Rafe didn’t know exactly when he had accepted himself as he was. Perhaps it had been at the moment of Aurore’s rejection. But soon afterward he had realized that he couldn’t deny the father he had never known, any more than he could deny his mother and the life she had been forced to lead. Juan had said his father was a good man. Rafe knew his mother had been a good woman. The blood of two races ran through his veins. The heritage his parents had bequeathed him was one of which he could be proud.
But pride was a lonely place, and he guarded it well. He kept to himself and conducted much of his business through his attorney and accountant. He gave no explanations about his bloodlines, but he lived among the
gens de couleur
of the city, and, by association, he was damned. He didn’t look for acceptance; acceptance had always been denied him. He didn’t look for respect or friendship. He woke up each morning with the sole goal of surviving the day with his pride intact.
So why had he come to Grand Isle? And why had Aurore come, an Aurore a decade older than the girl he had loved? As the service progressed, he could watch her undetected. She sat near the front of the church, her head covered with a floppy-brimmed hat that served the function of blinders. He could see the proud set of her shoulders, the grace with which she knelt and stood, the narrow curve of her waist. Although she hadn’t seen him, he had caught a glimpse of her face as she entered the church. The years had whittled away her youthful innocence and left in its place a wiser, colder woman. But she was no less beautiful.
When the service ended, he left the building quickly, but he lingered in the churchyard. Grand Isle, indolent Louisiana stepchild, had only rarely had an event of this magnitude to
celebrate. Islanders and visitors crowded the yard as the little girls in white veils and the boys in dark suits endured family greetings and congratulations. He thought he recognized a face or two from his years on Bayou Lafourche, but he made no attempt to announce himself. Those days seemed to belong to someone else entirely, Étienne Terrebonne, the boy he had never been. Here he felt closer to the child Raphael.
Aurore came out of the church, and he watched her move through the crowd toward Father Grimaud. Seeing the old priest again had been nearly as surprising as seeing her. Rafe felt certain that Father Grimaud would remember him. He had been kind during those lonely years, one of the few people who accepted Raphael as a child, simply one of God’s children.
Aurore spoke to the priest, and as Father Grimaud bent his head, his long white beard dusted the front of his cassock. He straightened. Even from a distance, Rafe could see warmth in his expression, as if he were greeting an old friend.
Rafe was intrigued by this conversation he couldn’t hear. Aurore had been too young to have known Father Grimaud. Rafe watched the priest beckon a young boy to his side and whisper something in his ear. Then the child started toward the church.
Aurore stepped aside, and others came to speak to the priest, but Aurore didn’t retreat until the child returned, carrying what looked like a thin stack of papers tied with a ribbon. He gave it to the priest and received a pat on the head. Then Father Grimaud turned to Aurore and spoke before handing her the papers.
Rafe watched her leaf through them before she looked back at the priest. Father Grimaud touched her shoulder. She nodded; then she started across the yard.
Rafe didn’t move. He had no wish to confront her here. Through the years, he had made a measure of peace with himself, and he had come to the island for more. But no one could make him hide; there was no battle he would surrender.
The bell rang again in celebration. With the first peal, Aurore’s gaze found his. She stared at him until the bell was silent. Then, without a word, she continued past.
D
usk stole over the island while Aurore read the letters. The evening was quiet except for the screeching of seagulls. She rose once to light a lamp, once more to fill the enameled coffeepot with boiling water. When she finished the letters, written over a period of years, she rearranged and read them again. Nothing leaped from the pages. Instead, one embroidered on the other to tell the story of the night of the hurricane.
Father Grimaud’s responses had been kind and priestly, absolving her father of all guilt. But her father had continued the correspondence, as if absolution were still withheld.
That afternoon, Father Grimaud had asked her whether Lucien had found forgiveness before he died. She had been puzzled by the question. Her father hadn’t been a man who concerned himself with spiritual things. Why would he care whether the God he ignored forgave or condemned him?
But the picture that emerged from the letters was one of a different man. Lucien had been tormented. On the night of the storm, he had struggled toward the presbytery, towing a
small skiff occupied by a pregnant woman and two small children. Nearly to safety, he had been overtaken by a wall of water and forced to release the rope or die. He had saved himself, but the others had been lost.
The woman’s name had been Marcelite. Her children had been Raphael and Angelle.
Could Raphael be Rafe?
Rafe had changed his name after Nicolette’s birth. By doing so, had he taken back his real identity? Had Raphael come back to haunt Lucien?
Aurore pictured the man who had watched her in the churchyard. His stance had been that of the youth she had met on Bayou Lafourche, proud, cautious, ready—if necessary—to attack. The years had heightened his masculinity; he was someone men wouldn’t easily challenge or women easily forget. Since seeing him that afternoon, she had thought of little else. Rafe and her father’s letters were now entwined.
And what of her father’s letters? Discrepancies proved that Lucien had been trying to hide important pieces of a puzzle. Sometimes he referred to Marcelite as a stranger; at other times he wrote as if she were someone he had been long acquainted with. In one letter he was poetic about the little girl, Angelle, how sweet she had been, how healthy and full of life. He had eloquently captured the warmth of a child’s chubby arms around his neck, the feel of her childish kisses.
One letter dated 1894, not quite a year after the storm, was more garbled than the others. He rambled at length about his father-in-law, Antoine, and demands he had made. But as the letters continued, Antoine was never mentioned again. Near the end of his life—and bemoaning his poor health—her father had seemed only to care that his acts not be held against him.
There were mysteries still, but the mystery she had lived with for so long might be explained. If Rafe was Raphael, perhaps he had blamed Lucien for his mother’s and sister’s deaths, and set out to avenge them.
But why had he chosen her as a vehicle? Had she simply been the easiest avenue to Lucien? Had he believed that her father loved her so much that her shame would finish his destruction?
She paced the cottage with a full cup of cold coffee clutched in her hands. Rafe had come for the dedication. Had he followed her? Did he want her to suffer more punishment?
The house seemed unbearable. She went outside to the gallery, where a warm breeze ruffled her hair. As she stared into the darkness, she realized that if he had wanted to punish her again, a million opportunities had probably passed. Perhaps he had simply come to make peace with his memories, just as she had.
Peace. Could a man like Rafe really hope for such a thing? Even as she told herself it was impossible, the picture of a small boy in a storm-battered skiff crowded her mind. When the lantern came into view in the presbytery window, it must have seemed like a beacon from heaven. Then Lucien, the boy’s only chance for survival, had abandoned the tow rope, and the skiff had rushed toward certain death. If Rafe was Raphael, as much as she hated him, how could she believe that he needed peace less than she?
There were so many unanswered questions. She was halfway to the beach before she realized where she was going. She couldn’t endure the cottage any more than she could endure her own thoughts. She didn’t want to think of Rafe as a frightened child; she didn’t want to think of her father as a
coward. Most of all, she didn’t want to forgive Rafe Cantrelle for what he had done to her.
The waves were almost calm. A nearly full moon hung low in the darkening sky and silvered the water. She had been wrong to come. Tonight there would be no memories of childhood days. Despite the placid surf, she saw waves as tall as the island oaks and heard the screams of children. She covered her face, but the picture grew more horrifying.
A man’s voice spoke from the shadows of a sand dune. “My sister was the first to die, but my mother followed quickly. I wanted to dive after them, but I was too frightened to let go of the skiff. I clung until my fingers were so cramped that I couldn’t.”
She dropped her hands and stared as Rafe stepped away from the dune. “Who are you?” She moved toward him until she was only a few feet away. “Who are you?”
“I’m a ghost. At least, that’s what your father thought ten years ago, when I told him I’d come back from the dead.”
“Then you are Raphael?”
He lifted a brow. “I was.”
“Did you follow me here?”
“I came for my own reasons.”
“What were they?”
“Why should I tell you?” He turned and began to walk.
“No!” She ran after him and grabbed his arm. “I know what my father did. Today, in the churchyard, Father Grimaud gave me letters that he and my father exchanged.”
He stopped. She could feel the muscles tense in his arm. “Letters,” he said. “Filled with the truth, I suppose.”
“He said he was towing a boat with three passengers. He said he let go of the rope before he reached the presbytery.”
In the moonlight, his expression was inscrutable. “Did he tell you who the passengers were?”
“He gave names.”
Without warning, he grasped her shoulders. “Did he tell you who we were? What we were to him?”
She tried to move away, but his grip tightened. “Let me go, Rafe.”
“What, or you’ll scream? Do it. End it all right here. Scream, and if anyone hears you, tell them a man of color dared to touch you. You’ll have your revenge right here and now!”
“What were you to him?” she shouted.
“I was an abomination! But my mother was his mistress, and my sister was his child. Angelle was my sister—and yours!”
She went limp. “No. You’re lying.”
“Am I? Do you think I wasted my youth hating a man who simply wasn’t brave enough to haul our boat to safety? Am I that stupid?” He thrust her backward, turned and walked away.
“You’re lying!”
He continued to walk.
She was torn between running back to the cottage and running after him. She was at his side again before the decision was fully formed. “Why are you saying these things?”
“I would have said them years ago, if you would have listened.”
“Why should I believe you?”
He stopped. “Your father gave my mother gifts in return for her affection. I don’t think she loved him, but she adored her children. She saw Lucien as a path out of the poverty and shame that my birth had doomed her to. I think she believed he’d take us away from the
chénière
someday.”
“And the child she was carrying? It was my father’s child?”
He faced her. “What child are you talking about?”
She watched the truth settle over him. She hadn’t really believed his story until that moment. But for an instant sorrow gleamed in his eyes, and she knew. She knew.
“No!” She looked away, her fist to her mouth.
“I never knew she was pregnant. She hid it from me, but apparently not from him.”
“Even if this is true, how could you blame my father for what he did? He would have died if he hadn’t released the towrope. Can you blame him for trying to save his own life when everything else was hopeless?”
He gave a harsh laugh. “Is that what his letters said?”
“Then what’s the truth?”
He grasped her chin and turned her head until they were eye to eye. “Do you really want to know, Aurore? Or do you want to go on thinking I had no reason for what I did? The last is easier. You’ve already settled into it nicely.”
She pushed his hand away, but she didn’t flinch. “What should I believe?”
“That your father cut the towrope and doomed us to death because we had become an inconvenience.”
“No! How can you know that?”
“Because I remember everything that was said that night. My mother had begun to make demands on him, and he’d finally realized what I was. We were nearly at the presbytery door when he took an ax to the rope. We were in easy reach of safety. Easy reach for all of us! Your father killed my mother. He killed his own daughter and his unborn child. And he tried to kill me!”
She wanted to refute his words, but she couldn’t. All the pages of Lucien’s letters fell into place; the fact that he’d written them was proof.
“But what did my grandfather have to do with this?” Even as she asked, the answer became clear. Somehow Antoine had discovered Lucien’s love nest and insisted that Lucien end his connections there or face the consequences. She remembered that Antoine had come to Grand Isle unexpectedly, and that because he had, he had died in the hurricane.
He shook her off. “I don’t know anything about your grandfather. But can anything about your family be hard to believe? You know what kind of man your father was.”
“You were young. Can you be sure?”
“By the time I was found in the marsh, I was older than you’ll ever be. And now we’re both sure, aren’t we?”
“You plotted revenge all those years? And when I came along, you knew you’d found a way to reach my father?”
“Exactly.”
Anger blotted out shame. “You destroyed my life! I had nothing to do with this. I was Lucien’s victim, too, and you knew it! You saw the way he treated me. He never loved me. Wasn’t destroying the
Dowager
enough for you?”
“Nothing could have been enough.”
“So you used me, lied to me, got me with child, then took my baby, all because of my father’s sins? What kind of man are you?”
“A satisfied one.”
She slapped him, but it wasn’t enough. Her hands balled into fists, and she began to beat against his chest. She was sobbing. She didn’t care if he killed her in return; she only wanted to inflict a small measure of the pain he had caused her.
He grabbed her hands and held them still, but she kicked at his legs. “Bastard!” She choked on the word. “Bastard!”
“Don’t forget the rest of it!” He shoved her away. “Don’t
forget what kind of a bastard I am. My father was a mulatto, with his master’s blood running through his veins. My mother loved him, but he was murdered because of his race. And here I am, their child, raised white, living black, neither and both!”
She covered her ears, but she could still hear him.
“Remember exactly what kind of a bastard I am! The kind you wouldn’t listen to when I tried to explain. I didn’t take our baby. You gave her to me. And if I hadn’t taken her, you would have given her to a stranger! You’re no different from Lucien. You sacrificed your own daughter so your life would be easier!”
“I’m not like my father!”
“No, you’re worse. Lucien knew what he was, even if he didn’t care. You think you’re a good woman who’s been terribly wronged. But look at yourself closely. What do you see?”
“I had nothing to do with my father’s sin. Our daughter had nothing to do with it. And still you’ve destroyed us both!”
“You’ve destroyed yourself. You gave away your child, married a monster—and why?” He laughed; it was a twisted, tortured sound. “Because you were afraid of contamination.”
She saw his torture, his shattered pride and rage. Shame and denial warred inside her. “No! You never loved me. You used me for revenge! That’s why I hated you! That’s why I couldn’t keep Nicolette! I couldn’t bear to see your face every time I looked at her.”
He stared at her. “You’re lying, and you’re wrong. I loved you.”
Everything she had built her life on began to crumble. “No.”
“Not at first. I’d forgotten how. But a little at a time. I looked for Lucien in you, and didn’t find him. I tried to tell myself you’d hate me if you discovered why I had come into
your life, but I didn’t listen to my own warnings. Then I started to believe I could have it all. Revenge, love…” He shrugged. “When you told me you were carrying our child, I wanted us to go away together and start a new life.”
Her voice trembled. “You sabotaged the
Dowager.
”
“I told you. I wanted it all.”
“And what did you think when you watched my father’s ship go down in flames? What did you think when he lay on the floor at your feet? For those few minutes, did you finally have it all?”
“Yes.”
“No.” She moved closer. She could see his eyes. His gaze was steady, but he couldn’t hide what he felt. “No, you didn’t. You knew you’d lost everything, didn’t you?” When he started to turn away, she grabbed his arm. “You knew you’d become like him, and you knew you’d never have me.”
His expression grew cold. “No, I knew I’d never have you when Lucien told you what I was. I saw the horror in your eyes, and I knew there wasn’t any hope, that nothing I could say could ever overcome that, not a confession, not a plea for forgiveness. I was branded by my father’s blood, and so was our child.”
She wanted to deny it, to tell him that she had been horrified by his acts, not his heritage. But she couldn’t, because it wasn’t completely true.
The hate that had filled her for ten long years vanished as if it had never been. Turmoil filled her instead, a rising tide of emotions, and images of the man she had once loved above everything else.
“How did it come to this?” she whispered. “Are we as helpless as the people killed by the storm that night? Don’t
we have a say over our lives, or do we spin from one tragedy to the next, causing more tragedy for our children? What about them? You’re right, I married a monster because of you and what you did to me. And now my son pays every day because of my choice of a father for him. Where does it end? Where?”