Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans (42 page)

And so they planned it for May, when the pecans and cypresses begin to bud, the egrets and spoonbills begin to nest, when the dying time of winter has finally ended and the cycles of life begin anew.

They took high steps across the weedy grasses and the unpaved road, the women deftly lifting their pump-clad feet over the ruts and divots in the road and between the cattails and dandelions and wildflowers of the clearing, as the creek breeze ruffled their hemlines. When they reached the cemetery near the ruins of the old stone church, they held each other’s hands and formed a circle around the small opening already dug into the earth, next to the headstone of Jacob, and just above where Ladeena lay.

The sun, slipping from behind a cloud, splashed golden light across all the headstones, including the newest one, reading:
Michael, Beloved Son, April 1, 1999-June 12, 1999
. Pastor Jackson stepped forward to read from the book of Ecclesiastes about time and purpose and the seasons, and then, eyes closed, prayed a traditional prayer, beseeching God to watch over the couple’s first born child, and imploring the ancestors to “hold this infant’s spirit gently with both hands.”

He knelt to the ground, gathered red dust into his hands, and sprinkled it over the urn, as Julian placed the remains of Michael Davenport Fortier into the ground, and everyone sang the first verse of “Amazing Grace.”

Stepping forward to the center of the circle, her hands clasped together beneath her breasts, Sylvia began a soulful “Nearer My God to Thee
.
” Her silvery soprano, unrestrained, effortless, accompanied by the soft strains of the nearby creek, slipped along the air above their heads, and brought mist to every open eye.

When she’d finished there was a resounding ‘Aay-
men!’
from everyone, including Kevin and Raynelle, who, though white and Catholic, had spent enough time in black churches to understand the customary response to a thing well done.

When the ceremony ended, Julian took his wife’s hand as they began the walk back to the cabin.

“You did well,” Julian said, leaning over to her and whispering. “You didn’t cry.”

“Are you kidding? I cried all last night while you were sleeping,” she said with a self-mocking smile. “I didn’t have any water left.”

The walk back along the creek, through the clearing again, and onto the dust-packed road, was not as somber as the walk over had been, for what could have been a sad occasion had become a joyous one. They had taken one of their own from a cold city vault to the shade of the lives oaks, cooled by the breezes of the nearby stream. There was laughter and light-hearted banter as the notion of the picnic lunch of red beans and rice with homemade andouille sausage, crawfish pie, collard greens, peach cobbler, bread pudding, and sweet mint tea awaiting them filled everyone’s minds. And Sylvia, unable to contain the music stirring inside her any longer, broke into the chorus of “I’ll Fly Away,” and everyone joined in as they walked. And while it wasn’t exactly a second line, it was as close as they could get to it, dressed in their finest, stepping along the rutted earth near the piney woods.

In the evening, when fading light deepened the colors of the creek, the earth near the cabin, and the shady spaces between the trees, they all sat on the porch, rockers aligned and creaking in odd meters, digesting Simon’s incomparable meal.

“Well, Simon,” Pastor Jackson said, “You did it again, brother.”

Simon nodded, wiping a crumb of crawfish pie crust from his mouth with a napkin. “Yes, I ‘spect I did.”

Kevin and Raynelle sat rocking in opposing rhythms in the two larger rockers, while their daughter played in the dirt. The two dogs, Jack and Ruby, frolicked back and forth while Kevin tossed a beat-up tennis ball out on the dirt a hundred times as they took turns catching it and bringing it back for him to throw it again.

Julian sat in the blue rocker, Christina Maree on one knee, Jacob on the other. Christina chatted noisily, her hands in constant motion grabbing her father’s nose and ears, while Jacob, the younger of the twins by eighteen minutes, suddenly teared up and began to cry.

“He’s sleepy, as usual,” Velmyra said, getting up from her rocker on the other side of the porch next to Genevieve and Pastor Jackson.

She leaned over, kissed Julian, and took the crying child from him. “Come on, sweetie,” she said. “I’ll take him in and put him on the sofa.”

Julian started to get up to follow her with their daughter, but she said, “No. Stay. Enjoy.”

As the sky drew darker, Kevin and his clan piled into the Caravan to return to their new house in Local. The van kicked up dust and Kevin waved, pointed and yelled to Simon—“Don’t forget. Six a.m!”—and made the turn toward the road.

“You going fishing tomorrow?” Sylvia asked Simon.

“Yep. Can’t wait.” He rubbed his hands together.

Sylvia looked up at the sky, the gathering of stars in the twilight.

“How does it feel, finally having grandkids?” Sylvia asked.

“Makes me think about gettin’ old.”

She laughed. “Simon, you
been
old.”

“Not as old as I used to be,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean? “

“Means I think I got more years left in me than I thought before.”

“Yeah? How many?”

“No tellin’. Twenty. Twenty-five.” He smiled, looking across the road. “Be a while before I join the rest of’em over there. Being back home, I feel a little younger. Shoot. I
am
younger.”

Sylvia leaned back in her chair, folded her hands across her lap. “Remember that question you asked me a couple years ago?”

“What question was that?”

“You know the one.”

“Oh, you mean the one where you shot me down after?”

“That one. Why don’t you ask it again?”

“Why should I do that?”

“The answer might be different this time.”

“How do I know that?”

“Ask and see.”

“Ask so I can get shot down again?”

“Maybe you won’t this time.”

“How do I know?”

“Ask and see.”

“Well, I ain’t asking if I don’t know the answer.” This went on for a while, until Sylvia, realizing she was being teased insufferably by a master, slapped Simon’s shoulder and said simply, “Marry me, you silly man.” And he laughed and put his arm around her, and said, “When?”

When the bread pudding was all gone, and Genevieve and Pastor Jackson had turned in for the night, and Simon and Sylvia had gone to check in at the bed and breakfast in Local, and Velmyra had laid her son on the sofa to sing him to sleep, waiting for her husband to come to the roll-away bed Genevieve had set up for them in the living room, Julian rocked his daughter against his chest, wondering when she would fall asleep.

Between the two, this child was the liveliest—like her mother, forever alert, looking up and around her, fascinated with everything in view. He’d never be able to get up in time for fishing if this little one kept him up all night. He decided to play the word game with her. It was the best way he knew to bring sleep to those bright, busy eyes.

“Tree? Tree?” he said, taking her tiny finger and pointing to the live oak next to the house.

She said nothing, fascinated with his shirt button.

“Dirt?” he said, pointing to the yard.

Again, nothing.

“Car?” He pointed again, knowing she knew this one, but was being stubborn tonight.

He rocked her again, and finally she opened her mouth wide, her eyes dancing.

“Mine!” she said, gleefully, both arms flung out wide toward the treetops, as if encompassing the whole world around her.

Julian smiled, looked out at the land, the tall pines, the live oaks, the yard toward the road as it disappeared before making its way to the creek.

“That’s right, baby girl,” he said. “All yours.”

Night falls on Silver Creek. Fireflies light the dark, riding the backs of breezes as stars gather, diamond studs on velvet black. The air is heavy, but moves along a creek as eternal as earth, and whispers of timeless evenings when the oldest trees were young.

He looked at his living child and thought of the one who was not. His first child, now safe among family, brought from the shadow of history to sleep in the shade of ancestors. And Julian wished, for the son he had never held, peace. Christina fidgeted on his lap and now, like her sleepy brother, began to cry. Funny, he thought, how they all do that. Out of fear, probably, of surrendering to the closing dark, not yet understanding that another day is coming. Not understanding that light follows dark, day follows night, and endings become beginnings—always.

He kissed his daughter’s tiny head and, believing her days would be many, hoped that when the time came for him to tell her the story of the ones who came before, he would be able to remember all of it. He got up from the rocker as his girl-child lay her sleepy head on his shoulder, patted her back as her eyes closed. Let’s see.
There was a Frenchman, and a beautiful African woman, with skin like midnight sky….

F
or their help, encouragement and support, without which this book would not have been possible, I thank:

My publisher and editor, Doug Seibold, for his wise editorial eye, for his integrity, and for his unflagging belief in my writing, and also Diana Slickman, Eileen Johnson, and the entire Agate staff for their hard work.

My writing buddies David Haynes and Sanderia Faye Smith for their encouragement throughout this project.

Maxine Clair, Jane Owen, Elisa Durrette, and Jamal Story for reading and providing intelligent insight and guidance with the manuscript in its various stages.

Kalamu Ya Salaam for editorial advice and for his vast knowledge of New Orleans history, geography and culture.

My favorite artist and good friend Jean Lacy and her son, Nathaniel Lacy, once again, for the cover drawing “High Water Blues.”

Lolis Eric Elie and Dawn Logsdon for the inspiration of their masterful film:
Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans
.

Friends and helpful residents of New Orleans for their support: historian, author and WWOZ DJ Tom Morgan and his wife Hild Creed (for helpful comments on the text), and Ricky Sebastian and Cheryl and Cameron Woods for hosting me on various trips to the city, as well as to the attentive and efficient staff of the Hotel Provincial.

Corky Bruce of the Natural Springs Garden Center in Nachitoches and Beth Perkins of the Banting Nursery in Jefferson Parish for information on the wildflowers of Louisiana.

Alvena Brock-McNeil, for sharing her Katrina photos and stories with me.

My friend and colleague Sterling Procter, for his superb musical graphics (a belated thank you for my first novel!)

Writers Tod Lewan, Delores Barclay and the Associated Press writing team for their superior investigative reporting on the troubled and sometimes violent history of black landownership in the rural South, detailed in their 2001 series “Torn From the Land.” This team deserves far more credit that it ever received for exposing the calculated removal of valuable American land from the hands of its African American owners in the past 150 years.

The wonderful staff and fellow workers at Habitat for Humanity, New Orleans for inspiration, and for their commitment to rebuilding the city.

The great trumpet players of New Orleans who uphold the tradition of Bolden and Armstrong: Marsalis, Blanchard, Mayfield, Payton, Jordan, Scott, Ruffins, Allen and a seemingly endless list of others for their contributions to the history of a great American art form, and for keeping the music alive.

Praise for Rosalyn Story’s
More Than You Know

“Rosalyn Story’s debut novel is a mystery at heart
—
a page-turner enhanced by lyrical language and clever plot turns. Story, a violinist with the Fort Worth Symphony, knows how to play to a crowd, and she drives the narrative like a good straight-ahead quartet
—
taking a pop standard and playing it with panache while adding fresh changes and tempos that give the well-worn tune a whole new sound.… An engaging addition to the jazz-novel canon.”

—
Washington Post

“Romantic, deeply sentimental redemption story of smoky jazz clubs, beauty salons crackling with gossip, and the intricate, wide-ranging community that holds it all together.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

“Story weaves this tale of family ties and secrets back and forth between past and present, using finely drawn characters, jazz settings, and taut emotions to build tension toward reconciliation. The book’s powerful evocation of love and family should appeal to a wide cross section of readers.”

—
Booklist