AN EXCERPT FROM:
BACK TO THE BAYOU:
THE TASSIN VALLEY SAGA CONTINUES
COPYRIGHT © 2024 BY SHERYL J. BIZE- BOUTTE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
BREAKING AND GATHERING
Just as the sun rose on the bayou in the Tassin Valley, a restless Etienne rose from her bed in the dark of night some twenty-five hundred miles away in Oakland, California. Sleep had been evading her for several weeks now. Between the headaches, which would randomly occur, and her troubled being, she had been unable to find rest, sleeping off and on in fits and starts. She was becoming more and more exhausted with each passing day and losing her sense of place and purpose. Losing her sense of self. Only two things in her life kept her from falling: her two daughters, Olivia and Olivette, now ten and eight years old.
When she looked into their almost always questioning faces, she knew they understood that things were not right. They were growing up. They could see and hear things now and attach meaning to what they saw and heard. She felt keenly responsible for the burden she was placing on them. They were smart, inquisitive girls. They deserved much more than this current state of existence.
Etienne had only to look into their eyes to continue to question her bargain with Oliver Charles. It was a deal between the two of them. Her children had not been considered. She had to right that wrong before it was too late to implant the knowledge in them of how dearly they were loved. It was not fair or humane to let them live lives without knowing that grounding and spirit-sustaining fact.
Questions about herself and her motives took away her sleep. They were draining what little vitality she managed to capture and keep, taking away what little joy she had found in this dry and deserted life.
Why was she here? Why was she living this way and forcing her precious girls to do the same?
This was not the right way to live.
They were all dying here.
This life was full of money and possessions, but it was empty of care and love.
She needed both of those right now. She could feel herself slipping, and she knew she would have to make a decision.
Slowly, she moved over to her vanity and cleared a space. She took her stationery and pen out of the drawer and began to write.
Although she could no longer quite remember the details of why, she knew with a fierce and embedded confidence that there was only one person in Tassin she could dare trust to help her.
May 1, 1896
Dear Celeste,
I trust this writing finds you well.
I need your trust and secrecy.
I know we have never been close, but you are the only one who never looked at me as though I was something strange in Tassin.
I never expressed my deep appreciation to you for that.
I need you now, Celeste.
I need to come home.
I need to bring my girls home.
Please write back to me and let me know if I am welcome to stay with you for a short while. Now that Mom and Papa are gone along with the house and land, I have nowhere else to go.
I know I am imposing as your apartment is small, but I promise we will only stay for a short time and be little to no trouble.
Please provide me with your word that you will tell no one.
I anxiously await your response.
Respectfully,
Etienne
She folded the letter carefully and sealed it in a matching stationery envelope.
Now all that was left was to mail it.
She knew she could not mail it from Oakland. Surely, at some point, the gossipy postmaster would inquire of Oliver Charles whether he had heard from Louisiana yet. Etienne had come to believe that the postmaster was the source of Otto Levy’s knowledge about Oliver Charles’s Louisiana origins based on the letters from his mother.
It seemed that White people considered it their duty to report what the “servants” were or may be up to. Margot understood that she was regarded as a servant and was either treated as invisible or under close watch. She also understood where each form of being could exist. A Black person was invisible in places they were considered to belong, such as tending the garden or sweeping the sidewalk. Conversely, they were under close watch in places they were not considered to belong, such as the bank or the post office. One had to be both courageous and cunning to attempt what Etienne contemplated.
She would have to lay a plan to leave the shop during the day. One early afternoon, she approached Oliver Charles and told him she was going to the lady doctor in San Francisco to help her with “lady problems.” As she’d expected, he did not care, so he did not question her. She walked a few blocks down the street and hailed a taxi carriage and traveled to the city of Niles, where she established a post office box in the name of E. Bardin, her employer as she told the clerk, for use as a return address and to receive mail. The trip to Niles and back to Oakland would take about four hours, about the same time it would take for her to travel to San Francisco and back, raising no suspicion with Oliver Charles, had he chosen to be so.
Having mailed her letter, the waiting would now begin.
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