Sinners Football 02- Wish for a Sinner Page 28

  “I’m afraid this might upset Cassie. She might think we don’t want her baby and we do. Joe, especially. He wanted to do something for his cousin’s child since Bijou certainly won’t, wherever he is. Keeping Thomas Cassidy in the family is very important to him. Our next son is due to arrive in two weeks, so could we not say anything to anybody until then? I swear I’ll make an appointment in Lafayette and sneak up there for a checkup.”

  “I suppose the news will keep as long as you take it easy. No riding, understand?”

  “Understood. Mintay, have you and Rev worked out your problems?”

  “Well, sort of. He offered me a bribe last week. If we start a family in the next six months, he’ll build a real infirmary for Chapelle with enough beds for poor women who can’t afford the big hospitals to give birth with a midwife if they want and for others to recover from minor procedures. We could even have a hospice area. A facility like that would make it so much easier on those who have no transportation. He said he’d throw in a psychologist’s office for you and we wouldn’t have to share anymore. Rev certainly knows how to tempt a girl.”

  “An infirmary would be so great. I guess you are too moral to bribe.”

  “Oh, you know Rev will build the place regardless. The gesture reminds me what a good man he is. Is one little baby too much to ask? You said yourself I wasn’t getting any younger.”

  “I sense weakening here.”

  “Let’s take care of you first. At least, try to sneak these vitamins once a day.”

  Cassie went into labor on June 22nd, a full week earlier than expected. “How lucky is that?” she boasted when the pains were twenty minutes apart and irregular. When the spasms rolled across her belly in one-minute intervals after ten hours of labor, she wasn’t so cocky about her luck or her choice of natural childbirth because it “would be better for the baby.”

  “Nell make them knock me out!” she pleaded as she gripped Joe’s hand on one side and Nell’s on the other.

  “Try to relax. Pant, remember panting?” Nell prompted.

  “Joe, force the doctor to come in here and get this baby out of me!”

  “Cassie, it won’t be much longer.” With relief, he saw the doctor coming to check on the progress of the birth. This ordeal was worse than tearing a hamstring in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. To think he had wanted to put Nell through the agony of childbirth as a gift—a gift for Christ’s sake!

  “Here we go to the delivery room, Cassie,” the doctor said.

  “Then move your ass, Doc!” Cassie answered with a growl, followed by a groan and a series of pants. Her mother sat out in the waiting room too far away to reprove the language.

  The procession of medical personnel and paper-clad parents-to-be moved down the hall and into the glaring lights of the delivery room. Joe stood in the puddles of fluids and blood that came with the birth process and watched his second son come into the world headfirst and capped with matted red fuzz. He smiled across at Nell. They lowered Cassie after helping her with the last big push.

  “He’s a winner, Cass. Great job.”

  They laid the baby on her thigh close enough to see all of his fingers and toes and his wide open crying mouth. “He’s beautiful. Red hair like mine.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “Oh, I’m having more pains. Is something wrong?”

  “Just delivering the afterbirth and helping the uterus to contract,” the doctor assured her.

  Joe watched the afterbirth plop into the pan. The doctor examined the grisly slab thoroughly. “They use these to make shampoo,” he told Joe Dean conversationally.

  “Gross,” murmured Joe under his breath and out of the hearing of the two women who seemed so elated after all this blood and gore.

  Cassie released her grip on Joe and Nell and clutched her newborn when he was placed clean and swaddled into her arms. She hugged small Thomas to her chest. A few more tears slipped out. Then, she beckoned to Nell. “Here, you take him to the nursery.

  Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, Mintay and Rev, Joe Dean and Nell, and MawMaw and PawPaw Billodeaux clustered around the nursery window.

  “Fifteen grandkids for us, Frank. Course we got to share this one with Hal and Flo. They’re good people even if their son is a stinker. How many for you folks?” Nadine asked the Thomases.

  “Not so many yet. We have three others from our oldest children, all married. I guess with so many kids, we’ll pass you one of these days,” Mr. Thomas answered.

  Ann and Gary Abbott arrived with a teddy bear and a bouquet they thrust at Nell. “For Cassie and the baby,” they said pressing towards the glass. “We have three grandsons now, but no girls yet.”

  “Oh, I think some girls might come along. What do you say, Nell?” Nadine regarded her daughter-in-law who had worn baggy jeans and a cotton big shirt, tails out, for the ordeal.

  “Oh, God willing, I guess.”

  Mintay dove right in and changed the subject. “What did you name him?”

  “Thomas Cassidy Billodeaux.”

  “Good name,” the Rev approved. “Looks like your old Saint Jude felt he had to pay up after you done won the Super Bowl for him, Joe Dean.”

  “Hmmmm,” said Joe Dean, not quite over the gore he had witnessed at the birth of his redheaded son.

  “Thomas after the apostle. Name means the Twin. And now you got two boys, and one of them’s a twin.”

  Joe’s big jaw dropped. “Mama, what did you pray for at the novena, just a live, healthy baby right?”

  Nadine looked shamefaced. “Well, son, I know it wasn’t right, but we prayed for twins in case Nell couldn’t have no more, you see. Twin girls since you had a boy, but I’m not complaining, no. I’m lightin’ a few candles on my way home for bot’ the Blessed Virgin and St. Jude to say merci’.”

  “We have a lot to be thankful for,” Ann Abbott added in her prim Episcopalian way.

  “More than you know,” Nadine replied.

  Three days later, Nell glanced into the back seat as the sedan bumped over the back roads on the way to the ranch. Thomas slept curled over in his baby seat as if he were still inside Cassie’s womb. The strong summer sun turned his red hair to fire. The rough ride getting home bothered him not one bit.

  Joe had seen to it that Cassie was not rushed out of the hospital either, though when she hinted she wanted to remain the rest of the summer at Lorena Ranch with Nell and the baby, he sided with the Thomases. The time had come for Cassie to go home and restart her young life. He was positive about that. She could call and e-mail all she wanted. They would take weekly pictures of the baby’s progress and send them to her, but Joe remained firm about Nell needing a respite and time to bond alone with the new child in their life. After all, his wife and child must come first.

  Joe smiled as he watched Nell check again on Tommy. Then, he opened his mouth and said what he was thinking. “I never expected to get our twin boys by adoption, but I sure am glad it worked out like this. That St. Jude, he knows what he’s doing. I can’t believe I wanted to put you through childbirth, Tink. What a dumb idea!”

  “What? You never saw any of your sisters give birth?” Nell didn’t seem as happy as she should be.

  “Hell, no. Who would want to see their sisters down there squeezing out a baby? Man, that was brutal.”

  “You’ve seen plenty of other women—down there!” She spoke sharply.

  He didn’t have a clue what had gone wrong now. “Believe me, it’s not the same. When you make love to a woman, they unfold like a flower, all dewy and moist. When they groan, it’s with pleasure. That big hole opening up, all that blood and gunk and screaming, it’s nothing the same, believe you me. If we want more kids, we’ll adopt.”

  “Oh, will we? What if I want to experience giving birth—what then?” Nell sniveled against the glass of the window.

  The drive through Arizona in search of Cassie repeated all over again. Joe shook his head as if to clear his brain after a bad hit. Outside the car, the sun sizzled in a cloudless
June sky. They’d obtained a precious new baby without any physical suffering. Their other son who had started crawling waited to greet his new brother at his mama’s house. In hindsight, Joe Dean Billodeaux knew he should have kept his mouth shut. It wasn’t too late to start. He didn’t answer his wife, but carefully steered around the potholes as well as he could to give them all a smooth, safe ride. Silence ensued.

  Nell broke the peace. “Joe, I’m pregnant.”

  Joe screeched to a stop on the narrow dirt siding, nearly putting the car into the deep ditch filled with yesterday’s rainfall and an overgrowth of weeds.

  “For months, you’ve been telling me you aren’t pregnant. Now you are. Did we make a baby by accident somewhere between Arizona and here?”

  “Mintay thinks I didn’t lose all of the babies. I’ve seen an obstetrician in Lafayette. Both of them say I should be due before Christmas.”

  Joe thumped his fingers against the steering wheel. “So, you are going into your fourth month and never said a word to me.”

  “I wasn’t sure until a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t say anything then because I didn’t want to upset Cassie.”

  “But it’s fine to upset your husband.”

  “I thought you wanted a big family.”

  “I do, just not all in the same year.”

  “Then you and your family should be careful what you pray for!”

  “Aw Tink, it makes no nevermind to me, but you do know what this means?” He reached over and folded her against his chest.

  “Now, we’re gonna have to get married in the church, or we’ll never hear the end of it from Mama.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  What with taking the required instruction in the church and planning Tommy’s baptism and Deanie’s re-baptism because, Nadine said, you never could tell if they had done it right in Mexico, Nell approached her sixth month of pregnancy by the time she walked down the aisle at Ste. Jeanne d’Arc in Chapelle.

  Nell stood in the church lobby waiting for the Wedding March to cue up and having second thoughts about her choice of gowns. She’d refused to wear white because she was not some quivering virgin worrying about her wedding night—her exact words to her mother-in-law who had backed off and told the rest of the family Nell was having pregnancy mood swings. The fabric in a soft yellow color did go well with her skin tones, big brown eyes and short brunette hair, but with her belly having gotten so big so quickly, Nell felt she resembled the harvest moon. The circlet of silk autumn leaves suggested by Stevie Riley to replace a veil wasn’t doing much to draw the attention away from the cloth bunching under her high bodice beautifully embroidered with fall wildflowers. The final fitting had been only two weeks ago and for sure, she’d pooched out another inch since then.

  Fingering the collar necklace of all shades of amber—honey and ruby, green and a tigerish brown—connected with fine gold links Joe had selected for her with the help of all four sisters, Nell realized she was as nervous as the first time around a year ago. Her father waited to take her arm. Mintay, clad in brown with glittering golden highlights woven into the threads, looked much more voluptuous than her slim form did in a lab coat or scrubs. The woman Nell regarded as her best friend reached the center of the church where the two main aisles formed a cross. Stevie already stood with the groomsmen in her gown of deep autumn red flecked with gold. Dear Father Ardoin, still distressed she had not been converted by his gentle teachings and so could have no full-scale nuptial Mass, opened the book containing the words for the service.

  The agreement with Joe and Nadine had been that the ceremony would be private and small, a gathering of immediate family and the closest of friends. “And you hold out for that,” Stevie told her. Even so, that came to fifty attending, all turned her way and waiting. Nell took her father’s arm and began the processional march.

  Where was Joe? She dreamt last night her super-sexy husband had run off with Norma Jean Scruggs in a motor home painted with cactus blossoms, and left behind his “old lady” with four sobbing children hanging on her legs. Joe woke her up when she cried out, “Don’t go!” He soothed her back to sleep with an off-key version of You’re having my Baby so badly sung he kept repeating the chorus because he didn’t know the rest of the words.

  Joe took his vows seriously, but perhaps vows taken in Las Vegas meant nothing and church vows meant everything. She couldn’t see him waiting with the tall and wide forms of Connor Riley and Rev Bullock blocking her view. Maybe, Norma Jean had chosen today to deliver Copperhead to the ranch. Then, she passed the Sinners’ contingent and saw Joe, elegant in his black tux, backed up by Jackie Haile, looking very butch in hers.

  Father Ardoin had expressed grave misgivings about allowing Miss Haile to be best man. Joe pointed out no written rules said the best man had to be male and a witness was a witness. Besides, this way he didn’t have to choose between Connor and the Rev for the honor. Nell had no objections, not after the way Jackie stood by Joe in Phoenix. Stevie had given the groom a big kiss on the cheek for holding out for one of their best friends. After all, she said when out of Father Ardoin’s hearing, it wasn’t as if Jackie would try to seduce the altar boys. Typical Stevie.

  Nell’s doubts vanished at the sight of Joe’s wide grin. She swore he hummed You’re having my Baby under his breath during the entire ceremony and she whispered, “You got that right” when he arched his tall body over her pregnant belly in the awkward kiss sealing their vows.

  Rather than the formal recessional, family and friends congratulated the couple in the center of the church. Rev Bullock in a moment of ecumenical fellowship put his massive arm around Father Ardoin’s frail shoulders and said, “Unusual wedding, huh?”

  “Oh, Nell isn’t the first pregnant bride married in Ste. Jeanne d’Arc and she won’t be the last. I do believe this is my first lesbian best man, though.”

  “If every priest were as good a sport as you, Father, I’d convert.”

  “Heaven forbid, son. I’d never be able to face your father across the table at the Chamber of Commerce prayer breakfast again if you were to do that.”

  “Only kiddin’ you, padre, only kiddin’.”

  By the time the wedding party arrived, the blowout reception at the ranch was in full swing. Lizzie’s children, well paid to do so, led the four ponies in an endless circle to entertain the youngest guests. A Jolly Jumper shaped like a castle, a Radar Frog where aspiring pitchers could test their fast balls and a rock wall kept the other children amused. Because at a Cajun wedding there were bound to be children, lots of children, Joe told Nell.

  The All-American Cajun Zydeco Band rapped out a tune in the barbecue pavilion. Joe selected them on the basis they could play anything and they proved that was true. The musicians stopped in mid-chank to play their rub board version of Here Comes the Bride when Joe extracted his pregnant wife from the limo using both of his hands. The guests laughed. They formed a corridor when Joe scooped Nell up and carried her to a comfortable chair with a footstool deep in the shade of the live oaks. He held up his hands for silence.

  “Yes, we are having twins and we’re fairly sure it’s twin girls to go along with our two boys, so Nell won’t be on her feet much today. Line up over there if you want to say hey.”

  Applause followed the announcement. Miss Maxine and Miss Lolly giggled and patted their ancient hands together. They shoved to the front of the line.

  “Do you think they will name the twins after us since we helped with the novena, Lolly?”

  “Doubtful. Nadine did all the arranging and the most powerful praying.”

  Nell kept herself from rolling her eyes as she accepted their congratulations but she shuddered a little at the thoughts of having twins named Maxine and Lolita, Miss Lolly’s real name.

  Nadine overheard her name as she whisked by, her wedding finery covered with a dark green canvas apron, a Magnalite pot full of barbecued brisket in her hands. “I got two granddaughters wit’ Nadine as a middle name and you know my boy
and his boy is named for me, too. They should call those babies something else so long as they each get a saint’s name. Come eat.”

  Joe had done his best to convince his mama he could afford a caterer. But as soon as they set the wedding date for the first Saturday in September, Nadine pressured her daughters to empty their freezers of last season’s venison and to fry up the accumulated fish so they could stuff in good homemade wedding delicacies. At least, Nadine allowed hired help to serve and do the cleanup and permitted the wedding cakes to be farmed out to Pommier’s Bakery.

  Beau’s Blooms of Chapelle provided the vast white tent, the wooden folding chairs, tables and coordinated linens to match the decor of autumnal abundance. Shocks of sugar cane bound with gold wire ribbon sat amid banks of mums providing swaths of fall color even though summer would not release its relentless grip on Louisiana for another month or more.

  The Sinners had come out in force, a little battered by training camp and pre-season games, but ready to party with wives and girlfriends. Precious and Sharlette, who had made up long ago, came to sit on either side of Nell for a visit. She hadn’t seen either one since the Super Bowl party. Precious, her usual self, was dressed resplendently in gold. Sharlette arrived very changed, but still chic in the last month of her pregnancy.

  Sharlette shook a finger bearing a large topaz ring at Joe Dean and smoothed her other hand over an African print silk maternity dress knotted on one shoulder. “This is your fault, boy. You let Ace carry the ball and he came home still celebrating. He knows I don’t bother with birth control during the season ’cause his mind is on the game, not on me. He’s chasin’ me around the house, and I’m yellin’ ‘Get a condom on, Ace.’ Well, when a tight end takes you down in the hallway, there is no room for argument. You know what he said later—‘Sorry, babe, I got carried away with being a receiver.’ Good thing our girls were at a sleep-over.”

  “You look great, Sharlette.” Nell regarded her own stomach and wondered how Sharlette could balance on those high heels without falling face first into the oak duff. She couldn’t see her own feet clad in some kind of hard-soled ballet slipper her Prince Charming had slipped over her toes because she could no longer do it herself.