Warning: graphic depiction of suicide

Lots and lots of Cajun slang used in here. I did my best to stay as true to the accent and speech patterns as I could; for reference I spent a lot of time watching Rene's scenes from True Blood, as the internet/the one Cajun I know irl all tell me his accent is pretty spot-on.

Some definitions:
T. Marie/T. Mat: diminutive nicknames. the 'T' stands for 'petit', or 'little' in Cajun French.
couillon (coo-YON): stupid/foolish
grand beede: big clumsy person
mais: 'but', usually tossed in at the beginning of a sentence
cher: 'darling' or 'dear'
Alors pas: 'oh yes'/'of course'

It is May 1917, and Mathieu is teaching Marie how to throw a punch.

"Non, non, Marie. From the shoulder, not the elbow. And keep your thumb outside, you're going to break it, you. Hit me again." Marie tries again, swinging wide and missing.

"Why I gotta know this, Mathieu?" Mathieu corrects her stance and prompts her to take another swing. This one connects, but not enough to do any damage. She growls in frustration and throws herself into the battered chair behind her, the boards of the porch creaking loudly. Mathieu cocks his head and smiles at her.

"Because if that Edward fellow gets too interested while I'm away, I want you to break his nose for me, yeah?" She glares at him in a fashion quite unbecoming for a young lady of nearly seventeen, as her mother enjoys reminding her daily. He turns and hops down the porch steps, calling out over his shoulder.

"You'll get it, cher."

She follows him, linking arms as they walk down the street amid the midafternoon bustle. They turn into a shop to buy a beignet; Marie sneezes from the powdered sugar that fills the air, like she always does, and she has to help Mathieu beat it out of the sleeves of his dark jacket after. If their Mama sees, she'll have a fit and accuse them of ruining their dinner.

Eventually they make it to City Park, quickly finding their favorite stand of live oaks. Mathieu hoists Marie up into the branches before pulling himself up, settling himself against the trunk. They don't talk for a while; Mathieu braids twigs while Marie picks sugar from under her nails, until finally she can't stand it anymore.

"Mathieu, do you have to go?" He sighs and hangs his head, as if he's been waiting for this question all along. He takes her hand in his and squeezes it.

"I do, Marie." She pulls away and frowns at him.

"Why?" She hates that she sounds like a plaintive child having a toy taken away, but this is her big brother. He can't just go, not with such a life as he has here; a mother and sister who love him, a sweetheart ready to marry him, a college education. Papa had been so proud the day Mathieu had been accepted in Baton Rouge.

"'Cause I want to. I speak French and German and Italian, an' I can fight like any other man. Figure I have a duty, me." Marie sighs and jumps from the tree, shaking bark and moss from her skirts. Duty. Duty is what keeps her in her parents' house instead of going to college to learn about literature, the way she wants to; Papa wants her to marry a lawyer. She doesn't want to hear about duty.

"When you gon' tell them two?" Mathieu won't look at her, choosing instead to watch a group of small boys play handball.

"Tonight."

Marie stares into her lap, hands folded, face burning with embarrassment.

Her father and Mathieu are facing off in the parlor in front of her, Mama standing off to the side. Mathieu's fists are clenched and held to his sides, as though he's being physically restrained by some invisible force, and Papa's face is so flushed it's almost purple. Marie glances at Mama; they share a worried look. Papa's heart has been bad for years. Marie wishes she could excuse herself.

"I say you ain't goin', boy." Mathieu straightens up, his face hardening stubbornly.

"The Army say I am, Papa. I'm leavin' in a week, all signed up an' ready." Papa paces in front of him, fuming. Mathieu stands stock-still, eyes fixed on his father. Papa whirls on him and leans forward, his voice low and threatening.

"Go tell 'em you isn't going, then." Mathieu sighs, a soft tilt of the head betraying his sudden understanding. He places a hand on Papa's arm and Marie tenses, half-expecting it to be knocked away.

"I can't, Papa. It's done." Papa glares at him and turns, walking from the room. There's a tense silence for a few seconds, until Mama steps forward and smoothes Mathieu's hair back from his face.

"You can't just go, petit. You got a life here." He submits to her fingers for a minute before pulling away, smiling at her sadly.

"That life ain't worth spit if I ain't gonna fight for it, Mama." Feeling tears gather in her eyes, Marie stands. After a quick nod from Mama she dashes up the stairs to her room and shuts the door, Mathieu's voice fading in the distance.

Mathieu comes into her room an hour later as she's writing in her journal, scribbling in and then scratching out entire paragraphs furiously. She can't seem to find the right words tonight; her couillon brother has ruined everything. He leans against the wall and watches her as she pointedly ignores him.

"Hey, T. Marie. Why's you got that face on for?" She balls up a piece of ink-soaked paper and throws it at him, hitting him square in the nose.

"Papa's never gon' forgive you, cher." He throws it back at her, laughing when it sticks in her hair, and sits on her bed. She turns in her chair to face him. He looks like a soldier already; he's sitting up straighter, and he's tried to tame his wildly curling hair with pomade. She can smell the stuff from where she sits.

"Hey, he will one day. Mais, he just scared." Marie looks at him with wide eyes, feeling her lower lip tremble.

"He's not the only one." A shadow of uncertainty passes over Mathieu's face, and he swallows hard. He quickly recovers, putting on a wide grin. Springing to his feet, he claps his hands and takes up a boxing stance, faking a jab towards her.

"Come on, let's us practice that swing." Marie frowns at him and turns back to her desk, picking up her pen.

"Don't want to. I'm busy." For a few seconds all she can hear is her own breathing, until Mathieu speaks again.

"Well alright, then. Mais, when Eddie come at you, don't come cryin' to me, girl." The slam of the door behind him rattles the entire room.

Four days later she's standing on the platform of the train station with Mathieu and Mama. Papa had refused to come; he merely grunted a goodbye to his son as he walked out the door, and Mathieu had been silent the entire ride to the station. But now he was animated, pretending as if he was merely on his way to college again; he picks Marie up and swings her around despite Mama's appalled protests, and kisses his mother on both cheeks. The conductor begins calling for everyone to come aboard when he turns to Marie, his tone low.

"You gon' write to me, you?" She gives him a weary half-smile and raises a pointed eyebrow.

"You comin' home alive, you?" He grins back and holds out a hand, which she shakes. She feels tears welling in her eyes again, and throws her arms around his neck.

"Je t'aime, Mathieu." He hugs her gently before pulling away to hold her at arm's length.

"Hey, no tears." He studies her and Mama intently, as though trying to engrave them on his memory before he leaves, and then kisses them on the cheek. As he does he whispers in her ear.

"Look after Mama and Papa, cher. Be a good girl." She nods quickly so Mama won't see. He gives them one of his bright smiles and shoulders his olive-green Army bag, leaping onto the train alongside another young man. The train blows its whistle and slowly groans out of the station, and they wave until they can't see it anymore.

When they get home from the station Papa is gone, probably to the club. Marie wanders aimlessly around the house, unable to get her bearings; it seems so flat and cold with Mathieu gone. Mama finally shoos her out, claiming frayed nerves, and Marie takes her journal to the porch to write. She manages to dash off an entire letter before she realizes she has no address to send it to.

Cher Mathieu-

We just left you at the station, and I miss you already. Papa wasn't here when we got home. Nothing feels right. The house is the same, the porch is the same, my room is the same, you can still smell the magnolias floating in from outside, but it's all flat and mixed-up by myself, T. Mat.

Come home safe, cher.

-Marie

Two weeks later a telegram arrives with an address, and true to her word she writes him every two to three days. They made a bargain, after all; if she writes, he comes back alive.

She writes to him about little, mundane things happening in New Orleans; who's gotten engaged, who's going to what school, her plans (inspired by his enlistment) to get a job as a secretary at one of the law firms downtown. She doesn't know what else to say; Papa is still angry, and Mama still misses him, and Marie thinks it best not to mention those things.

He writes back, telling her about his new life in Camp Sherman, Ohio:

Rivette, Mathieu C

355648

Camp Sherman, Ohio

T. Marie-

You should see this place, cher. There are so many men, all learning how to be soldiers. We get up at five o'clock in the morning for our morning exercises, where we run across a field and lay down, then get up and run back. Sounds ridiculous, yeah? It's very hard work though. They're teaching us how to fight with our hands. I can whip any man in this camp already. It's all that practice you gave me.

They have a tiny train here to run the supplies around the camp. It's no higher than you are tall, and maybe the length of two regular train cars put together. Everyone likes riding on it. It's like being on a fairground. When the war is over they should build a park here and charge admission, and I can take you here to ride General Glenn's Special.

Has Eddie declared his love yet? You best not accept.

Give my love to Mama and Papa.

-Mathieu

She laughs about the train for days, unable to imagine an absurd little steam engine pulling her brother around in a little box.

She finds a job in the meantime; a lawyer friend of Papa's is looking for a receptionist and copyist, and her handwriting is neat enough to convince him to hire her on the spot. She writes her letters on her lunch breaks, folding them into her handbag to post on her way home.

Mathieu-

You're gonna need to show me this train, cher. How can something so little pull those big sacks of flour all over the camp?

What job have they given you in the camp? You're not just a train rider, no?

Alors pas, Edward's moved on. He made a move on some girl from Baton Rouge, and she's a fair piece more friendly than I am. There's a boy at the law firm though, Robert, who seems nice. I think you'd like him. He's only a little older than me and is a courier for Mr. Lenier, so he spends a lot of time sitting in a chair by my desk waiting for papers to run to other offices. He's asked me to go walking in City Park and I think I may just do it. I wish you were here to meet him.

-Marie

Marie-

I hope you've been practicing your punches. Remember, from the shoulder.

They've made me a translator, cher. I'm in a class with about twenty other men. There's this one grand beede what you would never expect knows as many languages as he does. He knows even more than me; French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Polish. He says he's from Poland but has gone all over. They promoted him quick, and he's my boss man now.

They say we're moving out soon, so I may not be able to write as much, cher. I don't know where we're going. I'll try to tell you where to send the letters as soon as I can.

You haven't written a lot about Mama and Papa, and I think I know why that is, but it's okay. Just tell them I love them and it'll be alright.

-Mathieu

Although she posts letters every other week, she doesn't receive any replies for nearly eight months. It's now 1918, and she's almost eighteen. Life continues on almost as usual, except for the sore spot between her and Papa; he's begun to resent her supporting Mathieu's enlistment, still thinking it was a mistake even after President Wilson's decree. She still hands over her paycheck every month though, keeping very little for herself; he's been sick lately, and work has been scarce. Robert continues courting her, talking of his plans to become a lawyer like Mister Lenier someday; he's already applied to the state university, and he wants Marie to go steady.

When she finally gets a letter it's hurried and slapdash; she can barely read the usually impeccable handwriting, where it hasn't been covered by thick black censor bars.

Marie –

We're moving out today; I have one more stamp, and I'm using it on you, cher. I'm sorry I haven't written, we've been kept so busy with - and - that I haven't had the time. We're headed out now, and I don't know exactly where in - I'll be, but you can send my letters to Camp Sherman and they'll figure it out from there. I'll be sure to bring you a - when I get home, yeah?

Je t'aime, T. Marie.

-Mathieu

She takes the letter downstairs and shows it to Mama, who sighs and shakes her head, and then hands it to Papa. He stares at it a moment, and then bunches it up in his fist, tears coming to his eyes. He begins walking away, and Marie puts a hand on his arm.

"I'm sure he'll be okay, Papa." Papa just shakes his head at her and leaves.

The next letter she writes, she dictates from a hospital bed.

Mathieu-

I'm writing this from the hospital, in a ward with ten other women. The reason the handwriting is different is that the nurse is taking it down for me; I'm still too weak to hold a pen yet, and I don't want to risk passing disease on to you by touching anything you might touch.

I'm so sorry Mathieu, I don't know how to tell you this any other way. Papa has died.

It was the Spanish Flu. I had it first. He came with me to the hospital and sat with me every day; he was so scared, cher, because it's the young ones who die of it. I'm alright now, but you know how he is, his health isn't what it used to be and he doesn't like doctors. So he waited too long and it took him in the middle of the night.

Mama is healthy, but she isn't taking it well. I don't know what to do, cher, and I'm stuck here in this bed by myself because Mama's not allowed in and you're not here. I promised you I'd take care of them and now Papa's dead.

Please come home soon, T. Mat. I need you.

-Marie

Mathieu doesn't come home. She has to arrange the funeral herself; all Mama can do is sit in the kitchen and stare straight ahead. Mister Lenier helps with the legal matters, and Robert is a pallbearer at the funeral, in Mathieu's place. Marie returns to work immediately afterwards; the small bit of money Papa left them was mostly used up on the hospital costs, and there's still grocery bills to be paid. And Marie promised to take care of Mama.

She doesn't get any more letters at all after that.

It's June 1918 when a man in uniform knocks on her door. Marie answers it, her hair and dress all in disarray; she'd been in the middle of making lunch for Mama before going back to work. Her heart stops for a fraction of a second when she sees the man; with his dark hair and eyes, he resembles Mathieu, although upon second glance he is about ten years too old and four inches too short. He wears a large crop of shining medals and badges on his left shoulder and a white band with a red cross on his right arm, and he holds his hat in his hand.

"Excuse me, ma'am. Is Mister Rivette home?" It takes Marie a few seconds to process his words, and she blushes with embarrassment for having stared so rudely.

"I'm sorry, sir. Mister Rivette died five weeks ago of the 'Flu. It's just me and Mama now. And my brother Mathieu, on the front." She looks up at him hopefully. He sighs and gives her a regretful look, one that makes her feel as ill as she was in the hospital.

"That's what I'm here about, Miss Rivette." She looks back over her shoulder; Mama is still in the parlor, reading her book, apparently not listening. Marie steps outside and closes the door.

"We best speak out here."

Marie stares through the window, shaking with shock.

"That can't be him. You've made a mistake, you. That's not my brother." She can barely make out a human face under all the scar tissue and bandages, much less anything familiar to her. It can't be him. There are no wiry curls, no dark eyes, no teasing smile, just a charred lump that screams and screams as the nurses unwind old bandages and reapply fresh ones. She turns back to the doctor, who puts a sympathetic hand on her elbow and guides her to a chair.

"I'm afraid it's him, miss. He was wearing his dog tags at the time, and was able to give his name and serial number when he was found. It's a miracle he survived." She stares at the burned man again, tears forming in her eyes.

"You call that a miracle, yeah?"

The doctor doesn't know how he was wounded, just that it happened in France at a place called Marne near Paris. Marie has to look it up in Papa's old atlas later; it turns out to be the name of a river. It means nothing to her, just a dot on a map marking the place where her brother almost died.

She sits with him for a while, watching him shudder and shake in a deep opium haze. She wants to hold his hand, but even that is burned and bandaged; there isn't a single place where she can touch him without causing him pain. It's finally almost time for her to leave when he comes around, whispering a single word.

"Papa…"

Marie bursts into tears as Mathieu slides back into sleep.

They bring him home three days later in an ambulance, setting him up in the guest bedroom downstairs. Marie moves some of his things from his room; the books, his baseballs, his pictures (she leaves the one of his old sweetheart Elaine upstairs; she left him for a doctor in Arkansas back in January). She goes outside and clips a few magnolias from the trees, putting them in a pitcher and setting them on the dresser.

"There you are, cher." Mathieu is staring out the window, nearly catatonic from the morphine he's being given constantly. Marie sits in the armchair next to the bed, picking up his favorite book.

"Look, Mathieu. A Tale of Two Cities. They didn't have this at the front, yeah?" He grunts in reply. She opens it up and begins to read aloud. She doesn't make it past the first page before he turns his head, agonizingly slowly, to look at her.

"Don't, Marie." She looks up, startled. His eyes are duller than she's ever seen them, one milky-white and blind. He stares at her for one heart-stopping moment, then drops his scarred head back onto the pillow.

"Mathieu-"

"I said don't." She closes the book and puts it back on the shelf, and quietly leaves.

Most of the nursing falls to their mother after that. Marie has to work, to pay for their groceries and the electric bill and Mathieu's morphine, and she does so in a fog of exhaustion and disbelief. She doesn't notice when Robert leaves to go to the university, and Mister Lenier has to remind her to eat something most days. She sits with Mathieu in the evenings to give her mother a break, and then collapses into bed.

One day, six weeks after Mathieu returns home, Mister Lenier closes the office early to head out of town, and she's sent home. Grateful for the reprieve, she walks home running through all the chores that need doing; caring for Mathieu is a full-time job, and Mama doesn't always have the strength to nurse him and do the housework at once. She's so deep in thought that she almost doesn't notice the sense of wrongness permeating the air when she steps into the house. Mathieu's door is partially closed, and she can see a bulky shape on the ground just beyond it. Panicking, she crosses the room in five strides and throws the door open, dropping to her knees at the sight she reveals.

The room is torn apart, the bed wrecked. He's on the floor, unmoving, his head cradled in his mother's lap. The box where Marie hides the morphine is missing from its place on the shelf. A long trail of yellow vomit puddles on the floor beneath his mouth, next to an empty vial. Marie stares at it, then at her mother, whose face is as serene as the Madonna on the wall.

"He told me he'd do it himself, ma amour. If I didn't help him, yeah?" Marie touches her brother's shoulder gingerly; he doesn't cry out in pain. He's still warm. All the air leaves her lungs and she finds herself unable to breathe. Her mother continues speaking.

"I didn't want him to burn, love. Not in hell. He's already burned enough, him." Marie is shaking Mathieu now, yelling his name.

"Non, non, NON, MATHIEU!" The front door clatters open as one of the neighbors rushes in, alarmed by her screams. Marie buries her face in her mother's shoulder and cries until someone picks her up and takes her from the room. A doctor somehow appears, giving her a shot, and merciful blackness takes over.

When the police question her, Mama claims the pain was worse for him than usual that day, and that she didn't know how much morphine to give him since Marie usually took care of it. The coroner gives her a knowing look and writes down accidental overdose, and that's that. Marie can't believe how easily Mama gets away with it. She goes to the doctor in the veteran's hospital, the one who came to get her when Mathieu first came home; he tells her that what Mama did is common practice in the field, for men too injured to transport.

They bury Mathieu in the same crypt as his father. Marie stands next to her mother in the blazing sunshine that seems so at odds with the graveyard, sweating into the neckline of her dress, wishing she was anywhere else. They haven't spoken since Mathieu's death, and Marie's not entirely sure she wants to do so ever again.

"You should go from this place, ma cher petit." Marie looks at her mother, who is still just as serene as she was the day her son died.

"Yeah, the guests gonna be at the house soon."Mama shakes her head and takes Marie's hand, squeezing it tight.

"No, bebe. I mean from New Orleans. There is nothing here for you. You can't forgive me yet, you. And you too young to be nursing old ladies. Go somewhere." Marie sighs, looking at her mother wearily. She can't cry anymore, not today, though she feels like it; she's just too tired.

"Why'd you do it, Mama?" Mama lets go of Marie and strokes the crypt lovingly, fingering her rosary with her free hand.

"I told you. He burned enough."

The next day Marie telegraphs Elizabeth. They've known each other since primary school, and Elizabeth has been trying to get Marie to visit her ever since she moved to the East Coast, out to some resort town rather unimaginatively named Atlantic City. She receives a return telegraph the a few days later, telling her that there's a room free in Elizabeth's building and plenty of work around if you know where to look and it would just smashing, darling, if she could come.

She sits in her room that night and looks in the mirror, wondering how she'll appear to the East Coast crowd. She definitely knows how she'll sound; her Cajun accent is thick, and she'll have to work on it if she expects to be taken seriously in the East.

"Hello. I'm Marie Rivette. How you doin', you? No." She frowns and tries again.

"How…are you doing?"

The next morning Mama gives her five hundred dollars and puts her on a train, and Marie watches New Orleans disappear into the distance for the first and last time.

She barely manages to escape yet another drunk politician's wandering hands, spinning out of his grasp and wandering the room. She's beginning to get a bit dizzy from the heat and the drink, and desperately needs a place to sit down and possibly kick off her high-heeled sandals.

Three years ago she had been slightly shocked to find out that the work Elizabeth had been referring to had mainly been the lying-down kind, but Marie had to admit it did have its perks; Elizabeth seemed to have considerably more free time than Marie's secretary job afforded, and she was constantly being invited to very swanky parties. She'd insisted that Marie crash one when she had a night off, and so Marie had gone out and bought a dress with the money left to her from her mother's estate (sent to her a year before after her mother had died, coincidentally, on Marie's twenty-first birthday) and met Elizabeth at Babette's that night, intending to dance and drink and have some fun.

Except that the men Elizabeth has to entertain are men like Edward Bader, and the room is full of cigar smoke and too much cologne and ego, and she really needs to sit down.

There's a space free on a rather ugly pink sofa to one side of the room, the other half being occupied by a man who's been sitting on it most of the night; he seems uncomfortable in the crowd, not that Marie can really blame him. The only people that Marie really knows are the girls, and they're all busy working. The left side of his face seems a bit off, as though it's not quite the same shape and color as the other. She soon realizes it's a mask, held on by his glasses, and wonders if he was in the War. He's certainly handsome, from what she can see, and doesn't seem to be as handsy as the rest of the men in the joint.

Making her decision, she puts on her best smile and swaggers up to him, drink in hand.

"Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?" The man looks up in surprise, as if shocked that she's even acknowledging his presence.

"No ma'am. Have…a seat." She smiles at him as he slides over to make room for her, and as she sits down she thinks she sees him smile shyly back.