's up to now. I'll fix you some good breakfast, honey. You rise and stretch those legs, hear?"

"Yes, Mama. Mama?" I said before she left the room. She turned.

"Yes, honey?"

"What about . . ." I held my hands under my ample breasts.

Mama's face turned sad again. "I was going to tell you about that today," she said sadly. "You'll have to just pump it out or you'll develop milk fever."

"But the milk . . ."

"We can't offer it to anyone's baby, and that woman won't let Paul have your milk," she added bitterly. Mama hated waste in any shape or form.

"How long will I have to do this, Mama?"

"From the looks of you, a few weeks at least, honey. I'm sorry."

My tears burned under my eyelids. Every time I did this, I would think of my baby forced to drink the milk of a stranger while his mother's milk was poured into the ground. From the way I ached, I couldn't postpone it much longer either. After breakfast Mama showed me what to do. All the hot tears I had held back streaked down my cheeks.

They seemed to singe my heart as well as my face. I think Mama turned away and left me because she, too, was close to crying.

Afterward, when I lay back and closed my eyes, I thought I could hear my baby's cry. I recalled his tiny face and imagined what it would have been like to have his lips on my nipple drawing the milk from me. Perhaps, if I did this every time, it would make it a little easier, I thought.

Late in the afternoon, Daddy returned. He had a swollen left cheek and a black eye. There was a thin gash along the top of his forehead, and his clothes were wrinkled and marred with mud and grime as if he had been dragged through the swamp. He limped when he entered the house. Mama and I both looked up and gasped.

"What did you do now, Jack," Mama asked after a moment, "to get such a beating?"

"They ganged up on me is what happened," he wailed. "Those thieves down at Bloody Mary's." He fixed his eyes on me. "You shouldn't have left that house so fast, Gabrielle. We coulda made them pay to have you leave."

"What for, Jack? So you can go and throw it away at some bar or over some game of chance?" Mama snapped. "Just like you did every other nickel?"

"It was what was coming to us," he declared, his arms spread.

"Us, Jack? How's it us? She's the one's suffered and she don't get one penny because you've gone and lost or spent it all, right? Or did you put away a little for her?" Mama asked, knowing the answer.

"I . . . I just been trying to build something for this family, is all. But I got cheated, so I went back to get back what's mine and they jumped me." He stared at me a moment. "They give you anything before you left?" he asked.

"No, Daddy," I said.

"And if they had, we wouldn't tell you, Jack Landry," Mama said.

"Ahh. Women never appreciate what a man tries to do for them," he complained, and sank in his worn easy chair. "I got to think up a new plan here. Those Tates can't get off this. easy," he muttered.

"Instead of spending all this time sitting, there trying to think up a new plan to rob people, why don't you go look for honest work, Jack?" Mama said, her hands on her hips. He gazed up, his nearly closed right eye twitching.

"What'cha talking about, robbing people? It's them who's robbed us, robbed our daughter of her pure innocence. Just like you not to see the point."

"I see the point," Mama said. "I been seeing it grow sharper and sharper, too. It's cutting right through here," she said, holding her hand over her heart.

"Ahh, stop your wailing. I need quiet and something to eat. I got to think hard," he said.

Mama shook her head and went back to her roux.

"I said I need something to eat!" Daddy cried. Mama continued to stir her gravy with her back to him as if he weren't in the shack. I rose and put together a plate of food for him.

"Thank you, Gabrielle," he said, taking it and wolfing it down. "At least you care."

"Mama cares, Daddy. She's just tired. We're all tired," I said.

Daddy paused in his chewing, his eyes growing darker. "Damn if I'm going to sit here and watch my women suffer while that rich family enjoys the fruits of my daughter," he declared. "I'm going back, and this time I'm going to demand twice as much."

"Jack, don't you dare," Mama snapped.

"Don't tell me what not to do, woman. Cajun women," he spit. "Stubborn . . ." He put the plate down and rose.

"Jack Landry," Mama called, but he was already heading for the door.

"Just sit tight and let me be the man of the house," he yelled back, and shot through the door.

"Man of the house don't mean blackmailing people forever, Jack Landry," she called after him, but he didn't stop. He got into his truck and pulled away, leaving Mama and me standing by the door. "It's going to come to no good," she predicted, and shook her head. "No good."

Sure enough, late in the afternoon, the police arrived to tell us Daddy was in the lockup.