Mrs. Broussard unfolded the letter with fingers that had held a great many things in her life, and she smoothed it flat on the plastic tablecloth between the catfish and the hushpuppies. The handwriting slanted wildly across the page, in blue ballpoint, with lines that rose and fell like a boat on a swell. “This was written by my mother,” she said, in a clear, soft voice. “Odette Broussard. She was ninety four years old, in a nursing home in Port Arthur, the week the hurricane came ashore. She could not hold a pen steadily by then. She wrote this anyway, and asked me to deliver it in person.” The yard went quiet, even the children. Rick stood frozen with his Shiner Bock halfway to his mouth.
“Dear Danielle,” Mrs. Broussard read. “They told me the power would be out for nine days, and I believed I would not last through the fourth. You did not leave. You fed me with a spoon, and you wet my lips with a cloth, and when I was afraid in the dark you sat on the floor and sang me the song my mother used to sing in French. You never told the nurses you were not paid for the overtime. You are the finest person I have met in ninety four years, and I want the world to know it before I go.” Mrs. Broussard stopped. She wiped her eyes with a folded tissue. “My mother died in November, nineteen days after the power came back. She died clean and warm and not alone. That was because of your niece.”
I looked over at Danielle. She was standing very still, with a paper napkin crushed in her hand, and her face had gone completely red. She had not known. I could tell by the way her mouth was working. Mr. Broussard, who had not spoken all afternoon, rose slowly from his chair. He is a tall man in his seventies with large rough hands and a plain gray suit. “I own four nursing homes in southeast Texas,” he said. “My wife and I came here today because your uncle offered to sell us his insurance agency, and I wanted to see what sort of family he comes from. I wanted to see how he treats the people who work for him.”
A shaky letter from a ninety four year old resident read aloud at a fish fry changed what an uncle thought about a niece who worked as a nurse aide.
Rick had set his beer on the cooler. He tried to laugh, a hollow, scraping sound, and his face wore the gray expression of a man who sees a bill he cannot pay. “Now hold on a minute, Mr. Broussard,” he said. “That was a joke. It was just a toast. We tease the kids all the time. Danny knows I think the world of her.” “Does she?” said Mr. Broussard mildly. “You called her work cleaning bedpans. My mother had that work done for her for six years, and she thanked every person who did it, every day. I will not do business with a man who thinks it is small.” He turned to the table. “The offer is withdrawn.”
My sister Gail, the wife of Rick, had come out of the kitchen with a dish towel in her hands. She is a quiet woman who has spent thirty years agreeing with a loud man. She stood at the edge of the yard with her mouth trembling. Then, to my utter astonishment, she walked straight up to her husband and said, in a voice I had not heard from her since we were girls, “Rick, you owe that child an apology, and you owe it now. In front of everybody.” Rick looked at her, then at the crowd. For a long moment, I honestly thought he would refuse.
“Danielle,” Rick said finally, and his voice cracked in the middle of her name. “I am sorry. I was wrong. I have always been proud of you, and I have never said it, and I said something ugly instead. I do not know why I do that.” He looked at the ground, a big sunburned man in a bright fishing shirt. “I would be honored if you would forgive me.” Danielle put down her napkin. She crossed the grass to him and, without a word, hugged him, hard. He stood stiffly for a second, and then his arms came up around her, and he began, quietly, to cry. The whole yard let out its breath.
Mrs. Broussard asked to speak to Danielle alone, and the two of them sat down on the porch swing with glasses of sweet tea. I watched from across the yard and did not hear a word, but I saw Mrs. Broussard take the hand of Danielle and hold it. A quarter of an hour passed. At last Danielle came back down the steps and sat beside me on the bench. She looked as though she had been struck by a gentle wave. “They have a scholarship,” she said. “For nursing school. Four years, books and housing, all of it. And a job when I finish, at their facility in Beaumont. As a floor supervisor. Aunt Loretta, I do not know what to say.”
I told her to say yes. She did, that same evening, on a napkin, with a pen borrowed from the Shiner bartender, and Mr. Broussard shook her hand and signed under it as a witness. Gail made a pot of gumbo that night for everybody left, and we ate it on the patio under the string lights with the bass boat gleaming in the dark.
Danielle started classes in January, at Lamar University, on a gray cold morning with an enormous backpack. She finishes the degree this spring. She still works weekends at the nursing home, in her faded blue scrubs, and the residents call her their angel, which she hates. Last month, on a Sunday, I saw a pickup truck pull into the lot, and Rick climbed out with a bucket and a sponge. He spent the entire afternoon washing the windows of the nursing home, inside and out, without being asked. He did not say a single word about it afterward.
At the fish fry this year, Rick did not give a toast. He stood by the fryer in an apron, frying catfish, and when the first plate was ready he handed it, with a small awkward bow, to Danielle. “For the nurse,” he said. She took it. She ate a bite and looked at him and said, “Pass the hushpuppies, Uncle Rick.” And the whole yard laughed, kindly this time, and the pelicans went over in a long ragged line, and the boat sat at the edge of the lawn, gleaming, doing nothing at all.