Prologue
In the early evening just after the sun has slipped below the tops of the cypress trees in the western bayou, I sit in Grandmère Catherine’s old oak rocker with Pearl in my arms and hum an old Cajun melody, one that Grandmère Catherine used to hum to me when she put me to sleep, even when I was already a little girl with pigtails bouncing over my shoulders as I ran across the fields from the banks of the swamp to our toothpick-legged shack. I can close my eyes and still hear her calling.
«Ruby, it’s time for supper, child. Ruby. . .»