May you be born again in the spirit, Monsignor Messina says.
He anoints her with oil. He touches her eyes: May your eyes be open to the beauty of God’s world all around you. He touches her ears: May your ears hear the sound of God’s voice and the comfort of His words.
Her, I silently correct him. Her words.
Then he asks Melissa’s brother and me: Will you care for Siddalee Durant Walker’s soul in a world filled with storm and temptation?
Yes I will, I answer out loud. I think, I will love you, little baby, I will do my best to protect you from harm. I will not be able to stop you from suffering, but I will do my best to protect you from deliberate cruelty.
The smell of the Knights of Columbus BBQ dinner is drifting over from the parish hall. It mixes in with the age-old smell of incense and prayer books in the church. The Saturday afternoon light pours in through the stained-glass window. Little Shep snaps a million pictures, his flash popping in our faces. Mama stalks the baptismal font with her video recorder like she’s a professional documentary maker. She always loved Super-8s, but she really flipped once she discovered home video recorders.
Now Baylor stands with his hands clasped in front of him and he cries. Daddy cries too and does not try to wipe away the tears. Lulu puts on her sunglasses. Then Lee starts crying. At first it is only little whimpers and I softly pat her back. But then she cranks it up to rock-concert level. She is gasping and her little body convulses with the sobs. So much stimulation, I think. She can’t relax.
I turn her face away from the flash and the video camera and hold her against me. I can feel the tender pressure of her head against my breast. Mama makes a frantic gesture for me to turn Lee back around to face the camera, but I ignore her. Finally my godchild begins to calm down. She is tired, I think, this is a big day for her. Her gown is all wadded up and people can no longer witness her little sacred face. She is offstage now and soon she grows very quiet and starts to nod off. Mama steps forward and tries to straighten the baptismal gown, but Daddy reaches out and pulls her back. She winces as though he has slapped her, and then she glares at me as she angrily flicks off the video recorder. I can see her mouth say something to me, which I choose to think is just a little prayer.
I make myself breathe slowly. I begin to feel the beating of my heart. I feel Lee’s young heartbeat. I feel your life, baby girl. Can you feel mine? Then I begin to feel the beating of each one of their hearts: Baylor’s, Little Shep’s, Lulu’s, Daddy’s, Mama’s, Letta’s, Chaney’s. All of our hearts beating in concert. I remember the picture at Buggy’s house when we were little: the Sacred Heart of Jesus with the crown of thorns, the blood dripping out. The heart cracked open again and again and again. The heart utterly open. A tree could grow out of a cracked heart, tears giving moisture to the dry places so the roots can live. Mama and the Ya-Yas: Spring Creek has always been in a dry parish and it’s our job to moisten it up!
And I realize for the first time in my life: All their longing was pure! My parents stand in front of me, two people growing old. Mama in her aqua outfit. Daddy in black dress shoes. Where are his cowboy boots? All their longing was pure. All the longing was for the Spirit. It got trapped in the bottle, but some of the pure longing got through. That is why we are standing here in the sacrament of this moment.
I feel a hairline fracture of pain in my heart. Can I continue to breathe or will I have to reach for my inhaler? I can see the outline of Daddy’s in his shirt pocket. Keep breathing, keep breathing with baby Lee. And I feel it: the sweet pure longing of each of us, still intact. Our Lady of Divine Compassion, no wonder you look so sad. My family stands in a circle around me. All the innocence, the old woundings. It grows so quiet. I feel my godchild’s breathing, but it is also the breathing of parched babies in drought-stricken lands. I feel each member of my family’s breath dropping in and out, until it seems like we are all part of one giant bellows. And all the suffering spirals down into one shaft of sunlight, which shines through one stained glass window in Thornton, Louisiana. This is what I come home to. I do not have to crawl across the desert on my knees. I do not have to swim through turbulent oceans to stop the drownings. All I have to do is watch and pray, and love what I love. I can hold the baby and not hurt her. I can hold them all and not hurt them. Not save them, not hurt them, just hold them.
And then Baylor catches my eye. And we are standing perfectly balanced on a tractor inner-tube at Little Spring Creek. Perfectly balanced and the sky is a big blue dome above us and there is room for everything—for every thought, for every feeling, for every speck. And I catch his eye back and he winks, and Mama is bringing him home from the hospital and I am four years old talking on the phone to Aunt Jezie and I hang up the receiver and walk toward him. And I see him in her arms and the sun is hitting the rag rug next to the hassock. Baylor is so tiny. Mama says, Count his fingers, Sidda. I proudly count: One two three four five. Mama says, You are so smart, Siddalee, you are brilliant.
I’m not brilliant, Mama. I can’t lead you out of the darkness. But I will not close my heart.
Mama and Daddy are the last to leave the post-baptism party. Daddy hugs me goodbye and when the hug ends, we’re both teary-eyed. Love you, babe, he says. Lemme know if you need anything, hear?
It strikes me for the first time how much my father cries now that he is older.
As my mother hugs me, she says out loud, You’re a gutsy woman, Siddalee. Then as she hugs me tighter, she hisses, You ruined my entire baptism video!
What? I ask, stepping back, only mildly shocked.
You deliberately turned that darling baby girl away from me so I could not shoot her.
Mother, I respond, I turned her away because she was crying. I was trying to comfort her.
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.
Acknowledgments
Heartfelt 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 Company 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.
About the Author
A native of Louisiana, Rebecca Wells is an actor and playwright in addition to being the author of the phenomenal bestsellers Little Altars Everywhere and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Her works for the stage include Splittin’ Hairs and Gloria Duplex, for which she created the lead roles. She has received numerous awards, including the Western States Book Award for Little Altars Everywhere and the 1999 Adult Trade ABBY Award for Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Please visit www.ya-ya.com.
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Praise for Rebecca Wells’ luminous classic
LITTLE ALTARS EVERYWHERE
“We are swinging high, flying way up, higher than in real life. And when I look down, I see all the ordinary stuff—our brick house, the porch, the tool shed, the back windows, the oil-drum barbecue pit, the clothesline, the chinaberry tree. But they are all lit up from inside so their everyday selves have holy sparks in them, and if people could only see those sparks, they’d go and kneel in front of them and pray and just feel good. Somehow the whole world looks like little altars everywhere.”
“Wells presents an astonishing family of voices, potent in its pain, dazzlingly brilliant in its stretches and perceptions. This hilariously sad immersion into the Walker family of Thornton, Louisiana, will leave few readers unchanged.”
Western States Book Award Citation Jurors:
William Kittredge (chair),
Marvin Bell, Denise Chavez,
Naomi Shihab Nye
“Energetic and delicious…each voice is unique, independent and right-on.”
Seattle Times
“A hilarious and heartbreaking first novel.”
Booklist
“Some writers have all the luck. Not only did Rebecca Wells get to be Catholic, she also got to come from Louisiana. This means that half of her is conversant with the Mystery, and the other half is crazy. Out of this chemistry she has written a brilliant, pungent and hilarious novel about the Walker clan of Thornton, Louisiana…. I’d like you to meet Miss Siddalee Walker, a force of nature and a tool of fate, and one of the sharpest-eyed little chatterboxes since Huckleberry Finn. Little Altars Everywhere teems with wonderful characters…. But it’s Wells’ tireless and ruthless evocation of childhood combined with an unfailingly shrewd comic ear that makes Little Altars Everywhere such a thoroughly joyful and welcome noise.”
Andrew Ward, NPR commentator and author of Dark Midnight When I Rise: The Story of the Fisk Jubilee Singers
“Rebecca Wells has written a funny, eloquent and sad novel that easily leaps regional bounds.”
Washington Post
“At the Walker family altar, sainthood is a one-way ticket to purgatory, and getting there is half the fun.”
Columbus Dispatch
“Rarely do you find a first novel of such power. The author’s
strange, arresting combination of colloquialism and poetry flows from her eight characters with a force so strong you savor each sentence.”
Southern Living
“Wells’ people pop with life.”
Kirkus Reviews
“Rebecca Wells brilliantly and adeptly moves among the voices, lending depth, honesty, and reality to the characters. With an intimate, intuitive sense of comedy, she exposes her characters’ crazy, hilarious attempts at keeping reality at arm’s length.”
Bloomsbury Review
“Wells effectively juxtaposes the innocence and joy of childhood reveries with the pain and guilt of adult memories.”
Richmond Times Dispatch
“Displaying acute characterizations and a cast of voices unfailingly sharp, Rebecca Wells’ Little Altars Everywhere is an exceptional debut. This is a book from the heart, full of voices and memory that sifts through yet another crazy family history to find purity and grace.”
St. Petersburg Times
“Little Altars Everywhere is a wonder of a book that will make you love the human condition and break your heart. Rebecca Wells is a writer we must celebrate to the fullest extent of the law.”
James Welch, author of The Indian Lawyer
“Voice and energy are two prerequisites to successful storytelling. Little Altars Everywhere displays very strong voices, and the energy fairly crackles off the page.
Rebecca Wells is a writer to watch.”
W. P. Kinsella, author of Shoeless Joe, a basis for the movie Field of Dreams
Books by Rebecca Wells
LITTLE ALTARS EVERYWHERE
DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD