Mainly, I forgave Tuck. He meant no pain. And now he was offering love.
I looked up at the sky. The old longing to see myself reflected in M’Dear’s eyes began to dissolve, as if the river’s current were washing it away. I blinked, and then I was no longer looking for her eyes as I had been, without knowing it, for so many years. Instead I was looking clearly at an early morning blue sky. I no longer needed my mother’s eyes to reflect me. I could do it myself.
“Hey Calla!” I heard Tuck call from the dock.
I began to tread water as I looked in his direction. He stood barefoot, wearing a pair of ancient jeans, a T-shirt, and a sweatshirt flung around his shoulders.
“I want to marry you, Calla Lily Ponder!” he said.
“You’re crazy!” I laughed.
“Okay,” he said, holding up a red plaid thermos he pulled out of a canvas bag. “Then how about a cup of coffee?”
“That’s more like it.” For now, I thought, swimming toward him.
“Bet you don’t remember how I like it,” I said, pulling myself up onto the pier. I could feel him gazing at my naked body. Leaning over, I squeezed water out of my long hair, so thick it took some muscle.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
I nodded.
Then Tuck slipped his old sweatshirt over my head. The gentle touch of his hands made it hard to keep standing. He handed me a pair of sweatpants to slip into, then poured some coffee from the thermos.
Taking the cup of hot chicory coffee, I warmed my hands on it for a moment before I took a sip. It was perfect. Cream and two sugars, the way I’ve liked it my whole life.
“You remembered,” I said, sitting at the edge of the pier.
“Yeah, Calla Lily,” he said, sitting next to me. “I did.” The warmth of his body next to mine brought both comfort and arousal. I could get used to this.
I looked out at the waters of the La Luna River, at the blue Louisiana sky, and at the man at my side. And all I could do was give a prayer of thanks. All I could do was sip my coffee, kick my legs in the water, and think, Yum, yum, yum.
EPILOGUE
Moon Lady
The breaths of my daughters and sons are the notes that sew their songs together. If I could enfold my children in a soft silk cloth and play lullabies to them from a harp of gold, I would. But there are pastures for them to ride, to plant, to tend. There are streets to be crossed, friendships to cement, hearts to be broken and healed, and hairdos to create! If I could, I would lift them from their bodies and let them fly, free of fear, in a wide open sky. But they would miss the lyrics of being human: the dance in the kitchen; the touch of bodies in bed; the near-mad grief at the loss of a dear one; friendship with a dog; the laughter of friends over good food; the gift of a cool breeze out of nowhere on the face while walking on the levee in mid-June in La Luna. If I could, do you think I would spare my babies from the pain and love and suffering of the body from the first breath drawn? If I could, I would spill a silk sack of secrets down, like fireflies in the hot magic air. But my dear ones might not be ready. They might just swat those sacred secrets away like mosquitoes. If I could, do you think I would use my lunar power to rob them of their beautiful, poignant, soulful earth opera?
I must hold these questions and ponder them in my beating heart and accept that there may be no answers, only the mystery, the great mystery of it all.
I too must know what it is to wane, to grow thin and disappear. After I have grown my fullest and lit every tiny leaf, I must love them as I leave them in my slow fade to black for a while. I must hide so they will seek me as they touch the woman on the corner who is ever so slightly crazy and has hidden it well. They must touch the crazy one inside themselves. They must touch the lonely one, the lost one, the wanting one, the motherless one. They must touch their own brokenness as if it were a pearl of great value, then use it as the key to that which most needs to be unlocked. No matter how great their brokenness, there are still dove gray clouds and blazing suns and music too old for the radio; the old wooden floors and green blue earth they dance on with its pecan orchards and old live oaks; its tender soil, its rivers and tributaries flowing out to the mighty oceans. They must know that they have only this moment and all the time in the world. They must take the world into themselves, then harvest their very selves into themselves.
“All the time in the world” is the song of the blue fescue grass. “Only this moment” sings the air as the mallard duck drops down onto the marsh water.
I am with you while you sleep, I am the dream of world peace that dances like the little angels on the bedstand lampshade. I am the ballerina on the pillowcase that touches your cheek. I wait with you, my babies, I wait with you when you lie down on the old single cot and fall back, finally, into my arms.
I am there with you while you sit on the steps of the back porch and hear the screen door slam. I am the peach you saved—“Don’t eat that one yet! I’m waiting until it is just ripe.” I am with you until you hear the message the jasmine sends to the noon day sun. I am with you while you work, read, study, hold hands, touch and receive the touches from other bodies.
See? It is not what you thought. You are not alone. As I hold you in my arms, the body’s weight drops away. As the heaviness of the body falls away, you grow light.
I see that somewhere in La Luna, a baby cries out, announcing its arrival on the planet. Soul will roll down into an infant girl. I hear tears of joy shed. Oh, at moments like these, I want to reach down and scoop up the little human baby child for just one second, to hold her against my breast. Oh yes, the heavens long for the earth as the earth longs for the heavens. And the sheath that separates us is so fine that never in eternity will we comprehend where earth ends and the heavens begin.
Oh, I know the moon and the moon knows me. I am the Moon Lady. I am the moon and the moon is me. I am La Luna. I watch my children on the banks of a river in the heart of Louisiana. There is one particular daughter there named for a flower. Her mother Lenora makes sure I keep special watch over her.
I am the Moon Lady. I watch my darling children in the beating heart of Louisiana, in the lovely soul of the world.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With special thanks to the following:
TOM SCHWORER JR., my husband and helpmate. His name should appear on the cover next to mine. The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder should have his name on it because he did just about everything but put the words on the page.
STEVE COENEN, whom we lost this year. Louisiana singer, dancer, landscape architect, and one-of-a-kind friend. Thank you for inspiring this book. Now please teach us how to be in New Orleans without you, dah lin’.
KIM WITHERSPOON and DAVID FORRER, whose agenting includes deep wisdom, compassion, intelligence, and humor as they, in many cases, save me from myself. With the rest of the staff at Ink-well, they make the business part of book-making as easy as it gets.
HARPERCOLLINS, for the fearlessness it takes to keep love of books intact.
SALLY KIM, my editor at HarperCollins, whose clarity, swiftness, and ability to cut to the quick has won me over.
JONATHAN BURNHAM, and his whole team at Harper.
MARY HELEN CLARKE, Southern Woman of Letters. Just knowing she is there makes me want to write.
JENNIFER HAGER, who showed up, and with her quiet way, revealed eyes to see and ears to hear, with as strong a poetic sensibility as a writer could hope for in a literary assistant.
WAYNE RICHARDSON-HARP, Louisiana storyteller extraordinaire, whose research sharpness helped when my Louisiana memories grew dull.
And to these essential people and places:
Lodi, my home soil; my sweet hometown, Alexandria, right there in the heart of the state; Louisiana, my home state, drenched with soul; Julia McSherry, for sharing her CENLA memories; M. Burke Walker, who held my hand; Jacque and Ed Caplan, Sherrie Holmes, Susan Ronn, Wendy Best and the entire Best family, Donna Lambdin, Tami and Connie Mahnken, Mark Lovejoy, Jan Con
stantine, Keith Heinzelman, Judie Elfendahl, Patty and Neill Raymond, JoAnn Clevenger, Cindy Harrison, Tom Wells, Mark Lawless, M. Cain, T. Gibson, Maurine Holbert, D. Tauben, Lynn Chadd, Meilynn and Steve Smith, S. Harris, Dave Koehmstedt, Jordan Fischer Smith, Amy Tan, Debby Evans, my mother, Sister Jordan Wells, and my siblings, Tom Wells, Anna Elizabeth Wells, and Dru Wells, who pulled me back on the dance floor; Tom and Barbara Schworer, Sally and John Renn, Susan Wiggs, Danielle Harden, Curt Pool, John Pizzo, Miranda Ottewell, Marta and David Maxwell, Mary Stien, Linda Huggins, Trish and Paul King, Jon Kabat-Zinn, whose work inspires me daily, Willie Mae Lowe and family, whose love is always there; Pat Smith and the Lyme Disease Association, all those in the Lyme community: the medical practitioners, brave soldiers on the frontlines; Lyme support groups; Lyme patients—I tell you: There is hope. You will get better. Hold on to the indestructible ring of hope; those Lyme patients who have written to me—you are not alone, and this book comes with prayers; Brenda Stacey, ya-ya.com Web Hostess, and the divine Ya-Ya communities all over the world, including online, I invite you all to come in and join the fun.
If I’ve missed anyone, please forgive me and accept my gratitude.
About the Author
REBECCA WELLS is a novelist, actor, and playwright. She is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Ya-Yas in Bloom, Little Altars Everywhere (winner of the Western States Book Award), and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (winner of the American Booksellers Book of the Year Award, short-listed for the Orange Prize), which was made into a feature film. She performs from her work internationally, and her books have been translated into twenty-three languages. A native of Louisiana, she now makes her home on an island in Puget Sound, Washington, with her husband, their spaniel, and three sheep.
www.RebeccaWellsBooks.com
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Also by Rebecca Wells
FICTION
Little Altars Everywhere
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
Ya-Yas in Bloom
Credits
Jacket photograph of little girl by Jessie Fields
Jacket design and landscape photograph by Thomas Schworer © Divine Ink, Inc.
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE CROWNING GLORY OF CALLA LILY PONDER. Copyright © 2009 by Rebecca Wells. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition May 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-189213-4
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Rebecca Wells, The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder
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