Thirty-five

“Cyrus?” Celina gripped the arms of her chair and strained to hear. “Cyrus, is that you?” She rose from the couch in the parlor but didn’t attempt to leave the room.

“It’s me,” Cyrus called out. “I’ll be right there. Would you like some iced tea?”

Iced tea? She hadn’t thought of eating or drinking for hours, certainly not since Jack left, angry because she’d insisted on remaining to wait for Cyrus to come home. “Yes, please,” she said after opening the door. “Sounds good.”

Every nerve twitched. Every muscle jumped. Why was there still no word from Jack? She’d spoken with Tilly, who said she and Amelia were fine, but that she hadn’t heard from Jack since he’d checked on them before leaving Celina. Tilly had added that Celina should be in Chartres Street, too.

Cyrus came with two tall glasses of iced tea. He looked pale and withdrawn. His eyes had the sunken appearance of a man who hadn’t slept for too long.

“Are you all right?” Celina asked him, taking the glass of tea.

“What are you doing alone?” It wasn’t Cyrus’s way to answer a question with a question.

“Jack had to see someone. Dwayne and Jean-Claude went back to the club.”

“You shouldn’t be here on your own. Or anywhere else.”

Under siege.

Celina touched the cold glass to each of her cheeks, then rested it against her forehead.

“Celina?” Cyrus said tentatively. “What is it? Something new?”

“No!” she shouted, and then couldn’t believe she’d raised her voice to her brother. “No, Cyrus. Not something new, just something that I should have told you—and Jack—a long time ago. Now I don’t know if I can tell you at all. And if I do, I don’t know what you’ll want to do about it. I’m so scared about everything, and so confused. And I’m not the kind of woman who gives in to pressure.”

He studied her for so long that she put shaky fingers to her mouth, afraid of what he’d say next.

“You’re too strong,” he told her at last. “That’s the problem. Would you please tell me everything that’s on your mind? I promise you I won’t repeat a word you don’t want repeated, and I’ll help you, Celina. You know I’ll help you even if there doesn’t seem to be a way.”

“I know,” she said, nodding. “How was it with Sally Lamar?”

He made lines on his sweating glass with a fingernail. “Difficult. She’s a very complex woman, and she’s in trouble. But we all know that. Talk about you, please.”

She sat down, and immediately got up again. The baby made a fluttery little movement, and Celina put a hand over the spot.

“You aren’t in pain, are you?” Cyrus asked, coming to her at once.

Celina smiled at him. “No. The baby moves a little now. You’re going to be angry when I tell you what’s on my mind. And some of that anger’s going to be directed at me. Jack’s going to be angry, too.” She didn’t want to say aloud that she feared he might not want anything more to do with her.

With a gentle touch Cyrus held her arm and urged her back onto the couch He sat beside her. “I am not going to be angry with you. 1 can’t speak for Jack, but I can tell you that he’s a good man. You know I’m uncertain about this marriage, but Ι still believe he’s honorable, and that he cares about you. At first I thought you’d worked out some sort of compromise for reasons I didn’t know—”

“We had.” She must lay it all before him now.

“But that’s changed, hasn’t it? You feel something for him?”

Leaning against his arm, she gave him her glass to set down and said, “I’ve fallen in love with him.”

“Ah” was all Cyrus said.

“I haven’t told him the truth. I haven’t lied, I just haven’t told him things he ought to know. He could have helped me make the right decisions, but I didn’t trust him. Cyrus, this is Wilson Lamar’s baby. Jack does know that now—since yesterday. We talked about it all the way to Baton Rouge, and he tried to convince me he could handle it calmly, but I’m scared he might decide to go get Wilson alone. If he does, I can only guess at what might happen.”

The quality of the following silence was like ice on Celina’s skin. With her leaning against him, Cyrus remained utterly still.

“Jack deserved to know that from the beginning, but I wouldn’t tell him because I’ve been afraid of what Wilson might do to Mama and Daddy.”

“He threatened to punish them because you’re carrying his child?”

“Until yesterday—at lunch—he didn’t know I was pregnant at all. He noticed, made the assumption that it was his child, and told me I had to have an abortion.”

“You led me to believe you’d been raped. But you had an affair with a married man?”

“Ι was raped.”

Cyrus made white-knuckled fists on his knees.

“Afterward I stopped working for Wilson’s campaign. I was doing some work for him, remember? He threatened me. He said that if I told anyone what had happened, he’d say I was ambitious and I encouraged him because I wanted to use him. Then he’d make Mama and Daddy look like fools, he wouldn’t use them in his campaign the way he has, and they’d be ostracized by the people who matter most to them.”

“So you let him get away with it?”

Her scalp prickled. “It sounds so...I sound so weak when I say it aloud, but I didn’t know what to do or who to talk to. Errol was the only one I thought I could trust, so he got elected. Wilson had started trying to begin a relationship with me. He came here one day when I was alone, and Ι thought I was going to pass out, it scared me so badly. I knew then that I couldn’t get through this whole thing alone. When I finally told Errol, he wanted to go to Wilson immediately. Then, when I begged him not to, he asked me to marry him.”

Cyrus looked her and guided her face against his shoulder. “Poor kid. Errol was such a good man. I suppose you turned him down.”

“I told him I’d think about it. But then he was killed.” Someone else came into the house, and Cyrus got up. “Who is it?” he asked loudly.

“It’s Jack. I’ll be right there.” Determined footsteps followed, and a vaguely windswept-looking Jack appeared. “Cyrus. Boy, am I glad to see you here. Where’s Dwayne?”

“He had to go back to the club with Jean-Claude,” Celina said, relieved to see Jack but praying he wouldn’t press to know whether or not she’d been there alone. “Jack, I just told Cyrus something I’ve been keeping to myself. I thought it was for the best, but I may have been wrong. Now I’ve got to have help deciding how to deal with it.” If Jack was going to be angry because she’d already told her brother what she’d been unable to voluntarily tell the man she was going to marry, so be it. They didn’t exactly have a long, intimate...they didn’t have a long history.

With no attempt at embellishment or justification, she told Jack about Wilson Lamar—about the threats against her parents, and Celina’s fears for them. She finished by saying that she was worried because Jack hadn’t mentioned the revelation that had been made at Galatoire’s since he and Celina left the place.

Jack turned so white, she feared he might be ill, but she quickly recognized signs of deep anger rather than sickness. He took off the leather jacket he wore and balled it in his hands.

“I’ve wanted to bring the subject up again,” Celina said. “But I haven’t known how. You’ve seen me trying to keep an even relationship with the Lamars. I don’t think you could ever have thought I liked them, not unless I’m a better actress than I think I am. And after you found out what that man did to me, you must have assumed—correctly—that it was for my parents’ sake that I kept quiet about him. He’s so arrogant, he doesn’t believe he’ll ever be accountable for doing wrong. You saw how he was at the restaurant yesterday.”

Jack muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

Celina felt an irrational urge to cry. What a pointless exercise that would be. But what was Jack thinking? She almost laughed aloud. Why should she expect to have any idea what he was thinking? That kind of thing took time to develop, and they hadn’t had that time.

“Why don’t you share what’s on your mind?” Cyrus asked. “We’re in this together. I had quite an interview with poor Sally Lamar tonight. We’ve got trouble all around, and we’re going to have to move forward together.”

“What’s on my mind?” Jack showed his teeth, but not in a smile. He threw his jacket toward the nearest chair, and missed. “What’s on my mind is that there is so much that’s rotten, in every direction I look, that I’m not sure where to start trying to dig us out. But, by God, I will dig us out.”

Celina trembled inwardly. This cold anger was something she hadn’t witnessed in him before. “Where do we start?” she asked.

He spread his arms, then let them fall to. his side.

She turned on her heel and walked around the couch to pull back one of the sheer draperies at the windows.

“Get away from there,” Jack said.

She ignored him. “I’m going to start. Don’t interrupt me, please.”

“Celina—”

“If I want to stand by the window, I’ll stand by the window. Get over it, please.

“When Antoine’s wife came to see me, she did have something to talk to me about. Her name is Rose, Cyrus. A straightforward, decent woman. They have two boys and they’re working very hard to give them a chance in life. Now that I know they don’t have legal status in this country, I fully understand that poor woman’s fear.

“She came to beg me not to talk about anything Antoine might have told me regarding the hours around Errol’s death. I told her I didn’t know anything, and that Antoine hadn’t had a chance to tell me, although he’d tried to. She just kept telling me that I mustn’t say anything, because if I did, she and her boys would suffer. She already had cigarette burns.”

“What?” Jack reached her side so quickly, she took a backward step. He took her by the shoulders and kept her walking until she was well sway from the windows. “What did you just say?”

“Antoine’s wife came to me with cigarette burns on her arms. Α man had waited for her in their apartment. He had something over his head so she wouldn’t be able to identify him. And he threatened her. He told her to come and warn me to keep my mouth shut or he’d make sure I did.”

“And you didn’t tell me? Even after you went through that nightmare yourself? You must have assumed the two events were connected. But even if you hadn’t, why didn’t you tell me?”

She pushed him, but he didn’t release her.

“Answer me, Celina.”

“You’re angry with me. I knew you would be.”

“You bet I am. What would possess you not to talk to me about a thing like this? Was I a fool to think we’d reached a place where we were being honest with each other?”

Cyrus arrived beside Celina and put an arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay. We’re all stretched too far. Let’s try to keep calm.”

“My God,” Jack said under his breath. “What is Antoine doing about all this?”

“That’s it,” Celina told him, her voice rising. “That’s why I didn’t know what to do. They’ve got Antoine. Or they had him. Now I don’t know how to find Rose again. They took him and hurt him. They gave Rose evidence of it to show me. Rose brought his shirt here, his T-shirt, and it was covered with blood. And one of his teeth. They were a warning to prove what they’re capable of. Rose begged me not to tell anyone.”

Jack’s face froze. All expression gradually slid away into blank confusion. Cyrus held her even tighter.

“His tooth,” Jack finally said. “His wife brought you one of his teeth?”

“Part of one. With gold on it. Oh...oh, I don’t know what to do about anything. I don’t want to be here anymore. I want—No, no, I am not going to fall apart. I refuse to let those people do that to me or to anyone I love.”

“And you didn’t have anyone you dared to ask for help,” Jack said, his eyes on hers. His laugh was short and bitter. “I can’t blame you, I suppose. We’ve all been spinning out of control. But we’re going to have to take that control now. Apparently it won’t be easy, because it takes longer than we’ve had to learn to believe in someone else. Or it does for some of us.”

No matter what she said, he wouldn’t understand how she’d gradually slipped further and further from being able to confide in him about Antoine. “I’m sorry” was the best she could do.

“I don’t think that’s going to help Antoine much,” he told her. “By the time they had him, it was probably too late to help, but it might not have been. I want your agreement that you’re not going to hold anything back from me again.”

Cyrus left Celina and gathered up the two used glasses.

“Celina,” Jack prompted.

She felt such a failure. “I’m sorry,” she repeated.

“I should let you two talk alone.” Cyrus turned toward the door.

“Please don’t go,” Jack said. “I can’t imagine a more awkward moment for this, but I’ve already waited too long. Can I say something I’ve wanted to say to you, Celina? Would you mind if I said something personal in front of Cyrus?”

“I’ll go outside,” Cyrus said rapidly.

“Please don’t go away,” Celina told him. To Jack, she said, “I don’t mind.”

He ran a hand over her tousled curls, rested the backs of his fingers on her cheek, touched the tip of a forefinger to her mouth—put his other hand on her stomach. “You’ve cut the ground from beneath me tonight. I thought we’d come much further than we have. That scares me, but I love you. I hope you feel something similar for me. And I hope that with this marriage we aren’t getting into something we’ll both regret.” She looked back at him for as long as she could before she bowed her head to hide her tears.

Jack rested both of his hands gently on her belly. “Any sane person would look at what’s happened to the two of us, and to the people around us, and say fate is really mad at us, but it would be a lie. If I could bring Errol back, I would. You know I would. But I can’t be sorry that you and I got together. And I’m not sorry about this baby. Now, let’s go home.”