She thought a moment, looking out at a pink trawler capsized in the roadside bayou, an egret clasping a propeller blade. “No,” she yelled over the roaring air vents. “Things down here make more sense.”

Chapter Seventeen

Seventeen

Aunt Nellie Arnaud was sitting on the sofa, a highball on her fat right knee, when Colette came in. Matthew was in a playpen, bombarding her with plastic blocks. He acted surprised when his mother bent down to pick him up, as if she were a stranger.

Aunt Nellie looked the worse for wear. “Colette, I got to talk to you, chère.”

“What?” She put the boy on the floor and he began to play with the laces on her brogans.

“Me and Florence and Misres Fontenot been talking.”

Colette put up a hand to stop her. She knew what she was going to say, that she’d not been spending enough time with her father and Matthew, that the women had their own lives to deal with. “Say no more. I’ll be spending more time at home, especially since I don’t have a boat anymore.”

“We can keep on helping, baby, but we can’t be your husband, you know?”

Her eyes flashed at her aunt. “You think I should get married again? Boy, like that’s gonna solve my problems.”

Aunt Nellie drained her glass and put it on a side table. “I never thought I’d say this, but maybe you should take Paul back.”

“You, of all people.” She turned Matthew on his back and checked his diaper, and he lay there raising his arms to the brass light fixture hanging from the plaster ceiling.

“Look at the way he’s been acting the past year.”

“He’s sick—that’s why he’s behaving.”

Aunt Nellie finished her drink and rattled the ice. “Colette, you’re as mean as a snake.” She got her purse and jacked herself up off the couch. “He hasn’t been dancing in a beer hall since he got back from California.”

“They’re all closed up,” she said, her feelings hurt. Her aunt had never said such a thing to her. “When he gets his health back and things turn around so he can start making money again, then we’ll see.”

Aunt Nellie was heading for the front door, but she stopped and swung around. “‘We’ll see’? Aha. Where there’s ‘we’ll see,’ there’s a way.”

“Yeah, well, like I said, we’ll see.”

Aunt Nellie walked out then, letting the screen slam quickly to cut off the mosquitoes. “He’s grown up a lot, baby,” she said, her mouth pressed against the screen. “How about you?” She slapped a bug on her neck and was gone.