Little Altars Everywhere (27 page)

No you were not! Mama says, You were deliberately defying me, just like you have done since the day you were born.

Daddy and Baylor stand there and watch. Baylor
lights a cigarette. Daddy takes out his asthma inhaler and sucks in a few puffs.

I say: Tough shit, Mother.

Baylor starts to laugh.

Daddy says, Viviane, get in the car. It’s time to go.

This is just like you, Siddalee Walker, Mama says, to come down here for two days, ruin my baptism video, and then fly off to New York and leave me here. I have four magnificent baptism videos of every single one of my grandchildren, and now you have ruined the entire series!

Go home, Mother, Baylor tells her. You don’t work for Public Television.

I love you, Mama, I say, meaning it.

Don’t be sarcastic, she replies. She looks at me for a long time, the way drunks do when they’re studying you.

Then she says, That’s the
perfect
outfit for a baptism, Sidda. I want to learn to dress more New York like you do.

I love you, Mama, I say again.

I love you too, Siddalee Abbott Walker, and don’t you forget it, or I’ll kill you.

And she gets in the mauve Cadillac convertible she talked Daddy into buying, and they drive off.

Later that evening when the twins are in bed and Melissa is watching TV, Baylor and I stand out on the carport. There is a nip in the air and I wear one of Baylor’s windbreakers over my dress.

I say, God there is no place in the world like Louisiana for Halloween.

Baylor looks surprised to hear me say that. Why don’t you stay longer and spend Halloween with us? he asks.

I’m sorry, Bay, I can’t. I’ve got to get back. Maybe some other year.

Maybe some other lifetime
, I think.

I want to stay and trick or treat. I wish I could stay in my hometown for more than two-and-a-half days without becoming five years old again, without hurting like I was hurt then.

We look out at the night. It is clear, with a good half-moon.

Almost a harvest moon, Baylor says, and lights another cigarette. He smokes cigarette after cigarette. The tips glow red in the dark.

Baylor says, God, Sidd, that new baby girl is so pure. Lee is just so damn innocent. Were we ever that innocent, you think?

Yeah, Bay, I tell him. I think we were.

He laughs that little half-laugh he’s had since he was a kid.

If we had been in a movie, a shooting star would have swept through the Louisiana sky. But it didn’t. All that happened is that my baby brother and I stood together on his carport in the October night for a long time. Until Melissa stuck her head out and called, Yall okay out there?

Yeah, we call back in unison, we’re okay. And I kiss him goodbye.

I roll down all the windows in my rental car and turn on the radio. Aaron Neville is singing “Tell It Like It Is,” just as pretty as he did when I was in high school. One thing I will say for my hometown: They play decent music on the radio. They play the kind of music that New York City has to have special “Delta Nights” in order to play. Funky old music, African-Louisiana music from deep in the heart—and they don’t label it anything, they just play it.

I drive through my sleeping hometown. Through City Park, past Buggy’s old house, past the old Community Center where I tapped my heart out. I drive past the Abracadabra Liquor Store, closed now. I can hardly make out the sign that used to terrify me so. Now it’s all so puny and where there was once bright, cruel light, there are only a few broken bulbs left. When I look closely I can make out the letters “I-F-T.” The “G” must have dropped off at some point, but I still remember what it used to read.

Then a memory comes to me so crisp and clear, it takes my breath away and gives it back again: the Christmas that Daddy bought all of us cowgirl and cowboy outfits. He actually talked Mama into letting us wear them to Mass! We trooped in late to Our Lady of Divine Compassion, looking like a family singing group that got lost on the way to the Grand Ole Opry. I remember walking up to the Communion rail wearing my
orange cowgirl skirt, shirt, hat, and boots. I opened my mouth and received the body and blood of Jesus, and for one fine moment I knew what it meant to be pure, to be true, to be clean and unashamed. I actually thought the reason that everyone was staring at my family was because our get-ups were so magnificent. I actually felt like everything would be just fine. Not perfect, but just fine.

On good days now, I can feel that way for hours. Feel like there is a big pair of hands holding me up. Feel like underneath the terror there is some kind of wonder waiting for me. And sometimes I believe what I knew for a split second on that Christmas morning: that the mother who holds me isn’t Mama. She’s somebody bigger, somebody much older, somebody so tender that just looking into her eyes is like a sweet, much needed nap. She speaks to me daily, this mother, with little private signs. And all I have to do is keep walking, with my ears tuned and my eyes wide open.

H
eartfelt gratitude to:

MARY HELEN CLARKE, my editor and dear friend, whose intelligence, kindness, and humor helped develop and deepen this book.

JOYCE THOMPSON, sister writer, whose early encouragement and tutelage helped me stand on my feet.

KIM WITHERSPOOON, my agent, and her Eagle Eye associate, David Forrer.

NEIL RABITOY AND BARBARA CONNOR, my assistants, who keep it together.

MY LODI FAMILY, black and white, living and passed on.

T.L.T.L., my first, my last, my everything.

Special thanks to:

The Centrum Foundation in Port Townsend, especially Thatcher Bailey, who along with Barbara Bailey of Bailey-Coy Books in Seattle supported my work early on.

Mrs. Martha Roark, my eighth grade teacher, who gave me confidence in creativity.

Lewis Hyde, whose book,
The Gift,
and whose writing class, helped wake me up.

Lulu, my ever-loving canine buddy; Snugs, the little perfectly imperfect one.

Brenda Peterson, Jennifer Miller, the Scott sisters—Deb and Torie, Linda Clifton, Mary Koller, Jan Constantine, Maurine Holbert-Hogaboom, Donna Lambdin, Bob Corbett, Marilyn Milloy, Darrell Jamieson, Diane Reverand, Susan Weinberg, Steve Beaumont, Pam Pfeifer, Jennifer Hart, Brenda Hafer and the Online Ya-Yas; each and every Ya-Ya Club, Meryl Moss, Meaghan Dowling, Cathy Hemming, Jane Friedman, Jonathan Dolger, Sally and John Renn, Barbara and Tom Schworer, Sr., Abigail Halpirin, Gary Larson, Toni Carmichael, Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, Southwest Booksellers Association, Mary Gay and Paul Shipley of That Bookstore in Blytheville; Rick Simonson of Elliott Bay Book Com
pany in Seattle; Eagle Harbor Bookstore on Bainbridge Island, Washington; The Bainbridge Island Library, and Steve Calhoun of the Louisiana State University Agricultural Extension Service.

The Western States Arts Federation, Artist Trust Foundation, King County Arts Commission, the Seattle Arts Commission, The Washington State Council on the Arts, Arts Alaska, and the Louisa Kern Foundation for financial support when it was most needed.

My valued readers, who buy my books and loan me their eyes and minds and time; all the booksellers, especially those who embraced this book early on; the incredible Harper sales team, and all the gang at HarperCollins.

The Holy Lady, whose mercy makes it possible.