It had all happened so fast.
Jean-Baptiste had only turned away for a second. He hadn’t accounted for the simple fact that children can manage to get into a great deal of trouble over the course of an incredibly short span of time.
It had been an impossibly long day for Jean, he had to pull a double shift at the hospital. Working at the front desk was stressful enough but the resident doctor had been up Jean’s ass all day. He was a few months from finishing his first year at Tulane and couldn’t wait for the summer. His sister had warned him that studying to become a doctor would be arduous but this past semester had been brutal. He had taken his mentor’s advice and snagged a job at the hospital, so he was stretched thin between his school work, his job, and picking up the slack at home. So when his mother, Sarafine, popped her head out from her room to ask him to pick up the girls from school he refused at first.
“Ma, I just got home I’m not ‘bout to go out again.” Jean dug around in his jacket pocket for his pack of cigarettes.
“Jean-Baptiste, you get off ya ass and go fetch ya sistas, dun make me ax you ‘gain!” She put on that voice that made Jean’s skin crawl.
“Shit, I’ll go if that’ll shut ya up.” He stormed out of the ramshackle house and started to untie the fanboat from the small dock. As he rode down the swamp he waved at a few of his neighbors and the local fishermen that worked around here. He pulled up to the pier where Heloise, Lisette, and Marguerite were waiting. They wasted no time in hopping into the boat and starting up a fuss.
“Lisabee got ‘nother note!” Heloise shouted as soon as her paws touched the bottom of the boat.
“Did not!” Lisette screeched in her older sister’s face.
“Did too!”
“Did not!”
“Did too you, peeshwak!” Heloise flicked her sister in the ear and when Lisette reared back to deliver a slap Jean grabbed her hand and fixed them both with a look.
“Lowie, stop snitchin’. Lisabee what chu get into now?” Jean snapped as he went back to steering the boat.
“Nothin’!” Lisabee shouted. Jean gave her a long look before deciding it wasn’t worth the trouble. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, the toll of the last 24 hours seeming to come crashing down on him in that instant.
“Look I dun want ta hear ‘nother squeak outta y’all. Here me?” He shot them with the stink eye as they pulled back up to the house. The girls jumped out of the boat and ran into the kitchen, giggling the whole way. Jean was slow to follow his fingers twitched as he brushed past his siblings to sit in the fraying wicker chair that was facing the door. As he pulled out another cigarette he had a brief flashback to the many times he’d seen his father slumped in this very chair with a shotgun perched on his knee as he waited for Cha Cha and Boug to return from one of their wild nights out.
“Ean-B! Ean-B!” The high pitched screeching jolted Jean back into the present. Lisabee jumped up into his lap seeing solace from whatever Heloise and Marguerite were up to now. Jean growled as he pushed the small polecat off of him.
“Chat! Y’all better calm down or take it outside! Ain’t no one got de time or patience ta listen ta all dis, ya little possedes!” The room fell silent as Jean finished his rant.
“Ain’t no need ta make such a fuss.” Lowie mumbled under her breath and rolled her eyes at her brother’s attitude.
“I’m gonna passe a slap if y’all dun get outta here.” The look in Jean’s eye had the trio scrambling out the door.
“Uncalled for, “Sarafine muttered as she tended to the contents in the large pot that sat on the stove, “Jean-Baptiste you go keep an eye on de girls, fresh air’ll do ya good.”
Jean silently debated the repercussions of arguing with his mother, ultimately coming to the decision that it wasn’t worth the headache, he stood and stepped outside to watch the girls play from the porch. He paced the length of the small deck, puffing away, deep in thought. He wondered how Evelyn was doing up in Yankeeland. She had left a while ago but Jean missed her just as much as the first day she set off for New York. He hadn’t heard from her recently and hoped that his letters were reaching his elder sister. The mail system down here was less than reliable but they managed to write at least once a month. The last letter she had sent described a new beau she had met outside of the club, Jean frowned a bit as he thought about the vague description she had given in the letter. He was an Irish dock worker and didn’t seem to be entangled in any seedy underworld business. Nevertheless, Jean was almost certain the chump wasn’t good enough for Evelyn and he made a mental note to grill her about this dock worker whenever Eve came down for a visit.
“Lisabee is off messin’ wit Leroy’s crawfish traps ‘gain!” Marguerite’s high pitched voice broke through Jean’s train of thought.
“She betta not be!” Jean replied. His annoyance growing when all he got in response was a giggle. He stomped down the stairs and looked down the river to see if he could locate Lisette. The young polecat was dangling from a low hanging branch trying to reach into their neighbor’s crawfish trap to snag a few to eat. Jean wondered for a second how she had managed to get across the river so quickly, he turned to go back into the house to grab the key to the fan boat. At the same time their neighbor Leroy came barreling out of his house brandishing a shotgun. Before Jean could assure the beaver that he had things under control the trapper fired a warning shot. The sound startled Lisette and she let go of the branch, falling into the murky swamp with a scream. Jean let out a stream of expletives as he jumped into the fan boat. His concern turned into panic when Lisette hadn’t resurfaced by the time he arrived at the spot where she fell in.
“Where is she?” Jean yelled and glanced back at Leroy and his sisters who were watching with matching looks of panic on their faces.
“She fell right there! Gee, I’m sorry Jean. I didn’t know it was Lisette.” Leroy offered a useless apology. A stream of bubbles broke through the surface just to the right of the boat. Jean dove over the side and into the muddy water. He felt around blindly until his hands hit a solid mass, it was Lisette. It seemed as if she was struggling, Jean firmly grasped her forearms and started to swim to the surface only to be met with resistance. He regretfully released Lisette and swam back to the surface.
“She’s caught on something! I-I can’t pull her free!” Jean dove back down his panic increasing tenfold when he reached Lisette again and noticed she was no longer struggling. After clumsily feeling around he could tell that Lisette’s foot was stuck in a gator trap. When he resurfaced again Sarafina had heard the commotion and was shouting at Jean from the shore.
By the time they had cut Lisette free it was too late. She had drown. After the authorities had taken her body away Jean was left with a painfully familiar hollow feeling. He seemed to revert back to the time when Cha-Cha died, that hollow, helpless child who could do nothing as his loved ones suffered. The call to Evelyn was the worst of it, he had to wait in awkward silence as his elder sister processed the information. He didn’t have to heart to tell her that Sarafine had taken off after the funeral and hadn’t been seen since. He assured her that he’d be able to handle things at home and she didn’t have to leave work to come back.
Jean felt entirely responsible for Lisette’s death, he had an almost overwhelming feeling of self hatred that he internalized. He didn’t have the strength to put on a facade, not even to spare Heloise and Marguerite. The two noticed the strain that Jean was under, caring for the two of them while holding down a job and maintaining his studies. He was going through the motions, doing what needed to be done. He rarely slept through the night, visions of what had happened that day haunted him. Jean had dealt with a lot of loss in his 18 years but none had hit him as hard as Lisette’s death.