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next, never pausing to let anything catch up with her — like the Sadness. Celeste remembered
how Augustin had warned her about the mean dog across town. She should never
look it in the eyes, because it would come after her. The Sadness might have
been that way.
    Letters
continued to come and go between them and Augustin, off in New York now. Even
New Orleans hadn ’ t suited him for long. None of the
letters mentioned Bernard ’ s bad turn of
fortune. Only Odette was told, and she visited with them as often as she could
and would spend long spells talking in whispers to Marie as she worked. Celeste
sewed, stealing glances at her mother and great aunt when she could, and more
than once pricking her finger when she should have been minding her work. Marie
listened intently to the long lectures from Odette but would always shake her
head at the end, wanting no part of Odette ’ s suggestion. At least not yet.
    Her
father was home for Christmas but gone again the next morning. If something
didn ’ t come through soon, it was his plan to
go clear to New Orleans and find work there. He told this to Celeste but not to
Marie, and Celeste was cautioned not to mention it. So, he was off again.

 
    Celeste
woke from a dream about a woman with hair like the wings of a gull, a dress
like a moonless night, and eyes like mirrors. She had fallen asleep on the
floor at her mother ’ s feet where she too dozed, seated in
her rocking chair. They had both been awakened by a sound outside and were
looking, first at each other and then the front door. It had been the clopping
step of a heavy mule that woke them, stopping out front before starting off
again and moving away. Then clumsy steps on the front porch,
but clumsy steps trying to be quiet. Silence, and then an awkward soft
shoe back off the porch again. It was a still night and the walls of the house
were thin enough to let in the sound of those footsteps fumbling their way into
the back yard.
    There
was only enough light to let them pick out the familiar shape of Bernard as he
sagged down against the Climbing Oak. Marie took up the nearly spent candle and
went outside, followed closely by Celeste. They ’ d tried to stay up
for his return, but it was so much later than they thought it ’ d be, and now he was back from his
long, job-begging trip to New Orleans — the
last resort, and it looked to Celeste like he had come down with something bad.
    Celeste
dropped down beside him on one side while Marie knelt on the other and took his
face in her hands. The candle sat on the ground away from Celeste, and all she
could see of her parents ’ faces was a thin
outline as if they were nothing more than drawings Celeste might do, but with dream
light instead of pencil lead.
    “ I ’ m so sorry, ” he said. “ Think I ’ ve messed it all up.
Messed everything up. ”
    “ Tell me, ” Marie said.
    “ I was thinking how
wrong things are. Wrong about Augustin. Wrong about my
job. Wrong for you and Celeste. The way things are is just wrong and nothing to
do about it. ”
    “ We get by, ” she said. She was trying to settle him
down. Make him feel better and calm. Celeste could see that ’ s what she was trying to do, but it
wasn ’ t making him feel better. She could see
a tear run across his cheek in the light and then drop away like a falling
star.
    “ Some of us were
drinking. Know I shouldn ’ t have but …” The rest of what he said fell away. “ Me and some other men I met, looking
for work too. One man told us about the war going on. How we should enlist.
Looking for black men to enlist in the army. Started thinking about how that
might make a difference. ” His head fell
forward then rose back up till he found the tree behind him and stopped with a
bump that made Celeste flinch. “ Get a job and make
things better. Guess that ’ s what I thought. ”
    “ You ’ d have to go to war? ” Celeste asked him, then asked her
mother too. “ Pappa ’ d have to go to