Crescent City Connection

penis to keep him quiet. I told you you didn’t want to know. You just don’t know what life with that man was like.
    “I found myself an older man who was sweet and gentle and didn’t mind supporting my kid. But then I screwed up—I found myself a much younger man, and the older one threw me out. I had no skills and no place to go—that’s when I took Daniel back to Savannah and dropped him off. I became a flight attendant, and the rest is history.”
    “You met somebody else?”
    “Oh, many. Many, many somebody elses. But the hell of it was, I finally fell in love, and look what happened to me.”
    Skip was thinking that the younger woman who’d taken her husband was probably a clone of the younger Rosemarie when the other woman said, “What goes around comes around. I don’t blame her. I swear I don’t—she saw a chance and she grabbed it. I blame him—I thought the old goat loved me.”
    “Did you ever hear from him again?”
    “Who? My husband?”
    “Errol Jacomine.”
    “I never did and I never will.”
    “Just in case—it’s very important that you contact me if you do.”
    “You have my word. I’ll call you the instant I hear from him, or hell freezes over. Whichever comes first.”
    Another road leading nowhere
, Skip thought. Still, it answers the question “What kind of woman would marry Errol Jacomine?”
    She could see why Aunt Alice had said this woman was the love of young Earl’s life—she had a hard edge to her; might even be as ruthless as he was. And he hadn’t yet subdued her.
    He wouldn’t like that,
Skip thought.
It would prey on him.

Twelve
    AFTER DELAVON DIED, Dorise had gone back to church, and she had found comfort there. In fact, she didn’t understand why she’d ever stopped going. When she had a problem, she could put it in the hands of Jesus. But there was another side to it—oh, yes, there was another side. You had to keep up your end—you couldn’t let Jesus down because that was letting yourself down.
    When Troy brought her Meredith Clemenceau’s earrings, she had screamed as if someone died. Shavonne came tearing from the back of the house, where she was watching television, crying, “Mama! Mama, you all right?” and the poor little thing’s white shorts were wet, with a trickle of urine still running down her leg.
    “Oh, my Lord, what have I done!” she hollered. “I’ve scared my child so bad she’s gone and pissed herself. Troy Chauvin, you get on out of here. You get on out of here and don’t you never come back. And don’t you worry none about your sorry ass—I ain’ gon’ tell nobody what you done ’cept the Lord Jesus Christ and he already know. That’s who you gon’ have to answer to. That poor little dog. That poor, poor little dog. For shame, Troy Chauvin!” She pressed the earrings back into his hand and slammed the door.
    Shavonne stood there with her mouth open so wide a bat could have flown in.
    Dorise dropped to her knees and hugged her as tight as she knew how. “It’s okay, baby. Everything okay now.” Shavonne burst into violent sobbing, and Dorise realized that was what she’d said before—that time when it wasn’t okay and would never be for Shavonne, ever again.
    “Baby, I jus’ had a fight with Troy—it ain’ nothin’ more than that, I promise you, baby. You all right. Ya mama’s all right. Okay, baby? Look at me now?”
    Shavonne obeyed for about a split second before she ran, and the terror on her face was enough to make Dorise howl again, as she had when she saw the earrings. This time, she held her tongue, though, and fought the impulse to chase her daughter. Shavonne needed a minute alone, she thought, to change her pants and get her bearings.
    Dorise sat on the couch and thought about the little white dog, unable to believe the man who had made love to her so sweetly could do a thing like that. She wondered if he took drugs, or if he’d been drunk, or if he was just plain mean and she’d never noticed. The thing was so incomprehensible, her own part in it so overwhelming, she couldn’t even cry.
    “Forgive me, Jesus,” she said to the air. “Forgive me, Lord. I never meant to hurt nobody, even that hateful Meredith and her husband—I sure didn’t mean to hurt no poor little animal.”
    If Troy could do that to an animal, what could he do to a person?
she thought. Suppose she’d become involved with him and he’d hurt Shavonne? She went in to comfort her child.
    Shavonne was lying on