Edmée’s eyelids fluttered as she woke and concentrated on Jezebel.
There was a moment of silence between the two of them as if they spoke to one another without words. Maybe they were speaking or maybe it was the spirits talking to them. I took a step back, my arms around my midsection and watched. Tears filled Edmée’s eyes as she nodded.
And then Jezebel released her friend’s face and they both turned their focus my direction.
It was as if I were watching them from another realm, unable to understand what was happening between them. Yet they saw me, all of me. It wasn’t the way Rett looked at me. No, Jezebel and Edmée were looking at me in a way I could feel more than see. I closed my eyes as if to hide, but that didn’t help. When my eyes opened, they were both still focused on me.
Jezebel shook her head and lowered her chin.
In that second, she appeared defeated, and yet I couldn’t imagine what had happened.
Finally, she inhaled and stood.
There was no question that Jezebel had a natural beauty about her, poise and stature. Isaiah Boudreau may have tried to defeat, demean, and humiliate her, but she’d overcome. With her chin high, she turned to me.
“I didn’t fully respect the city.” She smiled. “I thought I could keep you” —she swallowed as tears came to her eyes— “for at least a little while. They love you.”
“What?” I shook my head. “Who is they?”
Edmée sat up, pulling herself higher. “Child, you have everyone talking, live and dead.”
A chill settled over my arms as I rubbed my hands over each one. It was impossible to be in this house in the middle of the bayou and not be affected by the talk of those who had passed on before us.
Edmée spoke to Jezebel as her expression turned somber. “Do you hear what they’re saying?”
Jezebel nodded, her expression also darkening.
“Miss Betsy, it’s time.”
My mother’s mask of indifference shattered before me as tears leaked from her blue eyes. “I want more, Edmée. I deserve more.”
“You did your part.” Edmée stood and walked to Jezebel. “And, baby, you did it right.”
Hearing Edmée call my mother baby was odd, and yet the years showed on Edmée, in her wrinkled skin and white hair. Even her hands showed the signs that come with time. And while Jezebel had given birth to me and Kyle, she’d said that when she did, she was younger than I was now. Without a change in my birthdate, I was twenty-six on my last birthday.
Jezebel was probably near fifty.
Suddenly, she appeared younger and sad.
“Mother.” The term I hadn’t wanted to use less than twenty-four hours ago now came much easier.
Edmée continued to speak, holding Jezebel’s hands. “We can’t control time. Ain’t nobody who can. Even the spirits. They teach us to respect it, to use it for good. You did that, Betsy.”
Jezebel clung to Edmée’s hands as her face fell forward and her shoulders quaked. “I made mistakes.”
“You stop.”
Jezebel looked up at Edmée.
“Miss Betsy, you are a proud woman; that isn’t going to end. We all make mistakes. It’s what happens when we try. If you don’t try, if you did nothing, moved away and lived a different life, things would be different, but there’d still be mistakes.”
Jezebel’s nostrils flared as her lips tucked between her teeth. It was something I knew I did from time to time. Seeing the woman who bore me have the same mannerism gave me a sense of peace.
“I’m not ready,” Jezebel said.
Edmée’s head shook from side to side. “Ain’t your call, baby. The spirits are woke. The city’s bustling. You know what we have to do.”
“Together, we believed.”