Rising Tides (19 page)

“Sure. And, of course, I’m grateful.” He shifted away from her hand. “None of this really matters, anyway. I’ve learned everything I need to get ahead in the world. And right now I’m on my way.”

She had never felt the gulf between them so strongly, and she had never regretted it more. “Ferris, don’t get married
because it’s part of some scheme for your future. Marry Cappy or anyone you want, but do it because you’re in love. Make a life for yourself that has meaning. Don’t settle for so little.”

“What would satisfy you, Mother? I’m going to marry a girl from one of Louisiana’s best families. Then I’m going to risk my life for my country, and if I come back in one piece, I’m going to enter public service. What else can you ask for?”

“You’re doing everything for the wrong reasons.”

“And if I weren’t, would you believe me? Look, you gave me to my father to raise, and even if you’re not satisfied with the results, you got what you bargained for. If I’m too much like King Henry, then you have only yourself to blame.”

He made a wide circle around her and left the room. His words remained exactly where he’d left them.

Ferris hadn’t planned to marry Cappy. Her virginity was the talisman he had intended to take with him into battle. His memory of screwing her was to have been a reminder of lazier, happier times and his victory over impossible odds. Then, on the night of Carol Bennett’s Christmas dance, when he had Cappy in his arms, panting and moaning on the back seat of his roadster, he had realized just exactly what victory he wanted. With a little coercion, she could be his. But with no coercion at all, she could be his until death do us part, amen.

And who better? He was too young to get married, but by the time he returned from the war, he might be old enough. And what then? Girls with Cappy’s back ground would already be snapped up by men stationed closer to home. He didn’t want a child bride or the leftovers after other men had picked through the choices. He deserved the pick of the litter, and Cappy was definitely that.

He preferred to defer decisions that limited his freedom, but
that night the advantages of marriage had been clear. He would marry Cappy, then live as a free man for the months or even years that the country was at war. No one really expected a sailor or soldier to remain faithful. By the time he returned, he might even be ready to settle down and turn his considerable libido to some thing more productive than sex.

In the meantime, he had ten delicious days ahead, if Cappy said yes to him tonight. He had a license; she had a desire to stir up a tidal wave in the serene ebb and flow of New Orleans society. While the country was at war, carnival would be canceled, so there wouldn’t be any royalty, either. Cappy, who had counted on being carnival queen almost since birth, was morose. But if she couldn’t be queen, then why not Ferris’s wife? Her parents would be outraged, adding spice to a romantic elopement. She would be the talk of the city, which was almost as exciting as reigning over it for a day.

Just in case, he had gone over and over his arguments. But he really didn’t think he was going to have to use them. So far, Cappy hadn’t said no to him about anything. The night of the dance, he had been the one to wipe her lipstick off his face, pull her beaded sweater back down to her waist and tell her to fix her hair so that he could deliver her to her uncle’s in time for curfew. His prick had been swollen and anguished, but he had been as close to content as a man in that situation could be. Almost having her had been as good as the real thing. Now he was sure she was his, whenever he wanted her.

Cappy’s aunt and uncle lived only blocks from Ferris’s parents, in an Italianate masterpiece with galleries on both floors stretching away from a wide centered gable. A Negro woman in a white uniform ushered him inside. As he waited for Cappy to come down the swag-bedecked pine staircase, other members of the house hold staff slipped quietly in and out of the hallway,
as if important business had brought them there. He knew they were passing judgment. The fact that he hadn’t been invited into the parlor spoke volumes about the way his courtship was seen by the New Orleans Robillards—and probably how it was seen by Cappy’s parents.

He wasn’t offended. The louder the Robillards pro tested, the more certain his suit. Cappy craved drama, and her family was nicely setting the scene.

By the time she appeared on the stairs, his knees had locked into position. But Cappy was worth waiting for. Her hair, fresh from pin curls, gleamed like gold under the foyer chandelier. She wore a white dress with sleeves that played peekaboo with her softly rounded shoulders. Not for the first time, he appraised her and knew that she would look much the same at fifty, when she was a senator’s or president’s wife.

“How long have you been here?” she demanded. “Thelma just got around to telling me.”

“Thelma’s decided I’m not good enough for you.”

“I’m sure not going to let Thelma tell me what’s what.”

“I don’t think she’s the only one in the house with that opinion.”

“It’s my opinion that matters, isn’t it?”

It wasn’t really a question, but he answered it any way. “Always.”

She smiled petulantly. “Well, I’m glad
you
think so.” She started toward him. She didn’t look at the steps. She glided, skirt swaying provocatively, and when she reached the bottom, she held out her hand.

He took it and clasped it in his own. “You’re gorgeous. Let’s go someplace where I can show you off.”

“I’m much more interested in showing off for you.”

He whistled between his teeth. “Sounds good to me.”

Thelma arrived with Cappy’s coat. Ferris held it out, lazily brushing the back of Cappy’s neck with his fingers as she slipped into it. “We don’t need you anymore, Thelma,” Cappy said. “You can tell my aunt I’ll be home late. Very late.”

Ferris ushered Cappy to his car. On a tip from his father, and just in time, he had purchased and stored away two new sets of tires for his car. Now, even though the law severely restricted their purchase, he could drive without fear. Two nights ago, he and Cappy had taken a long, delicious ride into the country to neck, a pleasure that was already curtailed for most of their friends.

“Where are we going?” Cappy asked when they were halfway down her block.

“Well, that depends on you. We can get something to eat, then go out to the Terrace Club and dance. Or we can get married.”

There was no gasp of surprise. She was quiet for a few minutes. He drove slowly.

“What kind of husband are you going to be?” she asked.

“Oh, the best kind. I can give you everything you want.”

“I don’t know what I want.”

It was a peculiarly perceptive statement, nothing like what he’d grown to expect from her. “Don’t you want what all women do? Someone who’ll take care of you? Give you the kind of life you’re accustomed to? Some one you can be proud of?”

“There’s not much time to decide, is there?”

“I know a place where we can get married tonight. We’ll have a little more than a week before I leave. And I’m sure I’ll be able to come back home a few times be fore I ship out. Hell, I might even get stationed some where stateside for the duration.” He didn’t add that he was going to do everything in his power to be sure that didn’t happen.

“Why me, Ferris Lee?”

He sensed that she needed some version of the truth. He hadn’t expected Cappy’s candor, and he certainly hadn’t planned to be honest himself. He chose his words carefully. “Because we fit together.”

“We don’t bring out the best in each other.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you sometimes feel there’s a better version of Ferris Lee Gerritsen inside you, but you can’t quite get hold of it?”

“No.”

“I do. A better version of both of us.”

He felt her slipping out of his grasp, and for the first time, he realized he would be sorry if she did. He pulled over to the side of the road and parked. The street was quiet. “Love changes everything, Cappy. Most women believe that. Don’t you?”

“Do you love me, Ferris Lee?”

For a moment, he wondered if he really did, if he had chosen her not because she would be an asset, but be cause there was something about her that fulfilled him in a way he had never expected. He leaned over to kiss her, and for once he was uncertain what he would feel. She was small and delicate, vulnerable in a way that should have pleased him. He was his father’s son, schooled in the uses of vulnerability. But somehow, he wasn’t pleased at all.

He pulled away at last and said the words he knew she needed to hear. “I love you, and I don’t want to go away without making you mine.”

“I don’t like this. Everything was so simple before this stupid war!”

Relief washed away everything else. She sounded like the Cappy he knew. “It can be simple again. Marry me. The war
won’t take long to win. Then I’ll come home, and we’ll start a real life together. We’ll be good for each other. I know we will.”

“I don’t know what else to do.”

It was as good as a yes. Ferris kissed her again be fore he started the car.

P
regnancy made some women glow; it had turned Cappy’s alabaster skin a sallow hue. Her hair had noticeably thinned, and her petite figure had ballooned to grotesque proportions. She hadn’t taken the changes in stride. She gazed at herself in every mirror in Aurore’s house, as if to see what new horrors had been thrust upon her between one room and the next.

On a steaming July afternoon, Aurore watched her daughter-in-law’s performance. “Come on, Cappy. Pregnancy’s not a disease. It’s a natural process, a miracle, if you just look at it that way.”

“I told Ferris I didn’t want a baby. I don’t know how this happened.”

“Oh, I’ll bet if you think back a little, you’ll remember.”

Cappy joined Aurore on the parlor davenport and kicked off her shoes. “My feet are so swollen I can hardly stand.”

“I know it’s hard to be pregnant in this weather.” Aurore thought of another torturous summer, when she had been pregnant with a child she couldn’t keep. “But it could be worse,” she said with feeling.

“Could it?” Cappy arrogantly lifted one brow. Even barefoot and pregnant, she was still a River Road Robillard.

“You could be on a ship going to war.”

“Maybe there’d be an ocean breeze.”

Aurore lifted a glass from the tray in front of her and offered it. “This will cool you down.”

“I’m sick of hearing there’s a war on. I know it’s worse for the boys in uniform, but it’s terrible for us, too!”

Aurore could feel her patience seeping away. She was exhausted herself. In the darkest days of the Depression, she had yearned to restore Gulf Coast to its former glory. Now her wish had come true. Gulf Coast’s entire fleet had been requisitioned by the Maritime Commission. In addition they operated and managed a large fleet of dry cargo vessels, as well as servicing other ships that were engaged in war commerce. Aurore worked from dawn to dusk and supervised the largest staff she had ever employed. And still it was never enough.

She swallowed her irritation and told herself that she needed to do more for this newest addition to the family. In her first months as a member of the Gerritsen household, Cappy had hardly spoken to anyone. Now, in her own way, she was reaching out.

“You might feel better if you got out a bit,” Aurore said.

“Got out? Where? My parents still won’t speak to me. I called my mother today, and she hung up on me!”

“I’m sorry, Cappy. I’ve tried to talk to your parents, but they’re just very, very angry that you and Ferris eloped.”

“It’s been almost eight months! I’m going to have their grandchild.”

“They’ll forgive you after the baby’s born.” But privately Aurore wondered. The Robillards had raised their daughter to be royalty, and she had settled for a mere nobleman. Perhaps,
when they decided Cappy had suffered enough, she would be welcomed back into the family. Until that day, she was Aurore’s burden.

Cappy continued her litany of woes. “And I haven’t heard from Ferris in weeks!”

“The mail doesn’t operate as well during a war as it does in peacetime. He’s probably out on a ship. You’ll hear from him eventually.”

“I think he wanted to go. He didn’t want to be here when I had this baby.”

“I doubt even Ferris could tell Uncle Sam and the U.S. Navy what to do with him.”

“Ferris Lee generally gets his way.”

“Yes, and you’ll have to stand up to him if you’re going to be happy. But right now you need to think about what you can do to make this easier on yourself.”

“An annulment?” For moments, the only sound in the room was the calling of a mockingbird outside the window. Then Cappy sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

Aurore reached for her daughter-in-law’s hand. She didn’t like Cappy and, almost worse, she didn’t admire her. But she did feel sympathy for the girl’s predicament. “I know this is difficult, and sometimes you wish you could go back and live the last year over. But you can’t. So let’s look to the future.”

“My future’s a squalling infant and no baby nurse worth having. All our good colored people have deserted us to go off and work in factories. I’m going to have to take care of this baby myself.”

Aurore removed her hand. “Women have been taking care of their babies for centuries. We might find you some help, but you’re going to have to take over some of the routine yourself. Maybe it’s time to start learning how.”

“And how do I do that?”

“You have friends with babies, don’t you?”

“A few.”

“Then call them and ask if you can visit.”

“When I look like this?”

“No one expects a carnival queen. You’ll feel better if you talk to some young mothers. Find out how they’re managing. Play with their babies. Get some patterns for baby sweaters. Keep yourself busy. The time will go much faster.”

The faintest smile lightened Cappy’s face. She was almost pretty again. “I don’t knit.”

Aurore smiled, too. “I’ll teach you.”

“You don’t knit. You’re not the type.”

“Then we’ll learn together.”

Throughout the summer there had been rumors that German U-boats might sneak up the Mississippi. Aurore had calculated what she knew about river currents, sub marine speeds and the length of time they could stay submerged. She doubted that a U-boat could ever surface unseen along the hundred-mile stretch from the mouth of the river to the city. But the rumor was based on one indisputable fact. There were U-boats operating in the Gulf.

On a hazy Sunday evening in August, she rose from the desk in her Gulf Coast office and went to the window to stare down at the river. Her windows were wide and sparkling-clean, and even through a light fog, her view was enviable. The river was congested, exactly the way she always wanted to see it. A barge train, nearly a thousand feet long and a fourth as wide, glided through the water. The towboat pushing it played a powerful searchlight through the fog, seeking safe haven, and Aurore could imagine she heard the pulsating rhythm of its engines.

Her river, and now her war. While other New Orleans housewives collected their daily household fats or invited lonely soldiers from one of the lakefront military installations home for Sunday dinner, she and the people who worked most closely with her plotted strategies to keep American shipping safe.

Dozens of ships had already gone down in the Gulf of Mexico, although the general public wasn’t as aware of it as she was. Many of the U-boat attacks had been just off the coast of Louisiana’s Terrebonne Parish. One ship, the
Robert E. Lee,
had been sunk at the mouth of the Mississippi. It had carried survivors from other ships hit in the Gulf, and the resulting devastation still filled New Orleans’ hospitals.

While the government struggled to find and destroy the U-boats’ main supply bases and to improve detection and antisubmarine weaponry, she struggled to protect Gulf Coast’s ships and the valuable freight they carried.

For the most part, she performed this task without Henry’s help. Over the spring and summer he had be come increasingly involved in city politics and distant from Gulf Coast. But the diversion hadn’t improved his mood. Each day he grew more unstable. Where once he had exercised a tight rein over his rage, unleashing it only when it would most benefit him, now he frequently lost control. His tantrums had cost him allies.

Aurore kept her distance from her husband when she could. The years when Henry lived primarily in Baton Rouge had been the best of her marriage. She had begun to rediscover herself, to find a little respite from her memories. She had stopped wincing at the sound of footsteps in the hallway. Then Henry had returned in disgrace. At first he had seemed almost chastened, as if even he were capable of learning from his mistakes. But time had passed, and now he was once again the man she had married, only a more erratic and frightening version. Just
last month, Spencer St. Amant had warned her to be constantly alert. More than ever, Spencer believed Henry was capable of murder.

But Aurore couldn’t leave. In public she and Henry had always been careful to maintain the illusion of a satisfactory marriage. She was determined to hold on to that. If she couldn’t give her sons the best of family life, she could be certain their peers respected them. She didn’t want pity. She was too proud to expose her marriage for what it was.

Now there was going to be a grandchild to consider. She had been dismayed that Ferris’s plan was so immediately successful. But through the months, and despite her lack of fondness for Cappy, she had grown excited about the baby. A new life, new possibilities. She owed this new generation everything she could give it.

The barge was past now. She had work to do, but the river continued to hold her attention. She was fifty-four. Her thick brown hair was more than half-gray and cut short in a fashionable Victory bob. Her skirt brushed her knees, and years had passed since she wore a corset. But she could still remember how she had felt at seventeen, when the world was still hers.

“What do you see when you stare out the window, Rory?”

Aurore was so used to Henry appearing from no where that she didn’t jump at the sound of his voice. “I see money and work to do.” She faced him. “The river gets busier and busier every day.”

“And that’s why you work late every night?”

“Somebody has to.”

“Poor Rory. Would you rather I slaved at your side?”

She was too tired to evade the inevitable. “If you’re happy to be back in politics, then I’m happy for you.”

“But you don’t support what I do.” He stepped closer. His collar was unbuttoned, and his shirt had a stain on the pocket. Henry hadn’t aged well. His freckled skin had the jaundiced tinge of a man too-well acquainted with alcohol, and his features had been withered by the strong Louisiana sun into a permanent scowl.

“Does my support matter?” she asked. “You’ll do what you want anyway. Be happy I don’t tell what I know about the money your commissions stole from the good people of Louisiana.”

“We have the perfect marriage, don’t we? We keep each other in check. You don’t tell everything you know, and neither do I.”

He was close enough that she could smell whiskey on his breath. Drinking distilled his nature to its essence. When he was sober, he only struck her if he saw some lasting benefit. But when he had been drinking, the only benefit he needed was pain.

“I have friends in city government, too,” she warned. “Sylvain Winslow still listens to me, even if he stopped listening to you years ago. He may be an old man, but if he knew that you beat me, your days in this city would be numbered.”

“If he knew. But how would he?”

“Someday I’ll reach my limit.”

“Are you challenging me?”

“Just go home. Leave me here to finish what I have to do.”

He gripped her shoulder. His fingers pressed through her jacket into her flesh, but she didn’t make a sound. “I could destroy you,” he said. “So very, very easily.”

She wrenched away from him. “When you destroy me, you destroy yourself. We have a grandchild coming, Henry. We have two sons. Think of them.”

“We have a grandchild.”

For a moment she didn’t understand. He didn’t close the distance between them.

“Cappy?”

“Is a mother.”

“She had a month to go! She wasn’t in labor when I left the house this morning.”

“Time and tide, Rory, and now babies. Some things can’t wait, even for you.”

She didn’t stay to hear any more. She pushed her way past him and ran from the office. No one had called to tell her Cappy was in labor. Fear filled her. Cappy had been so unhappy throughout the pregnancy, and she had felt so unwell. Aurore had offered all the support she could, but now she was sure it hadn’t been enough. Cappy hadn’t asked for her.

Aurore knew where Cappy had been scheduled to de liver. She parked in a lot near Saint Charles, and once inside the Touro Infirmary she went straight to maternity. She found Cappy’s room, despite a matronly head nurse who insisted that she observe visiting hours. Cappy was sleeping, as pale as the hospital’s sheets. Aurore went to her bedside, followed closely by the sputtering nurse and an assistant.

“I’m going to stay here, and I’m going to wait until she wakes up,” Aurore told the head nurse. “Just in case you’re planning to make a fuss, you might want to know I’m on this hospital’s board of directors.”

The room emptied, and Aurore was alone with Cappy. She reached for her hand. Cappy’s eyelids fluttered open. She stared at Aurore as if she didn’t see her.

“I just heard,” Aurore said. “I didn’t know, Cappy, or I would have been here with you.”

Cappy turned her face away. For a moment, Aurore was
devastated. For her grandchild’s sake, she had tried to forge a link with Cappy, and now it had been severed.

“It happened so fast….” Cappy’s voice trailed off.

“It must have.” Aurore squeezed her hand.

“I don’t remember anything. Mr. Gerritsen got me in the car, and then I was here, and then…I was asleep.”

Aurore was flooded with relief. “I wish I’d been there to help you.”

“What did I have?”

“I was so worried, I forgot to ask.” Aurore looked up and saw the head nurse—a changed woman—standing in the doorway with a small, blanketed bundle. Aurore gripped Cappy’s hand harder. “Anyway, I think we’re about to find out.”

The nurse approached the bed and laid the bundle be side Cappy. Cappy looked down at the tiny face. “Boy or girl?” she asked sleepily.

“Girl. Five and a half pounds. I can only leave her here for a few minutes.” Cappy touched her daughter’s head as the nurse crossed the room and closed the door behind her.

Aurore bent over the bed. “She’s beautiful. Oh, Cappy, she’s so beautiful.”

“Is she?” Cappy yawned. “She looks like a baby to me.”

“She’s perfect. A daughter. A granddaughter.”

“I guess I wanted a girl. Ferris wanted a boy.”

“It doesn’t matter. He’ll love her.”

“I have a name for her.”

“Already? But you’ve only just seen her.” The baby’s eyes opened, and her tiny face puckered. She began to cry.

Aurore ached to lift the baby into her own arms, but she knew her duty. “Can you sit up a little? I’ll give her to you.”