Big Easy Bonanza

we?”
    “Of course.” She managed a maternal smile. Later would be fine. Just so long as it wasn’t now.
    When Marcelle was gone she poured herself a couple of inches, neat. Relief washed over her as she sipped, leaning against the pillows.
    Sometimes Bitty thought she was the only one in the world who had given a damn about that little girl, the second one she had known so briefly. And yet, insult on top of injury, when she lost the baby, it was as if she lost her parents as well—not her real parents, but her adopted parents, the parents she hadn’t had till she was grownup. Chauncey’s parents, Ma-Mère and Pa-Père. Chauncey suggested the names when Henry was born, and Bitty had used them from that moment on; they sounded like parent names, and she liked that.
    But they blamed her for the baby’s death. They shunned her afterward. They would have nothing to do with her, except out of politeness, though they spent every summer with her and the children, all of them in the Covington house together. But it was all form and no content.
    They even tried to get Henry and Marcelle away from her, as if they thought it wasn’t safe for her to be around children. They had come to visit about a month after she lost the baby; Bitty was barely able to get up at all then, in the state she was in now more or less. Too many feelings that wouldn’t leave her alone, wouldn’t stay buried. Dr. Langdon’s prescriptions helped some, wine helped more. She was so depressed she could barely get her clothes on. But that was no reason to take her children away. She had plenty of household help—she could manage, her children were fine.
    She had been resting that night, hadn’t known Chauncey’s parents were there. Ma-Mère had wandered into her bedroom. “Bitty? How are you, dawalin’?” Bitty smiled, remembering how charmed she had been by the accent—Ma-Mère grew up in Chalmette.
    “Fine, Ma-Mère. I still get tired very quickly.”
    “Dawalin’, you’re so pale! You need some help, baby doll. We’ve been talking to Chauncey, and we want to do something for you.”
    Bitty’s stomach turned over, some instinct told her.
    “We thought we could take Marcelle and Henry for the summer while you recover.”
    “Marcelle? Henry?” Bitty’s lips were so dry she could barely speak. She knew what Ma-Mère was saying, but she couldn’t bear to let herself believe it. She had just lost a child. Not her others.
No!
    “Over in Covington, dawalin’.”
    “But we’ll all go to Covington. Like always.”
    “Baby doll, you need your rest. You’ll come over with Chauncey on weekends, and we’ll all be together. And during the week you can work on getting your strength back.”
    Bitty fell back on the pillow and closed her eyes, knowing not to argue, that there was no arguing when Chauncey had made up his mind—that nothing she could do would stop him. That she was helpless.
    She had to visit her own children that summer, as if she were the grandmother, not Ma-Mère. They treated her like an outsider, Chauncey and his parents, like someone who didn’t belong in her own house with her own family.
    Once she was there without Chauncey and she asked to borrow Ma-Mère’s car to get some wine. “I’d rather you wouldn’t, baby doll,” Ma-Mère said. “I don’t let anyone drive it anymore.” As if she were some stranger off the street.
    Ma-Mère took over—simply overwhelmed Bitty, outvoted her, outmaneuvered her. Bitty would say, “Time for your bath, children,” and Ma-Mère would say, “I was just about to draw their water. Come on, dollies, come with Ma-Mère.”
    She would say to Bitty, “I know you’re not really up to coping; I want to make it as easy on you as possible.”
    Bitty went in to hear their prayers and Ma-Mère was there. She said, “Dawalin’, your breath—you don’t want them to know.” Bitty was not permitted to kiss her own children.
    The St. Amants thought the baby had died because of her, because of her body, because she was small, her genes weren’t good. They were strong, vigorous, earthy people. Bitty must have looked anemic at best to them. Her family, with its aristocratic inbreeding, must have seemed weak and pallid. That was why they decided to hate and ostracize her, because they thought she had killed their grandchild with her sheer inadequacy.
    Now she ached for them, the loving parents she had had so briefly before they deserted her. But she hated them that fall when