I took the phone from Amber and stepped into the hallway, where the whole table could watch me through the doorway. “This is Lucius Fontaine.” “Mr. Fontaine, my name is Harold Breaux. I am an attorney in Shreveport. Your daughter in law hired me on Friday. Before I file anything, I wanted to hear your voice. Years ago a woman named Geraldine Fontaine kept the books for a church pantry on Hearne Avenue, and she fed my mother and me for one whole winter. I never forgot her. Her husband was the man who drove the white truck.” My throat tightened, and I leaned on the wall.
“Mr. Breaux,” I said, “what did she tell you I was?” He cleared his throat. “That you are eighty, forgetful, and sitting on a large sum you cannot manage. She wants a conservatorship before Christmas so she can control your accounts.” Across the room Amber stopped smiling. I said, “Counselor, I will gladly meet you Monday morning. I will bring my doctor, my own lawyer and the green ledger my wife kept for forty years. After that, you decide whose case you are carrying.” He said, “Sir, I would be honored.” I handed the phone back to Amber and went to find my coat.
Terrence was waiting by the carport. “Daddy, I am so sorry. I should have spoken up at that table.” “You are speaking now,” I told him. He looked at the old Ford, then at me. “Five million dollars. All those years I thought you worked for somebody.” “I did, son. I worked for every family in Caddo Parish who needed a house without termites.” I told him about Mr. Delacroix, the two thousand dollars, the forty two trucks. He listened the way he did at ten years old, with his mouth a little open. “Why did you never tell me?” “Because I wanted you proud of the man, not the money.”
A quiet pest control owner proves to his family, and to a lawyer who remembered his late wife, exactly who he is, and a paper plate becomes a seat at the table.
Monday morning we sat in the office of my lawyer, Mr. Simmons, on Texas Street. Dr. Pham, who has looked after me for twenty years, brought a signed evaluation that called me sharper than most men at sixty. Amber arrived late with a leather folder and a tight smile. She said I was confused, that I hid money, that I talked to my late wife in the truck. Dr. Pham asked me gently to show the room how confused I was. So I stood and recited the first chapter of Ruth, every verse, from “Now it came to pass” to the barley harvest. Nobody moved until I sat down.
Mr. Breaux closed his folder. “Mrs. Fontaine, I am withdrawing from this matter.” Amber stood up. “You cannot do that. I am family.” “Mrs. Fontaine, you took a private folder from the truck of this gentleman without asking. You described him to me in ways that were false. I will not be part of it.” She turned to Terrence. “Tell them I was only protecting your father.” Terrence stayed in his chair, quiet as ever, but his voice was steady. “No, Amber. You were protecting yourself. I watched you hand my father a paper plate.” The room was silent. Then she picked up her purse and left.
Mr. Breaux walked me down to the street afterward and carried my briefcase like a young man carries his grandfather. “Mr. Fontaine, nothing was ever filed,” he said. “Nothing will be.” He told me his mother had kept Geraldine handwritten recipe for red beans in her Bible until the day she passed. I said I would be glad to send him a copy of the ledger page with it. He shook my hand with both of his and stood on the sidewalk until my truck turned the corner.
The next week her parents drove up from Baton Rouge. Her father stood on my porch holding his hat and said, “Mr. Fontaine, I owe you an apology I cannot finish.” I told him the coffee was hot and the chairs were plenty. By Christmas, Amber had stopped being loud. She came to my house on Christmas Eve with a pecan pie and a red face. When I opened the door she held out a paper plate and whispered, “I thought maybe I should eat out here.” I took the plate and set it in the trash. “Nobody eats outside at my table,” I said. “Come in, baby. It is cold.”
We ate at the long table with Geraldine good china, all of us, passing the dressing. Terrence asked the blessing, his first in twenty years. Afterward I told them what I had decided. A third of the sale would go to the Geraldine Fontaine Trade Fund at Avenue Baptist, to pay for school for young people who want to learn a skilled trade. Terrence would have his share in trust, steady and safe. The Atlanta company kept every technician, and I had already called each office manager to make sure their raises were on paper. Amber cried into her napkin. I let her.
In January, she asked if she could ride with me on a Tuesday. I drove her in the old Ford to Mrs. Thibault, who is ninety one now and still keeps a jar of butter mints by the door. We sat in her kitchen while the young technician crawled beneath the house. Mrs. Thibault patted Amber hand and said, “Your mother in law once drove through an ice storm to sit with me when I lost my Roland. That woman could have run this whole city.” Amber looked at me, then at the floor. “I never knew her,” she said. “No,” I answered. “But you can start now.”
Spring came early that year. The magnolia bloomed in March, and the garden took off like it knew something. Terrence rides with me on Saturdays now, sitting where Geraldine used to sit, reading the route sheet aloud. The first scholarship check went to a nineteen year old girl from Mooringsport who wants to be an electrician. She called me Mr. Fontaine and I told her to call me Lucius. Sometimes, parked in the carport, I open the driver door and touch the initials inside it. G.F. Seems to me the sale of a company is a small thing. A good name is what you leave in the truck.
