BAYOU

jambalaya

Louisiana was always so mystical. A place that seemed like it tap-danced when Sugarplum wasn't looking.

With her back turned, the bayous became stages and everything performed; the frogs croaked their old songs, leaves rustled and lily pads flowered deeper into the water. Behind every bark tree, she was sure there were fairies just waiting to take them with her, if only she found them first.

Her mother, Lacey Lou, had left before Sugarplum committed her face to memory. Chasing after dreams, but not the dreams that spoke of ambition and a better tomorrow and, perhaps, fulfillment, but dreams of men. Men who wanted the love between her legs but not the love in her heart.

Three times, Lacey Lou had three babies for three handsome and charming men who were able to talk her right out of her panties, despite the metal band on their finger. And three times, she watched her belly get bigger, thinking they would choose her over the family they stepped out on.

Three times, she was wrong but the last time, with Sugarplum's father, he fled town and Lacey Lou followed.

And while both her sisters' other sides of the family took them in, at the very least, out of pity, Sugarplum didn't have that same luck.

At first, her grandmother hadn't cared to raise her so she'd done so begrudgingly and never spoke too well about Lacey Lou. Then, she gave in, warmed up, and started to share her recipes.

The pecan pies, peach and cherry cobblers, Sugarplum was an avid baker at a young age, making things from scratch and often in her later years when her Grandmother's knees would bother her, she found herself ever the cook.

The little house would smell like pipe smoke and sugar cane, and that was her fondest memory. Country folk in their town, knocking down the doors to get a taste, waving dollars around to let them know they were good for it.

When Rose died, the house did as well. No matter how hard she cleaned up, Sugarplum couldn't stop the ivy that grew from the inside out, clung to the shutters, climbers all inside of the kitchen until she couldn't live there anymore, so at eighteen, she took to the road like a mangy mutt, with a call from her estranged sisters the only thing keeping her from being a nomad.

Her and her sisters were so different. They cared about men and how they looked in their eyes like it was all a mystery when they could've walked up to them and asked. Even to be a little older, they felt sheltered. In their gilded cage houses with the pretty light fixtures, the air was still stagnant.

Her name wasn't Sugarplum anymore, just Shuge because the way they'd say it didn't sound right. They didn't have the accents Granny had. They were trying to be like the girls from the city.

And when Luke, the older white man from down the block, the one whom inherited his family's estate, had seen something in her, her sisters were so happy, they'd practically packed her bags themselves.

She was nothing short of a wild animal. Unrefined, unwanted, but here was this man who liked her. Shuge, a little rough around the edges but even swans needed a good cleanse. He saw something in her.

Lucas would teach her. Dress her up, make her into a lady. And that, he did.

Now here she was again, in service to another man, one who had almost killed her.

Sugarplum thought her receptors to feel anything were broken, she'd cut Luke to pieces after all and couldn't feel a thing, but turned out almost being dropped from the window was enough to jolt her system.

Her phone rang just then, she didn't need to see the emoji to know that it was him. She'd had a day and a half of peace and quiet. So normal and boring that she almost thought this Angel guy was her guilty conscious.