Big Easy Bonanza

singing to himself. He could amuse himself for hours this way, and she liked to think it showed artistic or musical talent, maybe both—certainly an incipient interest in the arts.
    “André? Hi, darlin’, what are you coloring?”
    “Ti-Baby.” The page showed a puppy playing with a ball, but André was making circles with a gold crayon, seemingly not even trying to stay within the lines.
    “Ti-Baby? I thought you were Ti-Baby. Ma-Mère calls you that, doesn’t she?”
    “Umm-hmm.”
    “Well, the doggie can’t be Ti-Baby, can he?”
    “Uh-huh. He is. That’s his name.”
    “But you’re Ti-Baby.”
    “Puppy’s Ti-Baby.”
    Oh, God, this poor child. He’s gotten so little attention lately, he thinks he has to give some to himself. He’s given the dog his own name so he can color it and pretend he’s getting nurturing
.
    “André, darlin’, you know who thinks you’re Ti-Baby? Mommy does. You’re Mommy’s Ti-Baby, aren’t you, sweetheart?”
    “Um-hmm.”
    He didn’t look up, just selected another crayon and made more scribbles. To her horror, it was a purple crayon. She had heard somewhere that children who colored with purple were depressed.
    “Darlin’, are you feeling sad about Poppy?”
    “Uh-uh.”
    “But, baby, it’s only natural to feel sad about something like that.”
    “I’m not sad when I color, Mommy.”
    “Oh, I know, baby. We all do things to make us forget other things. Mommy does all the time. André, darlin’?”
    “Umm.”
    “Mommy’s feeling sad. Could you give Mommy a hug?”
    “Okay.”
    He looked up, walked on his knees the few inches over to her, and offered his tiny embrace. Marcelle held him tight. “Oh, darlin’, that feels so good.” He started to pull away, as if preoccupied, eager to get back to his coloring. But Marcelle didn’t think it was that—she thought he was smashing down his feelings the way she did; what a horrid thing to learn at such an early age.
    I won’t let that happen to my child
.
    “Now Mommy’ll give you a hug.” She tried to pull him back, but he resisted.
    “No!”
    “No? André needs a hug just like anybody else.”
    “No!” He was fighting her now. She hung on to his wrist, but he had begun to flail, sending crayons about the already cluttered little room.
    “Why not, baby? How ’bout just a little hug? A little hug for André?”
    “No!” He was crying now, and struggling as if for his life. “Leave me alone!”
    Why had he gotten so upset at the simple prospect of a hug from his mother? Perhaps he had been given unwelcome ones, caresses that terrified him. Fear turned her belly to ice. “André André, darlin’, did someone give you a hug you didn’t want? Did someone hurt you, André?”
    “No! No! No! Nooooo! Nooooo! Nooooo!” He kept wailing the word over and over. She let him go and watched him roll about the floor, beating on it in his misery. She knew he would beat her too if she got in his way.
    As she watched him cry and flail, knowing there was nothing she could do, that the tantrum would have to run its course, her mind slipped back to the place it had been trying to get to for the past hour, the blackest, darkest pit there was, the one she had been trying to pretend didn’t exist.
    If she had killed her sister, and didn’t remember it, why not her father as well?
    But that was impossible—she had been making love with Jo Jo Lawrence while Tolliver killed him.
    Tolliver didn’t do it. Tolliver couldn’t have. Skip was right. Marcelle would have noticed if he was in love with Bitty. He could have seen Marcelle slip out of the Boston Club, and slip back in; he could have taken the rap for her, to protect the family.
    Could she have slipped out and then back in? No! She couldn’t have. She had been with Jo Jo. And yet, despite what she had told Skip, she could only remember going upstairs with him, and later, leaving him sleeping. Perhaps they had been too drunk to make love, had both fallen asleep. Perhaps that was why Jo Jo had made that odd remark about nothing happening.

3
    Skip glanced again at her watch. Twenty minutes of four, and after four there was no counter service at the Bureau of Vital Records. She could scribble out a request in the office if she could just get there on time. She would die of frustration, at the very least bust a gut (to quote Jimmy Dee) if she didn’t make it.
    She could barely keep her mind on her driving, her head was spinning so far out of control. No