Crescent City Connection

special?”
    “Whatever you want. And could you stay to serve it? We’ll pay overtime, of course. And cab fare home.”
    “I’ll be glad to.” Lovelace was liking this a lot. “How about something Asian? Japanese, maybe.”
    “Perfect.”
    She grilled salmon with teriyaki sauce, served some rice and spinach on the side and a few other little tidbits—what could be simpler? Not being really up to speed yet, she gave the kids macaroni and cheese. But the Royces acted like they’d discovered gold, and she was it.
    She enjoyed the work, but she absolutely basked in the admiration. She was deeply in love.
    She liked their friends, too—a psychiatrist and her husband, who was a house painter; a math teacher and his wife, who was a fund-raiser.
    What enormously normal people they all were. And fun. After dinner, they went into the living room and put on old R&B albums and danced.
    Lovelace couldn’t believe people could live like this.
    * * *
    It took Daniel a long time to get over being angry. At first he couldn’t believe his father could pull something like that—springing a long-gone mother on him—but in the end, he had to admit it was exactly the sort of thing he would do. How could you be mad at a person for being who he was? Besides, as his dad would say, he had bigger fish to fry.
    “Why, Daddy?” he had asked. “Why’d you call her? Why’d you make me get on the phone with her?”
    “Well, I think she might just be an asset to the movement. What do you think?”
    “What do I think? I think you must be out of your mind—with all due respect, sir.”
    He was mad enough to speak like that, but he knew his father was going to hit him. He was braced for it and he didn’t care. This mother thing was not an everyday occurrence.
    When Errol just laughed, threw back his head and guffawed big-time, that was when Daniel began to doubt his father’s sanity. Something about this woman robbed him of his senses.
    “I’m going to go see her, son.”
    “What do you mean you’re going to go see her? Police in fifty states are looking for you.”
    “The lady lives in Dallas and I’m going there. They got this kind of VIP room in the airport. We’re just gonna meet there—I’ll fly in, fly out, nothing to it.”
    “If someone recognizes you, you’re dead—and so is the movement.”
    “Who’s gonna recognize me? I’ll just be another dude in a baseball cap and shades.” He hee-hawed again, and it was enough to make Daniel throw up. The Reverend Errol Jacomine in a baseball cap! Hell seemed to have frozen over.
    Daniel shook his head. “Dallas isn’t that far. Get Pete Joseph to drive you. A lot fewer people’ll see you.”
    His dad considered. “Lot of wisdom in that, son. But I got a better idea. I might need a bodyguard—I’m gon’ take you.”
    “Ohhh, no! I got things to do here.” God knew what his dad had in mind once they got there.
    “You’re going, boy. Don’t even think about getting out of it.”
    The idea was, the woman—that was how Daniel thought of her—would meet Daddy at the airport. Daniel would get him to some VIP lounge kind of shit and say his name, which was Mark Mathews on this occasion, and some flunky would whisk him to some private room where the woman would meet him.
    Daniel had never been in one of those VIP kinds of things. It turned out this one wasn’t strictly private. He got his daddy in and took him to a bar where there were tables that looked out on the runway. The woman was sitting at one, and he was astonished at how pretty she was.
    His daddy said, “Come meet your mama, son.”
    “No way.”
    “Come on, goddammit.”
    “I’ll just sit over there and keep an eye on y’all.”
    He ordered a beer and tried to focus on landings and takeoffs. But they were laughing loudly. They were fucking billing and cooing. For the second time where she was concerned, he thought he was going to throw up.
    After about an hour, he went and found a television and watched it. When his dad came over, he had the woman with him. Daniel stuck out his hand and said, “Hello, Mrs. Owens.”
    She tried to hug him, but he backed away, knowing there were going to be consequences. But his dad was in such a good mood he didn’t even get mad. When they were on the way back to New Orleans, his dad said to him, “Son, how would you like your mama back?”
    “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”
    “Now, son, the Lord says to forgive. I have forgiven her and I