Big Easy Bonanza

wriggled in his big, rough hands, its pink eyes desperate. Before she could catch herself, Bitty screamed. But then she remembered herself, clapped a hand over her mouth and ran, knowing that if she screamed again her mother would come and slap her.

3
    “Is Mo finished with her nap now?” André managed to get the words out between sobs. Marcelle had taken him to see a reissue of Bambi and now, for the second time in a week, could kick herself for exposing him to so much pain. She should have remembered how sad and brutal it was, should have had better sense than to take him to a movie that would make both of them cry. They had held on to each other, blubbering and miserable, but immobilized, unable to walk out of the theater.
    Afterward she had bought him frozen yogurt, which had momentarily cheered him—if not her—but now he seemed to be having a relapse. She was touched that he wanted to see his grandmother and hoped to hell Bitty was up to it. “We’ll go see her,” she said. “If she’s still lying down, maybe we could—I know! We’ll go for a surprise.”
    She knew what she wanted to do with André—how she wanted to surprise him—but she couldn’t bring herself to say it yet, couldn’t quite make the commitment either to herself or to him. She wanted to get him a kitten, something alive to give him hope now that he’d lost his Poppy; something soft and positive to remind him that love was still possible even in his grief, and to remind them both that each was not the only living being in the other’s life. But some hesitancy nagged at her—a dim fear that she would lose her nerve or that there would be no kittens at the pound, that somehow he’d be disappointed.
    To her relief they found Bitty sitting at the kitchen table eating chicken soup. “Oh, Mother. I would have made you some lunch.”
    “Yvonne left this for me. All I had to do was turn on the heat.”
    What, Marcelle wondered, had made her mother get up? She had expected to find her dead to the world and reeking.
    Bitty called André, who was shrinking back, waiting to be noticed. “There’s my big boy! André, come to Mo, darlin’.”
    André didn’t move, except for his hand, which wandered self-consciously to his mouth, but he smiled the shy smile that told Marcelle he had reached the pinnacle of happiness. If he’d been a puppy he’d have been wriggling, but he was André and not given to vulgar displays of delight.
    All of a sudden, apparently without having the least idea he was going to, he threw himself into Bitty’s arms and began sobbing as if Bambi were losing his mother again. “André?
    What is it, baby?” Bitty raised alarmed eyes to Marcelle, who realized intuitively what it must be.
    “He hasn’t been alone with you since Daddy died,” she said.
    Bitty nodded. “Shhh, child. I know you miss Poppy—”
    “It isn’t that,” said Marcelle, wondering how she knew. “He knows that you’re sad. He’s crying for you.”
    “We both miss Poppy,” said Bitty, not missing a beat. “We miss him together, don’t we?” In a little while, he hushed and let Marcelle find him a place for his nap.
    Marcelle marveled at what had happened—she had experienced nothing like it as a mother or as a daughter; it had been a rare, almost psychic moment among three generations, the tiny silver lining you get when it’s cloudy out, she thought.
    She returned to find her mother still sitting, not drinking, waiting for her. “Marcelle, I want to know if you remember something.”
    Her voice was uncharacteristically steely, making Marcelle wish for a drink herself.
    “Do you remember spending a summer with Ma-Mère and Pa-Père? Over in Covington?”
    “You mean without you?” The memory was vague, and gave her a funny, fluttery feeling, but Marcelle knew very well that was what she meant. She didn’t want to talk about it.
    “It was the summer you were three and a half—Henry must have been about eight.”
    Marcelle nodded. Why was she getting that funny, uncomfortable feeling?
    “You do remember?”
    Marcelle nodded again.
    “Marcelle, listen, this is hard for me. But I need to know something.”
    Marcelle knew what the feeling was now. It was fear.
    “Did something happen to you?”
    Yes.
    “Did I hurt you, Marcelle? Was there some kind of accident—something that frightened you? I’ve been trying so hard to remember. Could I have hurt my own child?”
    Yes. Yes again
. Marcelle was amazed. That