Seven
OUR NEW LIVES HAVE A rhythm to them.
The sun rises over Paulsen Avenue, over a block of matching ranch-style houses and neat front lawns.
The house stirs. Water running, doors opening and shutting.
Children’s small voices carrying through the hallway.
Adele pulls her hair back with a scarf, chic even before dressing for the day.
She applies lipstick to pour our coffee, cuts melon into neat slices for the children, spoons their yogurt into matching enamel bowls, has them sit around the breakfast table with napkins tucked under their chins.
When the sunburst clock that hangs in the kitchen strikes eight, I kiss my son, Clément, on the top of his head, tell him to be good for his auntie.
Then Lionel and Al and I head out the front door, into the Los Angeles sunshine.
Mild in the winter, hot in the summertime, never a trace of humidity in the air.
Three doors down, Bernard appears in front of his matching house, tie neat and briefcase in hand, and together we head to Columbia Records’ Hollywood pressing plant.
Some days Bernard drives us in his forest-green Buick; other days we ride in Al’s eight-seater woodie wagon.
Either way, it’s Lionel and me sharing the back seat, out of Compton and through the city.
It’s been three years since we left New Orleans.
“I swear,” Adele says, “Clément walks just fine while you’re at work. Can’t imagine what happens to those little legs each night when you come through the door.” He giggles, buries his head in my shoulder.
Adele’s lit candles for dinner, tall thin tapers we’ve kept wrapped in tissue in a credenza drawer for months. They’re pale blue, nearly translucent.
“Here comes the food,” she calls from the kitchen. “Hope everybody’s hungry!”
She appears in her green-and-white A-line dress, hair swept back and crystal teardrop earrings dangling, a platter of colorful salads in her hands. Claire follows in bright lipstick and rose-blossom earrings, a lavender dress and a platter held high.
“Ta-da!” Claire says, setting her platter at the center of the table. “Oysters Rockefeller.”
I know the effort that goes into the dish.
It’s something they talk about making every now and then but haven’t attempted until now.
The oysters are cooked in beer first, baked with a cheese and spinach sauce next, and topped with toasted breadcrumbs at the end.
My sisters smile and demur as we ooh and ahh.
We’re all playing our parts. Bernard and Al, the breadwinners in their hard-earned managerial positions.
Lionel, strong from his long hours in Production.
My sisters in their domestic glory. And me, the working girl.
“Odette, it’s your six-month anniversary at the plant,” Claire says. “You didn’t realize?”
“Six months,” I say. “I didn’t. How sweet, all of this.”
We dish oysters and salads onto our plates, my sisters peppering us with questions about our day, telling us funny stories about the children. Aside from complimenting the food, Bernard doesn’t join in the conversation.
“Bernard,” I say. “You’ve been so quiet.”
He sets down his fork. “I’ve been trying to collect my thoughts into something coherent.
Just—we never could have had this back home.
Look at all of this. It’s everything we hoped for.
” Suddenly, he’s crying, feeling in his pocket for his handkerchief, Claire murmuring, “Oh, sweetheart,” and rubbing his shoulder.
I expect Al to tease him but he doesn’t. Maybe he’s feeling something, too. Bernard and Al are the plant’s first colored managers. I didn’t even have to interview, just showed up for my first day on Bernard’s recommendation. “You made it so easy for me,” I say.
“What a privilege,” Bernard says, dabbing his eyes. “To make it easy.”
Bedtime is something I’m good at. It’s Adele’s time to unwind, mine to do baths, teeth, hair, stories.
Two sets of bunk beds occupy opposite walls of the children’s room with a little circular rug in between.
Rudy and Clément share one of the bunks and the twins, Titter and Bobby, share the lower bunk of the other.
I read to them from the rug, and then I climb into Clément’s bottom bunk.
Time passes and the room warms with the bodies of four sleeping children, their breathing a chorus of snores and sighs.
Clément’s body loosens, his little arm cast over my ribs.
Sometimes, like tonight, I stay for a long time, trying to make up for the pain that I caused him. He was born melancholy, stayed that way for months. Everything seemed to hurt him; he was difficult to console.
It was my fault. The sleepless nights before I had him, replaying every choice I made, everything I agreed to. So many chances to change my mind.
New Year’s Day, watching from behind the curtain in the living room as Cyril came up the steps and hesitated at the side-by-side doors, unsure of which one to knock on. If I’d only turned and slipped out the back, run through the alleys to Hattie’s sewing room.
Or even if I hadn’t thought to run, I could have changed my mind that evening, when he’d asked for another date.
Or when he dropped to one knee.
Or when Hattie measured me for the dress.
Or just before I said, “I do.”
Or when he opened the car door before our drive to Baton Rouge.
All that time while Clément was growing inside of me, working to become a person, I was imagining a thousand ways to undo what I’d done.
A thousand ways to turn back time, so that I wouldn’t be an expectant mother and already a widow.
Cyril killed in a training accident, just three months before the end of the war.
My hand rested on my belly as I received the news.
Everyone praised me, said I took it well.
I grieved for him. I did. My acquaintance-husband.
My lover for four strange days. But so much had already been severed.
After losing Delphine and Hattie and Papa, after losing all of New Orleans, what was one more thing?
Of course I took it well. I was sleepwalking through all of it.
I ease out from under Clément’s arm now. Gaze at the curls across his forehead. His dark eyelashes (so much like Hattie’s). His parted mouth.
“You’re perfect,” I whisper into his tiny ear. “You’re the one I love most.”