Midnight Bayou

pretty quick, and three of my uncles turned them off. I need a smoke,” she said, and left the room.
    She came back a moment later with a cigarette. “I had a boy I was seeing, crazy about that boy. I was sixteen, and she came back. She got him liquor and drugs and had sex with him. He was hardly older than I was, so it’s hard to blame him for being an idiot. She thought it was funny when I stumbled over them out in the bayou. She laughed and laughed. Still, when I got this apartment, and she came back, I took her in. Better me than Grandmama, I thought. And maybe this time . . . Just maybe.
    “But she turned tricks in my bed and brought her drugs into my home. She stole from me, and she left me again. From then I’ve been done with her. I’m done with her. And I’ll never be done with her, Declan. Nothing I can do changes her being my mother.”
    “And nothing she does can change who you are. You’re a testament to your own grit, Lena, and a credit to the people who raised you. She hates you for what you are.”
    She stared at him. “She hates me,” she whispered. “I’ve never been able to say that to anyone before. Why should saying such a thing, such an awful thing, help so much?”
    “I won’t say she can’t hurt you anymore, because she can. But maybe now she won’t be able to hurt you as much, or for as long.”
    Thoughtfully, she tapped out her cigarette. “I keep underestimating you.”
    “That’s okay. That way I can keep surprising you. How’s this one? She’s connected to Manet Hall.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I don’t know, exactly, and can’t explain it. I just know she is. And I think maybe she was meant to come back now, to say what she said to me. One more link in the chain. And I think she’s pretty well done around here, this time out. Call your grandmother, Lena. Don’t let this woman put a wedge between you.”
    “I’ve been thinking of it. I guess I will. Declan.” She picked up her glass, set it down again. The useless gesture made him raise his eyebrows. “I was going to end things between us.”
    “You could’ve tried.”
    “I mean it. We’d both be better off if we stepped back a ways, tried to be friends of some sort.”
    “We can be friends. I want our children to have parents who like each other.”
    She threw up her hands. “I have to get back to work.”
    “Okay. But listen, speaking of weddings, slight change of plans in Remy and Effie’s. We’re having the whole deal at my place.”
    She rubbed her temple, tried to switch gears and moods as smoothly as he did. “In . . . with half-finished rooms and tools and lumber, and—”
    “That’s a very negative attitude, and not at all helpful, especially since I was going to ask you for a hand. How are you with a paintbrush?”
    She let out a sigh. “Do you save everyone?”
    “Just the ones who matter.”
    S omewhere between Declan’s leaving the Hall, and Effie’s arrival, Lilibeth paid another call. She was ridingon coke and insult. The lousy son of a bitch couldn’t spare a few bucks for the mother of the woman he was screwing, she’d just help herself.
    She’d cased the first floor when he’d led her back to the kitchen, and going in through the back, she arrowed straight to the library and the big rolltop desk she’d spotted.
    People with money kept cash handy, in her experience. Moving quickly, she yanked open drawers, riffled through, then let out a shout when she found a neat pile of fifties. Those she stuffed into her pocket.
    She figured the books he’d shelved and the ones yet in boxes were probably worth something. But they’d be heavy, and hard to sell. He’d likely have more cash, a few pieces of jewelry up in his bedroom.
    She raced up the main stairs. The fact that he could come back at any time only added to the thrill of stealing.
    A door slammed, had her falling straight to her knees. Just a draft, she told herself as she caught her breath, as the pulse in her throat began to pop. Big, drafty old house. In fact, she felt cold air whisk over her as she jumped to her feet again.
    She touched a doorknob, yanked her hand away again. The knob was so cold it all but burned.
    Didn’t matter. What the fuck? His room was down the hall. She wasn’t as stupid as people thought she was. Hadn’t she watched the house over the last few days? Hadn’t she seen him come out on the gallery from the room at the far corner?
    Laughing out loud, the sound rolling back over