Under the Bayou Moon Read online

  “I can’t say enough good things about this story! I was transported to the 1949 Louisiana bayou, where I fell in love with the characters and setting. Teacher Ellie Fields seeks to find herself while helping the people she’s quickly coming to care about—especially one special little boy and his handsome uncle. Valerie spins a tale full of depth, detail, and humor, in which you can smell the bayou, feel the juice from the po’boy drip down your chin, and so much more. Come spend a few hours in Bernadette, Louisiana. You might find you don’t want to leave! I know I didn’t.”

  Lynette Eason, bestselling, award-winning author of the Danger Never Sleeps series

  “There’s just something about a novel by Valerie Fraser Luesse that feels like coming home. Reading Under the Bayou Moon felt like an invitation to sit with Valerie in her story shack so she could spin a yarn that made me fall in love with a place I’ve never been and care deeply for characters I’ve never met. This is the magic of good fiction, isn’t it? And Valerie performs her enchantments with a lyrical Southern style that took my breath away. This is a book to be savored.”

  Susie Finkbeiner, author of The Nature of Small Birds and Stories That Bind Us

  “With atmosphere dripping from every page like Spanish moss on a cypress tree, Valerie Fraser Luesse brings the Louisiana bayou to vivid life in this story of one woman stepping out in faith to pursue her purpose. This memorable tale of love—love for self, love for others, and love for the land—will expand in your heart just as the ripples from a boat’s passage touch every secret corner of the bayou.”

  Erin Bartels, award-winning author of We Hope for Better Things

  “Steeped in the rich culture of the Louisiana bayou, Valerie Fraser Luesse’s tale takes us to a place where love and community matter and an almost magical alligator enchants!”

  Nancy Dorman-Hickson, coauthor of the award-winning Diplomacy and Diamonds and a former editor for Progressive Farmer and Southern Living magazines

  “This compelling novel has a bit of everything: self-exploration, a sense of adventure, and fascinating characters. Valerie Fraser Luesse brings the beauty and mystery of the bayou to life as Ellie finds her home in more ways than one.”

  Krissy Tiglias, executive editor of Southern Living magazine

  Books by Valerie Fraser Luesse

  Missing Isaac

  Almost Home

  The Key to Everything

  Under the Bayou Moon

  © 2021 by Valerie F. Luesse

  Published by Revell

  a division of Baker Publishing Group

  PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

  www.revellbooks.com

  Ebook edition created 2021

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  ISBN 978-1-4934-3042-0

  Scripture used in this book, whether quoted or paraphrased by the characters, is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  The author is represented by the literary agency of Stoker Literary.

  For all the teachers,

  with loving memories

  of a truly gifted one,

  Patricia Donahoo McCranie,

  “Aunt Patsy”

  Contents

  Cover

  Endorsements

  Half Title Page

  Books by Valerie Fraser Luesse

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  Epilogue

  Chapter One of Another Story from Valerie

  Author Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Ads

  Back Cover

  Prologue

  1947

  RAPHE BROUSSARD WAS JUST A BOY when he first saw it—glimpsed it, at least. Mostly hidden in the saw grass and canes, it had temporarily left the tip of its long alabaster tail exposed in the sunlight—a rare mistake. The streak of white offered only a hint of what lay hidden, the promise of what might be revealed. Raphe had watched silently, reverently almost, as the tail thrashed back and forth just once before disappearing into the green, leaving him to wonder if he had truly seen it at all. He told no one.

  Over the years, Raphe would return to that secluded spot whenever his mind was troubled, as it was now. He had a choice to make, and it was weighing on him that day as he paddled deep into the bayou, gliding across remote but familiar waters where the pines and cypress trees towered above. They cast this solitary pool in perpetual shade as if a veil had been tossed over the sun, not blocking its hot rays entirely but reducing them to a warm softness. The water was glassy, carpeted around the edges with water hyacinth and duckweed. Floating here on still waters, in a pirogue carved out of a cypress tree by his grandfather, Raphe could quiet his mind and think. He could come to a decision about a thing.

  Should he give up his freedom and become a father to his orphaned nephew, or listen to that preacher? Most of the evangelicals who had come into the Atchafalaya Basin seemed well-meaning enough, but there was a particularly strident one, Brother Lester, who had somehow gotten wind of Raphe’s plight and urged him to give Remy, his blood kin, to a “good Christian family”—strangers. The child needed a mother and father, the preacher said. A single young man like Raphe—Cajun, Catholic, and therefore prone to drink—would surely be a bad influence.

  Raphe imagined himself as a young father with no wife, limiting his own possibilities while praying he didn’t make some horrible mistake that ruined his nephew’s life. And then he pictured a choice he found completely unbearable—trying to live with the expression on Remy’s face, the one that would haunt Raphe forever if he let strangers take the boy away.

  That heartbreaking image—of a child realizing he had been abandoned by the one person he trusted most—was burning Raphe’s brain when the alligator appeared. It came out of the cattails at the water’s edge and silently glided in. What a sight! The alligator had to be twelve feet long and pure white except for a single swirl of pigment trailing down its back like curled ribbon. It passed so fearlessly close to Raphe that he could see the piercing sparkle of its blue eye
s. On the far bank, it climbed onto a fallen tree in dappled light, taking in as much sun as its pale skin could tolerate.

  Raphe had never put much stock in the swamp legends that the old-timers recounted again and again around campfires. He loved the tales about the white alligator, but they were just entertainment, nothing more. Still, he was comforted by the notion that this enigmatic denizen of the bayou was keeping watch while he wrestled with Remy’s fate and his own conscience.

  As he sat silently in his pirogue, the massive white head slowly turned, almost in his direction but not quite. In the filtered light, Raphe could see one side of the alligator’s face, one of those sapphire eyes. Only a few seconds passed before it turned back, gliding slowly across the tree and silently disappearing into the canes.

  Fishermen and hunters along the river called the alligator L’esprit Blanc, French for what the Indians had named it—“The White Spirit.” It was strange—all of them knew about L’esprit Blanc, repeating stories they had heard for years, but all those who claimed to have actually seen it were taken by the storm. All except Raphe. While his neighbors speculated about the high price such a rare hide would fetch—if it truly existed—Raphe found it impossible to believe that anyone who laid eyes on something so extraordinary could bring himself to kill it. Still, he kept his sightings to himself.

  Raphe looked up at a darkening sky. Rain was coming. He sat in his boat, listening to the wind stir the trees overhead and watching ripples begin to roll across the mirrored surface of the water. His choice was clear.

  He would never tell a soul where to hunt the white alligator. And he would never send Remy away. Some things belonged right where they were.

  ONE

  Fall 1949

  ELLIE FIELDS SAT IN A BUSTLING MARINA CAFE in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, watching a train make its crossing and wondering what it would be like to ride two rails suspended in air, the water below, the sky above.

  “That be all for you, hon?”

  Ellie smiled up at the waitress standing next to her table, holding a pot of coffee. She was wearing a pink uniform with a white apron and a name tag shaped like a dolphin. Her hair was strawberry blonde, teased and pinned into a French twist in the back. She looked about forty.

  “That’s all, thanks,” Ellie said. “Hey, I like your name. I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman named Geri before.”

  The waitress rolled her eyes. “It’s short for Gertrude! Can you believe my mama hung that on me? It was her grandmother’s name.”

  “You’re definitely more of a Geri. I’m Ellie—short for Juliet. My little brother couldn’t pronounce the j or the l, so he renamed me. I was ‘Eh-we’ till he got the hang of the l.”

  Geri put her hand on her hip. “It’s not fair that your family gets to label you for life, is it?”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “I’ll be right back with your ticket, hon,” Geri said, pointing another customer to a booth on her way back to the counter.

  Ellie looked out the window next to her table. The engine of the train had long since passed the trestle over the bay, while the caboose was still some distance away—one had yet to see what was already a memory for the other, yet they were part of the same machine.

  She reached into her purse and pulled out a letter she had folded and unfolded, read and reread countless times since it arrived in her parents’ mailbox in March. She spread it out on the table in front of her. Something about the letter gave her courage, which she needed right now. One more read couldn’t hurt.

  March 1, 1949

  Dear Miss Fields,

  We have never met, but I am the town physician in Bernadette, Louisiana, where it is my understanding that you have been offered a teaching position. While I have little influence with the school board, I do have one friend remaining among its members. He was struck by your application and thought I might be as well, so he forwarded a copy to my office. I was especially drawn to the way you answered, “Why do you want this position?” I believe I heard great sincerity in your answer: “I want to serve where I am most needed and to use whatever gifts God has given me to make the world a better place, especially for children.”

  Miss Fields, you will find no children in greater need of a gifted teacher than those in Bernadette, nor will you ever find another place where your efforts will be more appreciated. Should you decide to accept the position and join our little community, my wife and I will offer you our wholehearted support and will be happy to provide housing, free of charge. It might not be luxurious, but it will be safe and comfortable.

  Sincerely,

  Arthur Talbert, MD

  “Here ya go, hon,” Geri said as she laid a ticket on the table, drawing Ellie’s attention away from the letter and back to the journey at hand.

  “Could you tell me how far I am from New Orleans, Geri?”

  “Gonna do a little partyin’?” Geri gave her a smile and a wink.

  Ellie pictured herself embracing with abandon the revelry on Bourbon Street and shook her head. “I’m afraid a Birmingham ballroom on New Year’s Eve is about as wild as I get. I just took a teaching job in a little town called Bernadette, Louisiana. It’s supposed to be about eighty miles or so from New Orleans. Thought I’d stop over and see the city on my way.”

  “Well, congrats on the new job, hon! You’re not too far. Just keep followin’ 90 and you’ll be there in about an hour. Some people call Bay St. Louis ‘Little New Orleans’ on accounta we get so many summer people from over there. You from here in Mississippi?”

  “No, I’m from a tiny little town you never heard of—Maribelle, Alabama.”

  “And here I thought you was headed to the backwoods, but Bernadette might be a step up for you.” Geri laughed and winked at her again.

  Ellie remembered how a couple of Atlanta girls who lived down the hall at her college dorm always gave her grief about coming from a town that “didn’t even get a dot” on the state map. “If Bernadette has more than one traffic light,” she told Geri, “it’ll be a step up, alright.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that,” the waitress assured her. “No shame in bein’ a small-town girl. But now, you watch yourself on the road—’specially in New Orleans. All them one-ways in the Quarter’s just murder to figure out your first time around. And you’re gonna wind your way through some bayou country before you get there. I know we’re supposed to be all modern and everything now that the war’s over and done with, but there’s some deserted drivin’ between here and there. Make sure you fill up before you leave, okay?”

  “I will—thanks, Geri.”

  The waitress stared down at Ellie and shook her head. “You got a face like an angel, you know that? You any kin to that woman in Casablanca?”

  “No.” Ellie smiled. “But thank you.”

  “You need to get you one of them hats that dips down over your eye like she wore. I bet that’d look real good on you.”

  “Maybe I’ll find one in the French Quarter.”

  “You be careful in the Quarter, you hear?”

  “I will,” Ellie said, holding up her right hand. “Word of honor. Thanks for looking out for me.”

  Geri gave her another wink and a wave before hurrying to grab a water pitcher from the counter and greet a new customer. Ellie left a tip and then paid her check at the register.

  She filled up at a local Pan-Am and got back on the highway, relieved to know she would make it to New Orleans in plenty of time to find her hotel before dark. Even though she had only a week to get settled before school started, Ellie had decided to allow herself one night in the fabled city, which she had never seen.

  She had spent her first night on the road with her mother’s sister in Ocean Springs, a pretty little town with cottagey storefronts and shady streets sheltered from the coastal sun by the craggy, arched branches of live oak trees. Her parents had insisted that she make a stop there and let her uncle give the old Ford a good going-over before she went on to Louisi
ana. She had bought the used 1939 Deluxe, which she named Mabel, with the salary from her first year of teaching. The old girl had been rolling for ten years now and was showing her age, but she still had some miles left in her. Ellie’s aunt insisted on introducing her to just about everybody in town before she left, so she and Mabel had gotten a late start.

  Her whole family thought she was crazy for accepting a teaching job in rural Louisiana when there were, as her mother put it, “perfectly good schools from Mobile to Muscle Shoals and enough bachelor vets in Alabama to marry every girl in ten states.” But Ellie could no longer bear the burden of invisibility. That’s how she felt—as if her truest self were invisible to everyone around her and had been for so long that it was now banging on her chest from the inside out, demanding to be seen and heard. If she could just go through the motions, everything would be so much easier, but that would be a lie of a life. And what Ellie yearned for—what she had come to demand for herself—was authenticity.

  She had shown, more to herself than anyone else, that she was willing to walk away from anything, including marriage, if it demanded that she be satisfied with anything less than what she was meant for—whatever that might be. And now she felt it would be unkind to continue dating war vets who had been so homesick overseas that they never wanted to leave Alabama again. When they looked at her on a dance floor or took her hand in a movie theater, she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were picturing her hanging diapers on the line or sliding a pan of biscuits into the oven before she poured their morning coffee and kissed them off to work. Even the one she had believed to be different turned out not to be.

  All those soldiers had seen horrible things, Ellie knew, and she was ashamed to admit, even to herself, that she was jealous of them. They had left as boys and come home as men. They had done something. Ellie had gone from high school to college and back home again. Was that it—her circle complete, her story told?

  Her mother insisted that Ellie just needed a little change of scenery and would “come home lickety-split” as soon as she got the wanderlust out of her system. But Ellie knew that wasn’t true. What she longed for was not change but transformation. Just like the tall stands of pine trees and oaks that dissolved into water and sky as she crossed the Pearl River into Louisiana, Ellie hoped her old self would dissipate, releasing something new and interesting, something with purpose.