Under the Cajun Moon Read Online Free PDF Page A

had happened after my mother told me I had to go to the restaurant to sign papers before I could come to the hospital to see my father. I remembered driving down the interstate toward the French Quarter, my hands clenched around the steering wheel like a vise.
    As I had passed the exit for the hospital, a slow-building anger had begun pulsing through my veins, anger and hurt at thirty-two years of rejection from the two people on earth who were supposed to love meunconditionally. What a joke! Nothing had changed here, nothing at all. Even in their darkest hour, my parents cared more about some stupid signed papers than they did about me.
    Why was I even surprised? My whole life I had been nothing to them but an afterthought, a mistake, an inconvenience to be handled. No wonder I craved rules. I had grown up watching two parents ignore the most basic rule of all: that the one thing they most owed me was
themselves
.
    Furious, I felt like pounding the steering wheel and railing into the dark, empty quiet of the car. I wanted to yell at a nonexistent passenger as if my father were sitting right there and ready to hear the cries of my heart. I held it in, though, lest passing drivers see and think I was crazy. It wasn’t easy, as this whole situation had managed to push every single one of my buttons. I may have been an adult with a well-rounded life and a successful consulting business, but things like this reduced me to that same little girl who spent her life quietly watching from the sidelines as the world revolved around her parents and their needs. Rounding the broad curve at the Superdome, I couldn’t help but think what a perfect metaphor the massive, looming structure was for my parents and the way they dominated their surroundings at every turn.
    Taking the next exit, I left the Superdome behind and made my way south toward the river. As I went, I did the breathing routine I’d learned in exercise class, trying to get my heart rate down. By the time I turned on to the narrow, even streets of the French Quarter, I was finally calm enough to think straight. I could do this. I could meet with Mr. Peralta, sign his papers, and maybe even take a minute to talk with Sam, the restaurant’s former manager and probably the closest thing I’d ever had to a loving father figure. Though Sam had retired from Ledet’s several years ago, he still lived behind the restaurant in a second-floor apartment that overlooked the courtyard. Spending time with Sam was always the highlight of my trips home.
    World-famous Ledet’s restaurant was on Royal Street near Toulouse, squeezed between an antique shop and an art gallery. My parents used to call it their “first child” as a joke, but to me it was their only child—and I was just a visiting distant relative. I pulled right up front but saw no valetto take my car, so I continued on toward a hotel parking lot half a block away. Soon, I was strolling through the warm April night, still wearing the linen Theory suit I had put on earlier for the TV show.
    When I reached the door of Ledet’s, a surge of emotion filled my throat. How many times had I walked through this very portal, feeling like an outsider in my own family’s restaurant? Pushing that thought away, I tried to open the door but it was locked.
    Surprised, I stepped back to look at the sign over my head, just to make sure I was in the right place. I was. I tried the heavy glass door again and then peered inside. The front hallway was darker than usual, but I thought I could detect light and movement out in the courtyard. I knocked but no one responded, so I decided to go around and try the service entrance off of the side alley. As I turned to go, I saw a man coming toward me on the sidewalk, briefcase in hand.
    “Chloe?”
    “Yes?”
    “Kevin Peralta. Your parents’ attorney? I don’t think we’ve ever met.”
    Jolted from the memory of last night, I gasped, my eyes popping open.
    Kevin Peralta.
    My parents’