House of Rougeaux(31)

The next day is similar, with the Aunties eager to get Rosalie and Junior out of the house. Marc-Pierre has taken an hour or two off work to show them the sights. Rolling along in the Edsel, he gestures generously in all directions, pointing out all sorts of historical landmarks: the Basilique Notre-Dame, the Musée des Beaux-Arts, the Oratoire St-Joseph, the Place d’Armes. They take a short walk through the Jardin Botanique, vibrant with autumn colors. He leaves them back at the house with a wave. “You will feel at home here soon,” he says to Junior. “I promise.”

The afternoon is spent at the house. The Aunties get Junior to try fixing the kitchen clock, which is inconveniently slow, and Rosalie spends a couple of hours studying French and reading in the parlor. Their mother, it seems, is back in the bedroom full of strong-smelling vapors, fast asleep somewhere under all the blankets. When she finally wakes that evening she shuffles back to the kitchen for some of Martine’s chicken soup with chives and dumplings. “I don’t believe I have ever slept this much in my life,” she says, declaring the obvious. Rosalie and Junior exchange a look, but Auntie Elodie brushes off her hands like everything is in order, ushering Virginia back to bed.

The next morning is notably cooler, what with the changing of the seasons. Rosalie is awake first, and gazes at the lace curtains and the pale blue sky as her dreams recede. She rises quietly, dresses and sets about combing and pinning her hair into her usual ‘do. Leaning forward toward the small mirror atop the chest of drawers, she catches her mother’s image stirring into wakefulness. Virginia yawns and sits up. She stretches. Rotates her wrists and flexes her fingers.

“I don’t know what’s come over me,” she says in wonder, really awake now for the first time in three days. “I feel miraculous.”



* * *



This is Friday and the Aunties’ marketing day. They load up Junior with packages from the butcher, the fishmonger, the fruit-seller, the grocery. Virginia has more energy than the children have ever seen in her. Her usually wind-bent frame has sprung up straight like a sapling. She wants to go in every shop and exclaims over every curiosity. Auntie Didi smiles with particular satisfaction, while Martine shows her the specialties of each locale. Rosalie and Junior look on as if their mother had suddenly sprouted a pair of wings.

Later on at home Virginia chatters up a storm with the old ladies. She wants to know the secret behind the broth from last night’s soup, and she’d like to make a special preserves pie for after supper. While they eat, every funny story in their family history occurs to her, and she laughs louder than anyone. She looks repeatedly at the kitchen clock, now running perfectly thanks to Junior, and exclaims every few minutes, “Still right on time!” By nightfall she quiets down and begins to yawn again, though still radiant with this new energy.

That night after the Aunties retire, Virginia unrolls Junior’s pallet and plumps his pillow. She kisses her son and tells him not to stay up too late. After tomorrow night he’ll have the bedroom, she reminds him, and a proper bed. The train will be waiting to take her and Rosalie back to Philadelphia on Sunday, so soon. Their mother goes off to take her time in the bath and Junior couldn’t care less about the bed.

He stretches out on the pallet, still dressed, and folds his arms behind his head. Rosalie lies back on the sofa and the two of them stare at the shapes in the whorls of plaster on the ceiling. “See anything?” asks Rosalie.

Junior is quiet, but then says, “You going to write to me?”

“You know I will,” says Rosalie. “You going to write me back?”

“You know I will.”



* * *



An hour later Rosalie and her mother are in their night clothes and have settled into their reading. There’s a soft knock at the bedroom door. It’s Junior, edged in the dim lamplight from the parlor. He steps into the room with a grave face.

“Momma,” he says.

Virginia opens her arms and he collapses into them, his muffled sobs filling the room. Rosalie sits down on the bed on his other side and wraps her arms around them both. Her tears go down the back of Junior’s collar.

Soon enough Junior is quiet and Virginia strokes his cheek. “You’ve got your whole life now,” she says. “Things happen that we don’t expect. And that’s what we can expect.”

There is such tranquility in her voice that it takes over the room. It ripples across her children and soothes them like her lullabies when they were little.

Junior sits up and wipes at the back of his neck. “Girl, you made a mess on me!” Rosalie apologizes. She’s still the sloppy baby, always was.



* * *



It’s Saturday, the last full day for Rosalie and her mother. Didi has declared she will be doctoring Virginia one more time. “What more could she do to me?” Virginia says as she walks the children to the door, eyeing the forty-pound sack of salt a young man delivered during breakfast. Rosalie and Junior step back out into the neighborhood, to roam around again and see what they can see. Junior says he wouldn’t mind getting some more of that poutine. Rosalie wants to go to the dime store on Rue Notre-Dame and buy some stamps and postcards to send to folks at home. Maybe a little something for Baby Lea. Marc-Pierre will be coming by that afternoon, with his wife Pauline, to talk about what Junior might do for work. Until then, the bright morning spreads out before Junior and Rosalie. They still have plenty of time.