Big Easy Bonanza

Bitty had ever seen. People said he was ugly as a monkey (they thought she couldn’t hear), but he had his daddy’s gorgeous eyes and she didn’t know why they couldn’t see that. Would she ever forget the feeling of holding him against her breast—this rubber, satiny invention of hers and Chauncey’s? Even now, she could honestly say it was the crowning moment of her life. She’d had no idea how happy a child could make her.
    She couldn’t remember most of her labor. They said she nearly died, but then that was the sort of thing they did say in New Orleans. Maybe it was true and maybe it wasn’t, all she knew was it was worth it and she’d do it a thousand more times if she thought she could get that feeling again.
    But there was no going back. There never had been, never would be anything like having Henry. He needed her. He was the first being who ever needed her. And he loved her desperately—that was obvious from the start. They said babies weren’t aware of very much outside themselves for a while, but it couldn’t be true. Henry had wanted to make her happy. He was a perfect baby. Not near-perfect—perfect. He didn’t cry, didn’t fret, didn’t complain, only ate and eliminated and slept and smiled. Their life together was sheer heaven—the sweetest, tenderest, gentlest thing she could ever imagine. She couldn’t understand why Chauncey hated him so much.
    And poor Henry never learned. He always thought that one day his father was going to be nice to him. When he was fifteen he asked Chauncey to teach him to drive. Pleased that his son was at last interested in some sort of self-sufficient activity, Chauncey readily agreed to have the first lesson on Saturday. When Saturday came, it was a beautiful day and Chauncey said casually, just as he picked up his keys, “Marcelle, want to go for a ride?”
    Of course Marcelle did. What kid wouldn’t? She was twelve then, and Daddy’s little darling. She wore her hair in a single pigtail down her back, French-braided the way Estelle Villere had taught her. Her skin was the color of a praline, and just as smooth and clear. Her grades were A’s. Her breasts were ripening apricots under her school sweaters.
    Henry was as tall already as he was going to get, and so thin that when one kid called him a telephone pole, another said, “telephone wire’s more like it.” He was making C’s and D’s, and at the very height of his teenage acne attack. His hair tended to get greasy and his T-shirts were smelly. He spoke mostly in sneering monosyllables, but escalated to yelling fits if his feelings got hurt. Which happened absurdly often, he was so sensitive. He never made it through a day without lacerations of the spirit.
Of course
Chauncey wouldn’t want to be alone in a car with him.
    But when he asked Marcelle to go along, Bitty tried to intervene. “Don’t you think this should be an experience just for you and Henry?”
    “Why?”
    “He’s the one who’s learning to drive.”
    “Marcelle can learn too.”
    “Marcelle, don’t you have homework?”
    “Mother! It’s Saturday!”
    “We’ll all go, then. We’ll make it a family occasion.” Henry’s eyes flickered with relief for only a second—a millisecond—but Bitty saw it and knew she had done the right thing. (Though she wasn’t able to stop the coming disaster.)
    They went out to the batture, in Audubon Park behind the zoo, and Henry took the wheel. “Don’t grip it so tight, Henry. You aren’t in a wrestling match. Loosen up!”
    “Okay.”
    “Now stay in the middle of the lane. The middle, goddammit, the middle! Shit, here comes a car!” Chauncey grabbed the wheel and would have pulled the car back to the right (though so far as Bitty could see, there was no danger at all), but Henry panicked and hit the brakes.
    Both Henry and his dad hit their heads against the windshield. Bitty and Marcelle, in the back, were flung forward, and Marceile hit her head on her brother’s as his was thrown back on the bounce, cutting her lip with her tooth.
    She squealed and blood ran down her chin.
    Chauncey shouted, “Goddammit, you little idiot! Can’t you do anything right?”
    And Henry, his face red with shame, said, “Just shut the fuck up, okay?” Whereupon Chauncey slapped him so hard his head flew back against the side window. It connected with a terrifying “whump.”
    Bitty threw her arms around his shoulders. “Darling, are you all right?”
    Chauncey shouted, “A