Part 1: Whatever Kind of Flower You Think It Is, Don't Forget It
Jean-Luc Dubois, having been born in the bayous of Louisiana and into its Black French population, had missed the entire argument about whether the fleur-de-lis, the flower prominent as a symbol of both France and Louisiana, was literally a “lily flower” or an iris, the actual national flower of France since one King Louis or another had fallen in love with it.
Fleur-de-loys – “flower of Louis” –- or fleur-de-lis? His granddaughter told him about the entire controversy in early 2020, when he was already 73 years old.
“I know not, Louise, whether it should be a lily or an iris,” he said to her. “Papa is old now and never knew everything, and tries hard to keep track of just the things he must know. For me, the fleur-de-lis reminds me of one of your grandmother's favorite things, and that I can't forget our anniversary – especially not this year. But you know, keep using that Google thing, and don't forget the library, which has older references than they have put on the Internet yet.”
“Google has a calendar thing, Papa,” Louise said. “So does your cell phone. Would you like me to set a reminder for you?”
Papa Dubois thought about this.
“Can you set it so that it reminds me two weeks in advance, and then a week in advance?”
“I can set any interval you like, Papa. Please let me show you. Technology is here to be used to help everyone!”
Louise ran and threw her arms around her grandfather.
“I think all the time about how hard you and Grandma must have had it when you were young, and how people discriminated against you and tried to keep things from you – but now that we young Duboises are here, this will never happen again! Technology is for everyone, and you too!”
“Merci ma chère petite-fille. We feel like we might catch up in the 21st century, knowing we have a granddaughter who loves us and helps us like you do.”
“Yaaaaaaay!”
So, Papa Dubois had his calendar and alarms set for two weeks out, one week out, three days out, two days out, and one day out. Of course, by the time he hit two weeks out, he knew he would not remember why his phone was buzzing and would have to hand it to his eldest son Jean-Paul to get the answer, but, that was all right.
“Lord, I know Thou art truly le bon Dieu, in that of 11 children I do have eight devoted to me, and of them, many filial grandchildren. Merci beaucoup. I need them all now. So much to do, and I cannot forget this anniversary this year! My Black Cherry has said nothing many a year since Katrina L'Ouregan swept into and destroyed our lives in Louisiana, and I have had to work so hard through every anniversary here in Houston just to keep bills paid and have come home exhausted and forgotten. She never complains, never adds to my burdens, but I know it hurts her.
“But now we are about to make the great change – we are moving out of Houston to a place in Lofton County, Virginia called Tinyville, where they are crying for good Louisiana food and so we can start what we do best again! Our anniversary will find me there working on things, and her coming to see for the first time this new place we are making home. I cannot forget this year, just as the beginning was so important – this is the renewal, the new beginning, and the last chance, for we are too old to start again, again! Louise has set up this phone, but I am calling on Thee to make my memory work, and my wife's journey and first impressions successful – and please don't let me forget my part!”
Part 2: Ébène-Cerise Dubois Makes Her Journey
Ébène-Cerise Dubois had never been on a plane in her entire life before her first flight, just before la maladie became a thing sufficient to keep her, at 71, out of the airways for a long time.
Maman Dubois had always been a small woman, and delicate in appearance, like a delicate sculpture carved of the wood that gave her half her name – ebony. But she was strong, physically and mentally, and gave no sign of fear as she walked beside her youngest son René into Aéroport international Louis Armstrong de La Nouvelle-Orléans.
That, of course, is Louis Armstrong International Airport, which serves New Orleans, LA. Maman Dubois did not read the English name, however, as Jean-Luc her husband had done so well in the world that she had not had to learn English deeply … at least not until Katrina L'Ouregan, that ultimate homewrecker, had swept through the bayous of Louisiana and taken everything away.
On Maman Dubois's other side was her granddaughter, Louise, who was her grandmother's English-reading assistant and was taking her through modules in English on her tablet. She did not let the moment pass – “see, Maman, the English words! I will create a module for travel for you!”
Maman Dubois had the window seat – “because to you and René, the sky is now so ho-hum and old because you have been in it so much,” she teased, and so sat and marveled on the whole trip, seeing the change in topography in the land below in short order as her husband had seen it in detail on his first road trip. Because of what he had done, his wife's mind could fill in the details. The same would be true as she saw Lofton County, and the sweep of the Roanoke Valley to the Blue Ridge, from the car.
“I imagine it is much colder and drier in southern Virginia in April than it is around the Gulf of Mexico,” Maman Dubois said while her son was going to get that rental car after they landed.
“Yes, much,” Louise said. “It's the dryness we'll have to get used to, though – no bayous, so winter days without rain are very dry, but, my mom made this pomade for you.”
“How did you get that through security?”
“The internet is undefeated, Maman.”
“But if you're getting stuff through security –? See, this is why I don't fly these planes and use all these computers!”
Maman Dubois was a little frustrated with the 21st century, and all its promises, because she knew people were the same, and thus nothing would ever be what it lied to her about being.
“No need to be worried, Maman. Only a few people in the world have the hacking skills necessary to have learned how to pull that off, and I love you and le bon Dieu and would never be a terrorist, especially not with you around. Let me get us ready – first the hand sanitizer, then the pomade.”
Louise was nine years old, by the way. The Duboises wanted her to meet and be mentored by Thomas Stepforth, former technological whiz kid, 65-year-old Black billionaire resident of Lofton County. This was another thing that, to Maman Dubois, made the journey a necessity. Everyone in the Dubois family needed the best chance possible in life, and if Virginia offered that best chance, then it would become home.
Part 3: Happy Anniversary and Welcome Home
René came in the rental car, and grandmother and granddaughter went out of the airport to get in it – the grandmother was glad for the mask, because that cold dryness would have taken her breath away without time to get used to it. Any Virginian could tell you – April 9 was a cold, cold day in Virginia.
But while some mourned a 155-year-old Lost Cause cemented on that day in Virginia, it was the Duboises' 55th wedding anniversary … and the instant Maman Dubois came within sight of the red barn that was becoming the Dubois family home in Tinyville, she knew her husband had remembered.
The front yard was covered in dark blue irises … this brought warm memories of her groom, at 18, pooling money together to make sure she had a bouquet of her favorite flower for their wedding … with some sweet irises and their lovely scent mixed in. Sure enough, the instant she got out of the car and took off her mask, she could smell and then spot the sweet irises, a slightly paler blue than the other blue irises.
That meant that Jean-Luc Dubois had been out in the front yard for about a week, transplanting in irises just about to bloom, because the sale had been closed on March 28.
He was 74 … still capable of hard work, still willing to do it, but it had to have been very hard with all the manual labor the half-converted barn had been to complete for him and their son, Jean-Paul. But it was all done.
Papa Dubois came to the door, and walked down the path to greet his wife. As he was going, he said to her – here in English, although he said it in French:
“When God pronounced a curse upon the ground for Adam's sin, and bound him to hard labor in the earth, the good God did not take from man his wife, or the ability for him to present to her two of her favorite flowers, so she might be welcomed to her new home, as she was always welcomed in the old one. So, since on our 55th anniversary I am welcoming you home again, I thought --”
Maman Dubois forgot that she was 71 just as he – for she saw that he was limping a little, the sign of the labor it had taken him to give her this welcome and anniversary gift – had overlooked being 74. She ran up the path, wrapped her arms around him, and started crying.
“Joyeux anniversaire et bienvenue à la maison, mon amour,” he purred into her ear.
“I am home!” she cried in English. “Where you would do such labor to make me at home, I am home, Jean-Luc! I will learn English very well and make myself at home here, because I am home now!”
Jean-Paul Dubois smiled and came down the path, and René and Louise caught up to share in the family love, a love all bloomed out like the seeds from Ébène-Cerise Dubois's iris bouquet, grown to two wide generations, numerous like the irises in the field.
And that was that. The Dubois family move to Virginia was done, except for the details of how many family members would ultimately be transplanted from Houston, and when.
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