Page 22 of The Cajun Doctor

Hard to believe that they had been in Louisiana for two years now, he mused. Harder, still, to believe that their mother had been gone for so long.

Times flies when you’re having fun. Or not. Having fun, that is.

Daniel lived here in the South, only intermittently, but Aaron was here for the long haul. His brother flew copters for Remy LeDeux’s company and rented Remy’s houseboat for living quarters, but that might change if he bought this place he wanted to show him. Daniel already knew he was going to tell Aaron it was too far out. If Aaron wasn’t careful, he would be considered a hermit, like his brother. On the other hand, no chance of that! Aaron was the social butterfly of the family.

Aunt Mel had sold the air freight company, but was still in Alaska trying to get rid of her home in a down real estate market. What she would do then, he had no idea. Maybe move to Florida like she’d once said. Take a cruise. Go on a world tour.

Daniel traveled back to Alaska occasionally to help her out, but mostly because he had nothing better to do. Sometimes, he just got in his car, which he’d brought down to Louisiana, and drove. To Florida. To Texas. As far north as Kentucky. A regular bleepin’ tourist.

Searching. Always searching. For something. His soul, maybe.

While Aaron had settled comfortably into the Cajun culture, Daniel was still restless and unhappy since he’d given up medicine. Oh, he served on one of Tante Lulu’s charitable foundation boards, and had even tried a return to medicine by donating his services to fight Ebola in Africa for six months, but he was more depressed and aimless than ever. “No wonder! Why dint ya jist dunk yer head in a barrel of vinegar and expect ta come up smellin’ of honey,” Tante Lulu had commented at the time.

Mostly, he just hung out in the fishing camp he rented on a remote bayou. No TV, but he read a lot. Mostly thrillers, by writers like Grisham, Clancy, or Thor, but the occasional medical journal, too. And he was becoming a fan of classic rock music, the louder the better. No, not Barry Frickin’ Manilow. Songs like “Glory Days,” “Another Brick in the Wall,” “Barracuda,” “Roxanne,” “Paint It Black,” “Dream On,” and the like. No one to complain about the noise, except the gators and the snakes, and they weren’t talking. Most people probably thought he lay around listening to boring classical music. Okay, he did like Mozart and Beethoven in the right circumstances, but he had a wild side, too. Really.

“Fishing camp” was the term given to cabins on stilts out in the swamps. His was nicer than some, but still, it was temporary, and, in fact, he’d have to move soon since the owner wanted to sell. Would he look for another fishing camp to rent, or something else? And would it be here in Louisiana, or somewhere else? Decisions, decisions, and all he wanted to do was go fish, which he was becoming quite good at, by the way.

Aaron and Tante Lulu never gave up on trying to shake him out of his self-imposed “prison.” Really, he just wanted to be left alone. He would emerge from his cocoon when he was ready. And he didn’t need any psychiatrist to tell him that, either. Or Aaron who took that “brother’s keeper” Biblical quote way too seriously. Or Tante Lulu who had an opinion on everything in the world.

When he complained about their interference, Aaron usually answered, “Sue me!” and Tante Lulu advised, “Get over yerself!”

They still didn’t know what it was that Tante Lulu had to give them since she’d misplaced it and hadn’t been able to find it. Hah! Daniel wondered sometimes if there ever had been an actual “something important” she needed to give them. In fact, one time he’d told the interfering busybody just that and was rewarded with a thwap to the side of his head with a folded fan.

Supposedly, it was something from their deceased maternal grandmother in a small sealed box that rattled around like it might be a key, or an heirloom ring, or a voodoo medallion, according to Tante Lulu. “But then, Dolly Doucet was in a nursin’ home, at the time, with the Alls-hammer, crazy as a loon. Soz, it might jist be her false teeth.”

There were times Daniel barely restrained himself from throttling the old lady. Like yesterday, when he’d grumbled, “It couldn’t be too important if you lost it.”

“I dint lose it! I put it somewhere safe where I wouldn’t forget it. It’ll come ta me any day now.”

“Since it was originally intended for our mother, and she’s dead now, we might be dead by then, too.”

“An’ I might jist be the one ta do it, fool! Where’d ya put that hope chest I had made fer you?”

That had shut him up. Tante Lulu had made hope chests for both him and Aaron, as she did for all the men in her family. Good Lord! What was Daniel going to do with hand crocheted doilies and embroidered pillowcases, a cast iron skillet, and six different St. Jude statues? St. Jude was the patron saint of hopeless cases and a favorite of Tante Lulu.

Daniel saw Aaron leaning against his pickup which was parked along the berm of the road ahead. He pulled up behind him, turned off the engine, parked, and got out.

Daniel’s jaw dropped at what he saw before him. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope. This is going to be our new house.”

“Our?”

“Of course. Do you think I’d exclude you from such a sweetheart deal?”

Daniel was faced with the most outrageous thing his brother had done yet. Interference didn’t begin to describe it. “This isn’t a house. It’s a mansion. A frickin’ Gone with the Wind, Where-the-hell’s-Rhett, Tara plantation!”

“I’ve been worried about you, Dan. To say you’ve been morose would be a world class understatement.”

“Morose? You been reading the dictionary again?”

“Wallowing, then.”

“You’ve been talking to Tante Lulu.”

Aaron shrugged, as if that was a given.

“It’s not your problem, Aaron. I’m not your problem. Or your project.”